Photo by Frank Romero on Unsplash
Do you include peer editing in your classes? Is your peer editing process becoming stale? Are you looking for new ways to energize your classes? Maybe Musical Feedback is for you.
I started another project with my students last week. We are creating a DMZoo. It will be a display of animals living in the Korean DMZ wildlife refuge. As part of the project, students must write a paragraph on their animal, and I include peer editing in the writing process.
My fifth graders this year are particularly immature. When they complete a task, they have the notion their first creation is perfect. For some reason, they believe there is nothing more to do. As well, students are constantly seeking validation. I get the sense that these students have very little experience with, or interest in, revising their work to create their best possible piece. My gut tells me this is due to the pandemic. I am constantly reminding myself that the last school year with normal expectations for this group was third grade.
I have used peer editing in my class earlier in the year, but students were not reading full paragraphs. When I crafted the lesson, I was concerned about my students’ attention span. I was also not sure the students could sit and focus on reading multiple paragraphs for an extended period of class time. I also wondered how I could create a scenario in which students provide feedback to several others, not just their table mates.
Covid-19 has limited our movements around the room lately, and students have had limited engagement with others in my classroom. In addition, we’ve been cooped up indoors for the better part of a week due to the unusually cold weather. Students have had little chance to get their energy out as recess has been indoors. During these cold winter days, students stay in their advisor’s room and usually just watch movies. I recognized students really needed some movement. So, I decided to allow students to move around the room to read each other's work rather than just remain at their tables.
I’m one of those teachers who makes things up on the fly. Do I have plans, target skills, and objectives? Yes. My experience, however, tells me a new way of doing things always exists, and sometimes ideas come to me in spur of the moment. Do my ideas flop? Yes. Do I have to pivot in the middle of a lesson? You bet. My goal, though, is to reach the kids and instill an interest in learning, so I prefer to try new strategies and innovate.
So after reflecting on my plan, I thought that peer editing idea might be the most boring experience ever for these kids. I wanted to use the gallery walk concept, but students would move from desk to desk and have to read full paragraphs. I hoped each student would receive feedback from five other students.
Following this plan meant each student would read five full paragraphs. And likely, these paragraphs would not be very good since we have only completed the first draft. Reading five essays and critiquing them? I was not sure my students would be very engaged. So I was stretching my mind to throw something creative into the mix, but I just could not figure out how to improve my plan.
When class began, I went through the instructions.
“We are going to do a gallery walk like when we worked on our book project. You are going to leave your travel journal open on your desk for others to write their feedback. I think instead of keeping you in one spot I am going to allow you to move to anyone’s desk in the room. We’ve been confined to these small groups lately because of the virus, and I want you to have the chance now to move around a little bit more. I’ll give you a set time to read and tell you when to move on to the next seat. You get to select where you go next. It will be like musical chairs, only peer editing.”
With those words, an idea was born! Yes, musical chairs feedback. That is exactly what we needed.
“So here’s what I’m going to do. You need to stand up. When I hit the music on my phone, you need to move and find a chair. You will spend about 3-4 minutes reading and giving feedback. When I start the music, you start moving. Got it?”
I have never seen children so excited for peer editing!
I opened my app. In that moment, I also decided I should connect specific music to the activity. We had studied K-Pop a few weeks ago, so I decided to find a popular K-Pop song for this game. My fingers landed on BTS’ song, Butter.
“Oh, here we go! This is going to be great!” I said.
I pressed play, and the students went wild. In the unlikely event you have never heard BTS, this tune is very popular and once the melody is in your head, it never leaves. All of the middle schoolers know the song. Some love the tune to the point of obsession while others despise it.
As the music played, students ran to find seats chaotically, loudly singing as they moved. I hit stop. And instantly, like little preschoolers during musical chairs, my class went silent and began their reading. It was magical.
After a little time had passed, students kept looking up from their work at me to see when I was going to start the music. I watched to see when most had finished writing some feedback, and I hit it again. This time, there was even more energy in the room, and a few students shyly tried dancing while they moved.
“Yes! Smooth like butter!” I yelled, “bonus points for good dance moves!”
And the class went wild. Dancing across the room to K-Pop, they laughed and engaged with each other. Stop. Then, quiet. They settled into their seats and began the reading again.
I was able to move through five solid rounds of peer editing using this method. I gave students about four minutes to read and write at each desk. My music break lasted about a minute or so.
I was thrilled with my idea, and so were my students.
Could this strategy have been a complete disaster? Yep. Could I have lost them in the excitement and noise of K-Pop? You bet. Sometimes, however, we have to take risks like this. My lesson was far more effective using this strategy than quietly moving from chair to chair or trading notebooks. I think that lesson would have been the disaster.