2. Do students conduct peer reviews? If so, do you give them criteria to look for or establish a standard?
In Beginning One it's an informal peer review. What generally happens in the classroom is the students write their story first. Then they go to the computer and they type it up, and while they're typing it up somebody will give them feedback. And so they'll make changes. Then another student will walk by and give them some more feedback and they'll make some more changes.
When they're done they certainly do assess each other's stories, because I put all the stories on the wall, and it's a very popular gathering place for students. They love looking at the wall, reading the different stories and pointing out so-and-so's story. I have students in other classes that come in the room and say, "That's my brother" or, "That's my friend." So there's a lot of assessment that is done informally.
As far as formal assessment goes, for me having a literacy or Beginning One student develop a piece of work that is typed and looks really nice is a very, very high caliber for them--I don't want to criticize their work. I don't want to show them all the errors that are in it because they'll loose their motivation to do more. If you focus on accuracy at this level you demotivate students. So it's really important to focus on fluency and giving them a higher self-esteem level from having that kind of a wonderful piece of work.
