Empoword

Appendix A: Concepts and Strategies for Revision 459 Revision Activities Establishing Your Peer Workshop Before you begin working with a group, it’s important for you to establish a set of shared goals, expectations, and processes. You might spend a few minutes talking through the following questions: • Have you ever participated in a Peer Workshop before? What worked? What didn’t? • What do you hate about group projects? How might you mitigate these issues? • What opportunities do group projects offer that working independently doesn’t? What are you excited for? • What requests do you have for your Peer Workshop group members? In addition to thinking through the culture you want to create for your workshop group, you should also consider the kind of feedback you want to exchange, practically speaking. In order to arrive at a shared definition for “good feedback,” I often ask my students to complete the following sentence as many times as possible with their groupmates: “Good feedback is…” The list could go on forever, but here a few that I emphasize: “Good feedback is…” kind actionable not prescriptive (offers suggestions, not demands) cognizant of process (i.e., recognizes that a first draft isn’t a final draft) respectful honest specific comprehensive (i.e., global, local, and proofreading) attentive Once you’ve discussed the parameters for the learning community you’re building, you can begin workshopping your drafts, asking, “What does the author do well and what could they do better?” Personally, I prefer a workshop that’s conversational, allowing the author and the audience to discuss the work both generally and specifically; however, your group should use whatever format will be most valuable for you. Before starting your workshop, try to get everyone on the same page logistically by using the flowchart on the following two pages.