Student Organizer
      Critiquing the 1st draft

This round of edits is focused on refining ideas and techniques in your stories. Since there may be significant rewrites after the review, your critique should NOT focus on grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

POINTER: When critiquing someone else's work, it's useful to cite specific examples (lines, words, etc.) that illustrate what you are saying. Saying "your story is bad" does not give the writer any assistance in improving their story. However, saying "I didn't get a clear sense of why your protagonist was angry in the beginning. You may want to write in some dialog or some actions showing that" is very useful.

STEPS:
  1. Exchange your story with a partner. Read through their story once, then go back and mark an "x" next to any areas that were confusing to you. Write why it was confusing in the margins.

  2. Next answer the following questions about your partner's story:

    • What is the story conveying about assimilation?





    • What tone is used? How do you know? How does it help convey a point of view?





    • What is the narrative point of view? How do you know?





    • What is the setting? How do you know?





  3. Discuss your answers with partners. If your answers are much different than what the writer expected, then this means that the writer needs to go back and refine those elements in their story.





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