On Friday I spent most of the day at a fairly new charter middle school in East Austin. It was a totally amazing and challenging experience, but there was one thing in particular that I was impressed by and wanted to share.

One of the classes I observed was a 5th grade language arts class. The kids had been working on writing their own "fractured fairy tales" (a la the Stinky Cheese Man, which, if you don't already know, you should GET to know). Already on the whiteboard was a rubric that I came to find out was created by the kids themselves. It had four criteria 1) clear beginning, middle and end, 2) humor, 3) fairy tale conventions (including good vs. evil, well-developed central characters, magical elements) and 4) presentation (grammar and punctuation. These four criteria then could be graded on a scale of 1-4.

For one section of class (about 30 minutes), the teacher took about 4 student volunteers. These four students stood and read their fairy tales aloud to the class. Each student then picked 3 or 4 classmates to comment on their piece. The teacher reminded students to give both praise and constructive criticism, but, most importantly, to use the rubric as a guide for their comments. This led to students making comments like, "I thought your story had good humor--it was really funny. But it didn't seem like the story had a strong ending. You could work on your 'beginning, middle and end.'"

When students made comments like "That was funny" they were prompted to support the comment with specific examples. The teacher also clarified and supported comments that she thought would be particularly helpful to the student writers as they worked on revisions.

I was inspired by the class. These students were really excited to share their work. Their peers gave smart, kind, and truly helpful feedback, and clearly understood the guidelines and expectations of the assignment, as well as the conventions of the literary models for the assignment. All I could think about was HOW MUCH EASIER my job would be running workshops and showcases with a room full of students who had experienced this kind of sharing/feedback model throughout middle and high school. It also reminded me that, if 5th graders can do it, and do it well, there is no reason not to ask and expect college students to give thoughtful, helpful and tactful feedback to one another.