[MUSIC PLAYING] Critiquing writing is something that I’ve always wrestled with. How do we get peers to give compelling and useful critique? In our Hacking Our Brains project, students are writing a guidebook to teach teachers about how their brains work.

This is an interdisciplinary project between environmental science and humanities. And the students are in ninth grade. As part of this project, students wrote an article for the book that we are publishing and also for Edweek online so that they could publish online as well.

In step one of this critique protocol, student authors are explaining their topic and why they chose it. They’re also giving a summary of their article. In this lesson, what you’ll see is students in groups of two to four critiquing that article and book layout.

All right, so today, we’re going to critique your book layouts draft one. Or if you’re not quite there yet, we’re going to also look at your articles. So that way, everybody has something to critique today.

So and then I wrote– so I wrote your critique for this on flat paper. You have small things that honestly not a big deal. It’s not a big deal. Because of the professional, I wrote you wrote ask the teacher. Ask a teacher if you notice.

Too many ask the teachers.

In this next step of the protocol, students are reading the work. They’re taking time to process and think through the author’s article. What you’ll also see is some book layouts being critiqued. So we had an article due that day as well as some book layout. But not all students were able to reach that goal at the same time.

So you’re trying to read Jeffrey’s and add back in?

OK, yeah.

So you’re going to figure out how to do that.

Yeah. We actually– during the one, twos, you can work on it. Just make sure the copy be finished that how to reach us for not that many teachers.

This makes the critique process a little bit more equitable so that everyone has something to bring to the table. And everybody not only gives critique but also receives critique.

Take out and. So then it’s I want to be in the general classroom truly and more. It says environment instead of and after it.

One of the challenges I see when students are giving peer-to-peer critique is just really knowing what exactly to give critique on so that it’s not just general or vague.

So we’ll basically do double this amount. And it would be one person’s article. I want to make sure I get it right. And the checklist of the things we have, kind of like that one.

Oh, I was saying everybody has their article. And then we switch it out between everybody. And we’re looking for peer. But then we write it down. And everybody gets to see what– everybody can teach one person. We’re just passing them around.

And then at the end, you’ll see students posing a feedback question that they want specific feedback on from their peer critiques.