Lesson Plan: Critical Summary Using Peer Review
Comparative Literature and Culture
Objective
To prepare students to write a critical summary for their upcoming essay assignment; to apply note-taking skills previously assigned for homework; to give students practice offering peer feedback; to make in-class use of students’ initial ungraded essays
Estimated Time
30-35 minutes (not including step 4)
Work Completed Before Class
I use this exercise on the day students turn in their first ungraded (diagnostic) essays: two-page discussions of the methods and goals of comparative literature. This exercise serves as a transition from the first (ungraded) essay to the second (graded) essay, which is a critical summary of a theoretical article that reflects on the applicability of the article to the project of comparative literature. Students have also been asked to employ various note-taking strategies effective for summary writing to theoretical readings assigned in the previous few classes.
In Class
- Discuss critical summary as related to the upcoming assignment. (3-5 minutes)
- Discuss how the note taking strategy employed to read the article assigned for class today relates to critical summary. (3-5 minutes)
- Ask students to pass hard copies of their essays two people to the right. Assign them to employ the following note taking strategies (similar to those they’ve recently been assigned for homework) to their peers’ essays:
- On a separate sheet of paper, write a keyword for every paragraph. (5 minutes)
- On the same sheet of paper, write a thesis statement for every paragraph. (5 minutes)
- Combine your notes into a one-paragraph summary of the short essay. (5 minutes)
- OPTIONAL: Pass the hard copies back to their original authors, but do NOT pass back the summaries.
- On a separate sheet of paper, write a keyword for every paragraph. (5 minutes)
- On the same sheet of paper, write a thesis statement for every paragraph. (5 minutes)
- Combine your notes into a one-paragraph summary of your own essay. (5 minutes)
- Ask students to pass back the summaries they wrote of their peers’ work. Have students take some time to compare the keywords, paragraph theses, and summaries they wrote for their own work to those written by their peers. If you skip step 4, students can simply compare their peers’ responses to their understandings of their own work. (3 minutes)
- Have a final discussion about the feedback students received on their work. Were the keywords and summaries they received much different from their own? How might they revise their essays based on their peers’ interpretations of their work? (5 minutes)
Ryan Wepler
Developed at Brandeis University through a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation