Encouraging peer dialogue in the geography classroom: peer editing to improve student writing

Abstract

This paper describes the first author's experiments with improving students’ writing in the geography classroom using peer editing exercises to encourage peer dialogue. The ‘Editing Guides’ presented here were developed by the authors for the geography classroom and have been used by the first author in all of her systematic upper level geography courses. The theory of audience‐centred communication is presented as a rationale for using the editing guides and a simple plan for integrating writing instruction into the geography class is presented. The inclusion of peer editing assignments in the course curriculum increased peer dialogue and resulted in improved student writing.

Keywords:

• Peer editing
• writing
• geography
• rhetoric
• communication