Zaira Montellano SQR 2

Zaira Montellano
English 1320/1301.162
Tphan Tang
September 9, 2010
SQR #2
A study made by Gloria A. Neubert and Sally J. McNetis, with the participation of a six grade class. The study consist testing strategies that would help students respond effectively to one of their peers writing. The technique was to perform a PQP. Praise, write a comment on what they liked most. Question, ask them something you didn’t understand. Polish, provide specific suggestion for improvement. Within a group of two to five students take turns reading their writing aloud, other members follow along with a copy(this helps the writer identify any mistakes). Peers can than write comments on a PQP form. Comments were rated as “vague, little or no specifics.” “General but useful, too general but provides some direction.” “Specific, specific direction for revision.” Specific is the target the students should be aiming at. At the beginning of this activity only 28% of the class was writing specific response. After several times of practicing, statists show that it had an excellent turn out. The percentage increased to a 60%. “The percentages continued to be relatively consistence for follow-up response groups.” Generating specific response was accomplishes by a total class activity, small group activity, and individual work, with follow up activities.

Citation
Gloria A. Neubert and Sally J. McNelis. “Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions”. The English Journal, Vol. 79, No. 5 (Sep., 1990), pp 52-56.

Question #3
Neubert and McNetis categorized students’ comments into 3 types: Vague, General but helpful, and Specific. What are the characteristics of each type of comments? Why is it important for comments to be specific?
Response
Vague, is a comment that provides a little or no specific direction for revision. Example: “Revise the whole first page,” “Good job.” General but useful, are too general but provides some direction for revision. Example: “Describe your sister better,” or “how did you feel.” Last a Specific comment provides specific direction for the writer. Example: “I still can’t get a picture of Anna. What kind of clothes does of clothes does she wear, and what do her hair and face look like?” Comments are very important to a writer. The more specific they are the better. Reason being, that the comments help the writer when he/she is revising their paper. They are suppose to give a direction to where the writing needs more details, if the grammar is correct, punctuation marks, spelling, and wheatear or not the piece flows and makes sense. After reading the comments the writer takes in and revises what he feels is most needed to work on.