Peer Conferencing

The peer conferencing that I experienced with my classmates was extremely helpful. It's always good to get a second and third opinion on a paper. I feel like I'm really tough on myself when it comes to submitting papers; so most of the things that were addresses were errors that already recognized. However, there were a few things that I had in my paper that I thought were awesome, and my peers thought it would be a good idea to leave them out. I really liked that they were very honest with me because it only will make my paper better. My eyes doesn't necessarily always catch every little grammar error, so I was very thankful for the extra help. Peer conferencing is often a practice I utilize every now and then. After the eye-opening experience with my colleagues, I will try my best to try to use it more often. I learned that it doesn't matter what I think of the paper because I am not the audience...the readers are! Therefore, I should be getting a potential reader to correct the errors.
The pros of practicing peer conferencing in the classroom is allowing the students to build trust with one another and talk effectively about writing. Students also like peer conferencing because it gives them time to feel like they are in control; and this is especially important to middle school students. The cons of this exercise is that the teacher has no control over what is said during the peer conferencing. Teachers should be careful to watch for constructive criticism and not just criticism. Another con is that peer conferencing may bring down a student's level of self-esteem is they are not top-notch writers. Teachers should be weary of this and should be knowledgeable about what to do if it does happen.