Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Nursing, clip 5 of 13

Abstract

Brief excerpt from interview: In the past I have had different types of peer reviews where the instructors have assigned someone to us to be a peer review for each other. I find that difficult because it's hard for me to take advice or criticism from someone that I don't know . . . they don't know what I'm trying to get at. With this class it wasn't required, but I did have a friend that we've gone through the nursing cohort together and I know that we work very similarly and think very similarly and so we would read each other's paper and correct it. And I found that very helpful because she knew what I was trying to say and she was able to sometimes say certain points better than I would or differently. Also just reading a paper with grammar is challenging sometimes because not everyone--grammar is a challenge here. I [think my grammar is pretty good] because I was raised by a Mainland person. A lot of people write the way they talk and so my mother never let me talk Pidgin at home and so I know not to ever write that way. [W]ith a peer review, one of the things that I think is important and especially--I am learning with health care--is we turn to people we admire, we look up to, respect. Because writing a paper is very personal, I think, and so to welcome changes to it needs to be from someone that you . . . respect and would welcome changes from. [My instructor] had a rubric . . . and grammar was a part of it . . . we had to follow the instructions . . . we had to do it in APA format . . . the length of the paper and following the rules for that and the big part was the content. Was it organized? Was it relevant information? Did we get the message across that we wanted to get across?