I'd agree that showcasing works incredibly well. I've only done it once, a few summers ago with a very small 309S class. But wow, their comments were great, their level of investment was really high, and they really took each others' work--and therefore writing and rhetoric issues--seriously. These were some of my most useful, collaborative, student-driven classes.

I like Noah's idea of pre-showcases. I find that any way of allowing students to see what other students are doing and thinking pushes everyone's work. So I love the idea of doing this kind of showing before the assignment is actually due. It seems like it could have a great impact the overall quality of papers.

I'd love to hear more ways of getting students to see what great things other students are doing. How do you build this in? (Besides peer review....)

I, too, have had much success with showcasing of student drafts, although I'm not sure what the "trick" is to make it work. I find that my best showcasing sessions happen when I hang back and allow the students to make the majority of comments in class on the drafts. I chime in to second what students have said or to develop their assessments in my own way, but my goal is to give them an idea of what I'm "looking for," but that they articulate first, and in their own words.

Incidentally, I'm assuming from your post that you are referring to the "showcasing" exercise that has been specifically recommended to us by the DRW--one that usually follows first drafts having been handed in and possibly returned with comments. That is, an exercise that is a supplement to the first draft-peer review-return of first draft sequence.

I do that as well, but I also have a showcasing of "pre-first drafts" from selected students that precedes the first draft hand-in. I've talked about this exercise to a number of you, my colleagues, on an informal basis, but I haven't yet written it up for E-files or anything (I keep meaning to). It involves having about three students per day sign-up to take "first crack" at the assignment in the two class days leading up to first drafts being due. So, for two class periods, we have a few "pioneer" students (all imperialistic connotations aside) show us how they responded to the assignment and tell us what difficulties they had working through the it in a number of areas, as the rest of the class is still considering how they are going to approach their own essays. I try to configure this as a writing workshop, with the class broken into groups of respondents for each paper; those groups giving their assessments (with me giving my own input); and the writer then giving us her own self-assessment.

I did this both last semester and this one, and each time its worked out really well. The students who do the showcasing have more opportunities to revise, and the students who respond get to think like editors as they plan their own essay work. I try to keep the exercise low-pressure and "rough," so that we all understand that good writing comes from multiple revisions and feedback from many different sources. And, since so much of my course is really taken up with showcasing of drafts, it puts the focus on the students' work first and foremost.