Editing and Peer Review

Overview

In this ninth lesson of Crafting Creative Texts Together, students refine their creative texts through a structured peer-review process. They learn to give specific, respectful feedback about language, structure, and audience impact, then use that feedback to make one purposeful revision.

Learning intentions

Students will:

• identify effective language and structural choices in a creative text
• explain how a text affects its intended audience
• give constructive, specific, and respectful peer feedback
• use feedback to revise their own writing.

Success criteria

• I can identify a strength in a peer’s writing and explain why it works.
• I can suggest one clear improvement about language, structure, or audience impact.
• I can respond to feedback respectfully and decide which advice to use.
• I can make and explain at least one purposeful revision.

Curriculum links

• Crafting Texts — Discursive texts: evaluating and revising content, structure, style, and language features for effectiveness.
• Crafting Texts — Visual and digital texts: evaluating and revising choices for effectiveness where students have included visual or digital elements.
• Audience and purpose: reflecting on whether a text achieves its intended purpose and making adjustments as needed.
• English Phase 4: communicating ideas clearly, responding constructively to others, and making deliberate language choices.

Lesson structure (50 minutes)

1. 0–5 min · Reconnect and focus. Teacher opens with the hook and learning intention slides and asks: “What makes feedback useful rather than hurtful?” Students silently recall feedback received in the previous lesson, then share one helpful feature with a partner. Establish the norm: critique the text, not the writer.

2. 5–13 min · Model constructive feedback. Teacher displays a short creative-text extract through the model feedback slides and thinks aloud while identifying one effective language choice, one structural feature, and one possible improvement. Students help transform vague comments such as “It’s boring” into specific feedback such as “Adding a detail about the setting here could make the tension clearer for the reader.”

3. 13–18 min · Teach the review routine. Teacher distributes the peer-review worksheet and explains the three review lenses: language (word choice, imagery, sentence fluency), structure (opening, sequencing, paragraphs, ending), and audience impact (interest, emotion, clarity, and purpose). Students read the checklist and highlight one lens they most want to practise.

4. 18–32 min · Pair peer review. Teacher forms pairs and directs students to exchange drafts, using the peer-review instructions and timing slides to guide the process. Each reviewer first reads the whole text without correcting it, then records two specific strengths and one “next step” on the worksheet, referring to a precise word, sentence, paragraph, or section. Writers listen, ask clarifying questions, and do not defend every choice.

5. 32–42 min · Revise with purpose. Teacher asks students to return drafts and select one piece of feedback to act on, modelling that feedback is advice to evaluate rather than an instruction to obey automatically. Students revise at least one section, such as replacing a weak verb, rearranging information, strengthening an opening or ending, or adding detail to shape audience response. They annotate the change with a brief note explaining its intended effect.

6. 42–48 min · Share and reflect. Teacher uses the reflection and discussion slides to prompt pairs: “What changed?” and “How might the change affect your audience?” Students read their original and revised wording to a partner and explain which feedback they used, adapted, or chose not to use.

7. 48–50 min · Exit check. Teacher displays the final prompt on the plenary slide. Students complete the final section of the reflection and exit section: name the revision made, identify the feedback that informed it, and explain its intended audience effect. Collect worksheets and drafts.

Resources

• the Editing and Peer Review slide deck
• the peer-review worksheet
• Students’ current creative-text drafts
• Pens or pencils in two colours
• Highlighters
• Timer
• Board or display screen
• Optional devices for digital drafts
• Quiet workspace for students who need reduced distraction

Assessment

• During modelling, check whether students can distinguish specific, text-based feedback from personal judgement.
• Confer with pairs during review, listening for comments that refer to language, structure, and audience impact rather than spelling correction alone.
• Use the completed worksheet and revised draft to assess whether each student has given constructive feedback and made a purposeful change.

Differentiation

• Provide sentence starters on the worksheet: “The phrase ___ is effective because…”, “The order of ___ helps the reader to…”, and “To make the audience feel/understand ___, you could…”.
• Support students who find peer interaction difficult by allowing them to submit written feedback first, work with a teacher-selected partner, or review a teacher-provided extract.
• For EAL learners, pre-teach terms such as audience, impact, structure, imagery, and revision, and allow discussion before writing feedback.
• Extend confident writers by asking them to justify how a revision changes tone, pace, viewpoint, or the reader’s emotional response.