Peer Reviews

Peer Reviews:

Kayla:

Story structure: 4.5; I thought the story structure was very good. Each little scenario had some information that led into the next scenario. I guess I just got confused at some points on what was happening. Maybe if the structure was a little different, I wouldn’t have been so confused.

Characterization: 5; I thought your characterization was great! Every thought you had for the characters of the little brother, boy, girl friends, all made sense to me. The voice of the protagonist was very strong and I connected with the story easily.

Ideas: 4; I thought you had good ideas. More detail in describing the scenarios would have made this story even better.

Designing Organization: 4; I thought your organization was good. There definitely was a good flow from scenario to scenario, but towards the end it got a little confusing for me as to who was speaking.

Specific Assignment Directions: 4.5; I really like your use of Rashomon writing techniques. I thought the story was very strong and relatable!

Description: 4; I thought you had good description. I think if you were more specific about little details then this story would be even better. But you had enough detail to make a good visual for me.

Word Choice: 4; Your word choice could have been stronger, but you did use a good amount of words that were more descriptive and rare.

Sentence Variety: 4; I thought there was some sentence variety and a good structure.

Voice/Sense of Audience: 5; I thought all of your voices were really strong. I had a good sense of who each character was through your writing.

Grammar/ Punctuation: 3; There were a couple of flaws. You spelled yogurt as “yoghurt.” You also said, “I hate me body” instead of “I hate my body” in one of you scenarios. Just be careful of small mistakes like that.

Spelling and Word Usage: 3; Same as I said above ^^^. But you did have some good word choices especially towards the end of your story.

Overall assignment presentation: 4.5; I thought you did a really good job. Once I started to understand your story, I really did enjoy it. It was very relatable as this is a situation that happens often. I thought your characterization was easy to understand, which definitely strengthened your story.

Total: 49.5!

Best aspect of assignment was: The voice that you had for each character. It gave the story a lot of depth and made it feel real.

One aspect of this story that may require further revision: Watch out for simple spelling errors or sentence errors. These are easily avoidable mistakes that just stand out when writing stories.

The grade I would give this assignment is: A!

Ian:

Story structure: 4; Your story structure made complete sense, but I think you could have played with the structure to make the story more interesting and not as straight forward.

Characterization: 4.5; I thought your characterization was really good. You used a lot of detail and a good amount of sensory detail which livened your characters.

Ideas: 4.5; I thought your ideas made sense and you also used a lot of detail.

Designing Organization: 4; I thought your organization was good. It did make complete sense, but I almost wanted more of a mystery or surprise of what would happen next. Instead it was almost a little predictable. I think you could have been a little more creative in your organization.

Specific Assignment Directions: 4; I thought this was a very well written story, but I think you maybe should have focused on more of a moment, rather than the aftermath. It was Rashomon style because you did have different points of view, but I feel like you could have used a smaller time span to get a better feel of how each character reacted immediately from the situation. I hope that makes sense.

Description: 5; You had really good description and sensory detail!

Word Choice: 5; You also had really good word choice. You sounded smart without being obnoxious with your diction.

Sentence Variety: 4; I thought there was some sentence variety and a good structure.

Voice/Sense of Audience: 3.5; I was confused by your voices. These are 6 year olds, yet they understood stereotypes and had a broad vocabulary that is better than mine. Maybe everything in your story did happen, but I found it a little hard to believe that for example, Priya was so mature at 6 that she understood stereotypes and could shake it off and be a strong little girl. I was just confused at some points because I don’t think a 6 year old would do that… but maybe she did!

Grammar/ Punctuation: 4.5; I only found when error when you used the wrong tense of a verb: it was “head” but it should have been “headed out the door…”

Spelling and Word Usage: 5; I thought you used really good words without sounding pretentious and I don’t think you spelled anything wrong!

Overall assignment presentation: 4.5; I thought you did a really good job. You are a strong writer and use a lot of good detail and vocabulary. The only reason this isn’t a 5, is because I did get a feel for the voices of your characters. I would have never guessed that they were as young as they were.

Total: 52.5!

Best aspect of assignment was: Your fluid writing and diction.

