Throughout the course of English for Academic, we have to come up with several drafts before submitting essay assignments. When I posted my drafts on my blog, my peers and tutor would give suggestions about how to improve my writings. At the same time, I have to give my peers advice on how they can further develop their essays. We have to read peers' writings very carefully to spot any mistakes in the essays. Some components we are looking out for in the essays are grammar, spelling, sentence structure and organisation. We also point out ideas that can be better conveyed to the readers. Our English proficiency hence plays a key role when we are giving feedback to peers' writings. For example, I have poor knowledge about grammar and I would miss several grammar mistakes while reviewing my peers' essays.
I was very embarrassed to leave comments for my peers initially. I felt that my English proficiency was not as good as them. However, after receiving feedback from my peers and giving them suggestions, I felt more comfortable doing so. When my peers and tutor identified flaws in my writings, I learned from those mistakes and improved my writings. Also, they gave me new insights about the topics of my essays such that I could include new ideas from different perspectives into my composition. On the other hand, I always refer back to my own writings when I spotted mistakes in my peers' drafts. This helps me to reinforce my learning.
Upon completion of this course, I look back to my previous writings and regret that I did not take up this course earlier. As a social science student, I always have tons of essay assignments. In the future semesters, I will probably find a few friends who are taking same modules as me to give feedback for each other's drafts like what we have done in this course. This will definitely help my friends and I to improve our writings and hopefully obtain better grades for our assignments.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cindy, for this concise, well focused reflection. You keep the discussion centered on peer and tutor feedback, and you express your opinions on the various aspects with good clarity. It’s interesting to me that you (like many other students) had doubts initially about your ability to do a good critique. This is normal, of course, since you are all developing writers. For that reason what is most important in the process seems to be your idea that “...after receiving feedback from my peers and giving them suggestions, I felt more comfortable doing so. When my peers and tutor identified flaws in my writings, I learned from those mistakes and improved my writings. Also, they gave me new insights about the topics of my essays such that I could include new ideas from different perspectives into my composition. On the other hand, I always refer back to my own writings when I spotted mistakes in my peers' drafts. This helps me to reinforce my learning.…” These are all good insights.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate you giving attention to how this feedback process might be transferable to your writing processes in the future. Good luck with that, Cindy, and the best of luck as you continue your learning journey! …”