Students in Mr. Balvance’s class were given an interesting activity recently. Let’s face it: peer editing is a chore. What if we were to make it more fun? Mr. Balvance attempted a different way to make peer editing more exciting.
Students were given colorful papers with example writing from 5th grades’ literacy curriculum, Benchmark Advanced. In unit 3, students were asked the essential question, “Why do laws continue to evolve?” Example essays included multiple influential people in American history who fought for the right to vote, explaining why they’re important.
Mr. Balvance played music, and kids started walking, and even dancing. When the music stopped, rather than rushing to a chair, there were no losers! Everyone got a desk with a piece of paper to read. Students peer edited these writings, looking for improvements on spelling, punctuation, and including only relevant information. After several rounds of revisions, each paper received lots of constructive criticism. This makes peer editing fun, and opens up the idea of accepting that a paper will not be perfect after the first draft.
Writing can be hard, but there’s always room for fun!