Short Story Peer Review

Directions:Exchange papers by passing them to the left. Read your neighbor’sstory, checking Yes or No for each piece of criteria listed on this sheet. When a writer meets one of the criteria particularly well, give some praise in the comments. When a writer misses one of the criteria, write a suggestion for improvement in the comments. Take 20 minutes total to read and comment, then rotate papers and review the next, using a blank sheet. At the end, return this sheet to the author.

Author (Whose story are you reading?): ______

Peer Reviewer (Who are you?): ______

Heading and Title

□ Yes □ No Does the heading follow MLA format? (12pt. Times New Roman, upper left side)

First name,Last name

Ms. Tobin

English I

13 October, 2010

□ Yes □ No Is there a title that makes sense and grabs and hooks your attention?

□ Yes □ No Does the titlecapitalize every major word?

Comments: ______

______

______

Beginning(Exposition, Exciting Force)

□ Yes □ No Does the story begin with action—characters physically doing something—that you can visualize? Close your eyes and picture it as a movie scene…does anything happen?

□ Yes □ No Does the story have an exciting event—somethingthat sets the conflict of the story in motion? Describe the exciting event: ______

______

□ Yes □ No Does the story have a clear conflict/problem the characters experience? Describe the conflict:______

______

Comments: ______

______

______

Middle(Rising Action)

□ Yes □ No Does therising actionbuild towards the climax, becoming more intense/complicated?

□ Yes □ No Does the rising action have a series of scenes you can visualize, not just summary of the events? Name and number the scenes leading up to the climax:______
______

______

______

Comments: ______

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End(Climax, Falling Action, Resolution)

□ Yes □ No Does the story come to a climax near the end? Describe the climax (height of th action):

______

□ Yes □ No After the climax, does the story wind down and eventually resolve the conflict? Describe how the story resolves the conflict : ______

______

______

Comments: ______

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Brushstrokes

□ Yes □ No Does the story correctly use at least 5 descriptive adjectives and 5 descriptive verbs, marking them with highlighting?

□ Yes □ No Does the story correctly use at least 10 descriptive nouns, marking them with underlining?

□ Yes □ No Does the story correctly use at least 5 participles/participial phrases, marking them * **

Comments: ______

______

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Conventions

□ Yes □ No When it uses them, does thestory spell out numbers? (i.e. one, two, three…)

□ Yes □ No Does the storycorrectly use commonly confused words such as to/too, your/you’re and their/there/they’re?

□ Yes □ No Does the story end sentences with a period and contain only one complete idea per sentence (no run-ons)?

Comments: ______

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HW: Use the feedback from these sheets to revise your short stories at home. For Wednesday, bring in an ELECTRONIC COPY of your story (via email or flashdrive) and we will use to TURN IN FINAL DRAFTS. (no printing necessary)