Peer Draft Support

Overview

In this lesson, students share their informative-text draft with a peer to improve clarity, adding details and editing sentences. This builds on prior drafting work from the unit “Endangered Animals Expedition”, and prepares students to publish in the next lessons.

Learning intentions

Students will:

• share their draft with a peer and listen for helpful feedback
• identify one place to add a detail (a noun group) and one place to improve a sentence
• revise their draft using simple changes (add, delete, replace words)
• practise reading their updated sentences to check meaning

Success criteria

Students can:

• tell a partner one thing that is clear in their draft
• suggest one change using a sentence stem (for example, “Add … with …”)
• edit at least one sentence by adding a detail or replacing a word
• reread their work and self-correct if it does not make sense

Curriculum links

• Literature/creating literary texts: create and edit literary texts by adapting language features of familiar texts through drawing, writing, performance and digital tools - Literacy/creating short informative texts: create and edit short imaginative, informative and persuasive texts for familiar audiences using appropriate structure, simple and compound sentences, noun groups, verb groups and simple punctuation - Language/vocabulary choice: begin to make conscious choices of vocabulary to suit the topic - Literacy/reading with meaning: read texts with phrasing and fluency and monitor meaning by re-reading and self-correcting ## Lesson structure (30 minutes)

1. 0–4 min · Warm-up: “Two Stars and a Sentence”. Teacher reminds students they will practise being helpful and kind. Students quickly share: “My endangered animal is ____” and “One detail is ____” using sentence starters on the board.

2. 4–12 min · Model peer feedback (teacher think-aloud). Teacher shows a short example informative paragraph with gaps (written on chart paper or projected). Teacher demonstrates feedback moves:

• “I can see the main idea.”
• “Can you add a detail: with a long tail / lives in the ocean / eats …?”
• “Can we make the sentence clearer by changing one word?” Students repeat the stems as a group (choral response), then one student volunteers to choose one improvement for the class example.

3. 12–20 min · Peer drafting round 1 (partner share). Teacher pairs students (or forms “triads” if needed, but with 7 students use 3 pairs + 1 student paired with teacher if required).

• Teacher hands out “Peer Support Cards” (printed) with two boxes: “One clear part” and “One improvement”.
• Students take turns reading their draft aloud (short section only), while the partner records feedback using sentence stems. Teacher circulates with a checklist: Did the partner find one clear part? Did they suggest one detail or sentence change?

4. 20–27 min · Edit and revise (make the change). Teacher says: “Feedback is only helpful if you use it.” Students apply at least one change:

• Add one detail using a noun group (for example, “a black and white bird”, “a small island home”)
• Improve a sentence (add a conjunction for a simple compound sentence, or replace an everyday word with a topic word) Students reread their updated sentence to check meaning. Teacher uses a quick conference with each student who needs support to choose one edit.

5. 27–30 min · Exit check: reread and share. Each student reads one revised sentence to the teacher (or to a partner) and points to the change they made (for example, “I added ‘with long claws’”).

Resources

• Peer Support Cards (one per student)
• Draft pages for each student (informative text: title + short paragraphs)
• Sentence starter strips (e.g., “One clear part is…”, “Can you add… with…”, “I changed the word…”)
• Word banks for endangered animals (habitat, food, feature, danger, location)
• Highlighters (one colour for “detail added”, another for “word changed”)
• Pencil, eraser, and visual editing checklist (very small: Add detail / Replace word / Read again)
• Optional: digital tool for recording feedback (audio) if available, but keep it simple

Assessment

• Teacher checklist during peer share: clear part identified + one valid improvement suggestion
• Monitoring edits during revision: at least one sentence changed with a meaningful detail or vocabulary improvement
• Exit check: student can state what change they made and reread it for meaning

Differentiation

• Provide sentence starters and word banks with pictures (habitat, food, body feature, danger) for low literacy learners.
• Use “one-edit only” targets for students with very low ability: add one detail OR replace one word, not both.
• For students who need more structure, supply a partially completed template (example sentence frames) for the sentence they are revising.
• Extension for students who finish early: add a second detail to the same sentence using “and” or “because” (kept simple), then read the paragraph again.
• Teacher modelling support: sit near one pair during peer share and pre-teach two feedback phrases using gestures (thumbs up for clear part; pencil icon for improvement).
• Allow partner feedback to be oral (partner speaks and student marks) to reduce writing load, then student performs the edit.