Lesson 15: Peer Feedback on the First Draft: Highlighting Activity

Objectives /

Students see what parts of the essay are the strongest and most engaging and what parts need to be enhanced.

Materials: /

Set-Up /

LESSON PLAN / Materials
Morning Check-in
15 min. /

Update the project check list. Have student go through their project folder and check off the milestones they’ve reached.
Meet with students who have not reached milestones.

Opening
3min. /

Have students take out their first full draft (in whatever shape it’s in)
Have students sit in a circle.
Explain: “Today we’re going to focus on what’s working in our first drafts. All of us know when we read something interesting. We’re going to look for what’s most interesting in what our peers wrote.

Highlighting Activity
10 min. /

Hand each person in the circle a highlighter. IMPORTANT: Make sure you hand out highlighters so people with the same colors aren’t sitting near each other. For example, if you have 10 students in your advisory, hand out the highlighters like this: pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink orange, yellow, green. (Make sure people with the same colors aren’t sitting near each other.)
Go over directions:
Everyone will pass their essay to the person to the right of them.
On the essay you receive, highlight the sentences, phrases, or words that are strong, interesting, and/or engaging. You MUST highlight at least three things. Don’t highlight whole paragraphs. You’ll have 45 seconds.
After 45 seconds of reading and highlighting, pass again (everyone does this at the exact same time). Highlight this next essay the same way you did the first. If you want to highlight the same parts as what the previous person highlighted, no problem—just highlight right above it so your highlighting stands out. You’ll have another 45 seconds.
Do this 2 or 3 more times until each essay has been read by at least 4 people.
After the last highlighting rotation, have students return the essays to their owners. Give everyone time to look over what was highlighted.
Have students share out the parts that seemed to get the most highlighting. Have them reflect on why it was strong/interesting/engaging.

Next Steps: Improving Drafts
10 min. /

Explain: Students will now focus on the parts of the essay that were NOT highlighted. These are the parts that need to be improved the most.
(Many ways of doing this, but here’s one) Distribute half sheets of loose-leaf. Students circle the section of the essay they’re going to improve. They rewrite this section ONLY on the half sheet of loose leaf, improving the following:
Give a specific example. (Show; don’t tell.)
Add dialogue.
Make it more concise by combining shorter sentences or cutting words.
After student do this, have them tape the sheet to the part of the essay it will replace.

Teacher HW. /

Read through drafts of those strugglingthe most. Focus on the section of the essay where students didn’t get any highlighting.