When do you use critique? |
Two potential times to use critique lessons are before students start working on a particular work product and after they have completed early drafts of a particular work product.
When using critique before students start their own work, the critique focuses on an exemplary model. This provides students with a picture of what strong work will look like. By asking students to critically examine a piece of high-quality work, they are able to determine specific attributes or strategies that they can incorporate into their own work. When using critique after students have produced at least one draft of a work product, you reinforce a culture of revision. Highlighting one attribute that you want all students to master helps students develop a strong eye for quality over time. |
How do you choose an effective piece to critique? |
Choosing a piece to critique is one of the most important considerations in planning a critique lesson.
If using an exemplar model, choose a piece that follows the conventions of the discipline and demonstrates the highest quality work. It is fine if students need some scaffolding to be able to access the exemplar model. If using work from your students, choose a piece highlighting a focus area that all students need to improve in. This does not mean that the selected piece of work must perfectly demonstrate the focus area or be an exemplar in all aspects. Instead, the piece should demonstrate the focus area clearly enough to support students’ analysis. When possible, choose a piece of work that demonstrates the focus area to the highest level of any student in the class. |
How do you set the norms for feedback? |
We use three rules for critique from Expeditionary Learning's Chief’s Academic Officer, Ron Berger:
We introduce these to students and review them before every critique lesson. It is important for students to be able to explain in their own words what each rule means. When students make comments in class that are not kind, specific, or helpful, you should note this and give students the opportunity to rephrase their comments. |
I have tried using critique, but all it led to was my students copying the high-quality model. I want them to create their own high-quality work. How do I make this happen?
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Copying is not the worst thing that students can do. One of the ways we learn is by imitating strong examples. However, students do need opportunities to practice their skills in producing original, creative pieces of work. With that in mind, it is often possible to provide models that highlight the focus area and the format students will use in a different context. For example, first-grade students draw and write about spiders. Because each student writes about and draws a different type of spider, we ensure that critique lessons focus on the general attributes of a quality description and drawing of a spider, not the specific details about one type of spider.
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