One aspect of this story that may require further revision: The voices of the characters.

The grade I would give this assignment is: A!

Amy:

Story structure: 4; I thought your story structure made sense and was easy to follow. You gave the background and important details in the first character’s voice, making it easy to follow.

Characterization: 4; I thought your characterization was good! There was a good amount of detail and I got a sense of who these people are.

Ideas: 4; Your ideas were clear and easy to follow.

Designing Organization: 3.5; I thought your story structure made sense until the end. You were using every new paragraph as a new voice and character, but I think your last two paragraphs were both for the homeless man. That was a little confusing.

Specific Assignment Directions: 4; I thought you followed directions and you were true to the Rashomon writing style. You focused on one situation and that was clear!

Description: 4; You had good description! Could have used more sensory detail to give your story some depth.

Word Choice: 4; Your word choice was good, but could have been better. You could have used words that carried more detail.

Sentence Variety: 4; I thought there was some sentence variety and a good structure.

Voice/Sense of Audience: 4; I thought you had good voices! I completely understood each character and their thoughts made sense to me. The homeless man sometimes seemed a little too normal, and not as haggard as I would expect him to be from being homeless. He seemed very levelheaded when I thought maybe he wouldn’t be that way.

Grammar/ Punctuation: 2.5; You had a lot of verb tense errors. You were speaking in past tense but you would often use present tense for the verbs. For example you said, “the homeless guy had grab…” instead of “the homeless guy had grabBED…” You also said “the liquid before it stain his suit” instead of “the liquid before it stainS his suit…” However you are from a different county so you are doing super well for English not being your first language!!

Spelling and Word Usage: 3; I didn’t notice any words spelled wrong, but just using words in the wrong places. Like forgetting to put an “a” before a noun, or putting in an “and” when it was grammatically incorrect.

Overall assignment presentation: 4; I thought you did a good job! The voices were clear and the story made sense. I think you could have taken more chances with the structure or use of the characters to make the story more interesting and surprising. You definitely followed the directions and your writing was good!

Total: 45!

Best aspect of assignment was: Your story was clear and easy to follow!

One aspect of this story that may require further revision: Grammatical issues that ruined the fluidity of the writing.

The grade I would give this assignment is: B

Fanissa:

Story structure: 3; Couldn’t easily follow along with your story. It wasn’t in Rashomon structure so I think that is why I was confused.

Characterization: 2.5; There was no detail about the characters. Instead you just narrated what the characters were doing instead of describing them in detail.

Ideas: 3; I think you were confused on the prompt as you didn’t follow the Rashomon structure. Once you change the structure I think your ideas will be better.

Designing Organization: 3; Again, you didn’t follow the Rashomon writing structure so your organization was incorrect. However, I was able to follow your idea on team conflict.

Specific Assignment Directions: 2; You did not follow the Rashomon writing style. The story should have been about four different perspectives describing their point of view. Instead you wrote about team conflict and church from your own perspective.

Description: 2.5; You didn’t have really any description on your characters. You mostly just narrated your actions and reactions. There was no detail to make the story vivid and to allow it to have visuals.

Word Choice: 3; Your word choice was fine. You could have used words with more detail.

Sentence Variety: 3; I think all of your sentences were about the same. However, this did not bother me when reading your story.

Voice/Sense of Audience: 3; I did not get any sense of your voice. You simply just wrote about what happened without going into your mind or your friends mind. Again, it was just a narration rather than a story from different perspectives.

Grammar/ Punctuation: 3; You had a few problems with verb tense. In one sentence you were speaking in the past yet you put “agree” instead of “agreed.”

Spelling and Word Usage: 4; I think your spelling and word usage was good!

Overall assignment presentation: 2.5; Unfortunately you writing did not follow the guidelines for this assignment. It should have been a story written from four different point of views, instead you narrated an experience with conflict and church. Maybe you could go back and rewrite the story from the different persepctives!

Total: 34.5

Best aspect of assignment was: I understood what you were trying to say about conflict.

One aspect of this story that may require further revision: Structure and organization of the story needs to follow Rashomon writing styles.

The grade I would give this assignment is: C