Peer Response

 Almost nothing is more important to the success of a writing workshop than the creation of a positive, supportive community within the writing classroom.  These guidelines are designed to help students move beyond their initial reluctance to criticize and enable them to be more specific in their response to each other’s work.  The teacher’s role is crucial here.  You must model good response and monitor the types of response given by the group.

I sometimes share the following story from Lucy Calkin's book The Art of Teaching Writing with my class before we respond to a student's paper.

 Response

 During the first day of kindergarten this year, a little girl sat away from the other children, sniffling and crying.  "I want my mommy," she said whenever we tried to work with her.  The next day, Maria drew a primitive picture and wrote an assortment of letters.  I was delighted, and at the end of the writing workshop I asked if she would sit in the place of honor, the author's chair, and share her story.  Maria held up her picture and told her story:
 The girl is sad.
 She has no friends.

 Several children raised their hands.  "I like your picture," one said.
 "I like your writing," another said.
 Then a tiny boy with big, solemn eyes looked up at Maria and said, "I'll be your friend."
 The incident captures something essential about the teaching and learning of writing.  We need to write, but we also need to  be heard.  As Francois Mauriac says, "Each of us is like a desert, and a literary work is like a cry from the desert, or like a pigeon let loose with a message in its claws, or like a bottle thrown into the sea.  The point is to be heard- even if it is by one single person."