Many of the storybooks or assignments I chose to comment
were written by friends I made before the class. There are about five people
enrolled in the course that I have had previous classes with, am in the same sorority
with or are great friends. That previously established rapport helps me to take
their critiques less personally.
When people comment on my work, I love it when they
encourage first or give me praise for something they enjoyed, and then broke
down their critiques. Because I have enjoyed this format, I try to do the same
for them.
When I leave a short comment, I usually focus on the big
pictures, so more from a holistic perspective. When I leave the longer comments
on people’s storybooks or portfolios, I like to start off with the holistic perspective
then get down to the nitty-gritty.
For my storybook, I received some helpful comments that
noted the positives and negatives. For example, I tend to create run-on
sentences when I am creatively writing. So some of the critiques were to
separate those thoughts out into two sentences.
I completely agree on giving praise first, it totally softens the blow of what could otherwise be a harsh critique! I think positive reinforcement makes people more willing to listen to someone's opinion on how they could improve. Mostly because it's more of a "hey I think this could be improved in x ways" rather than "here's what's wrong, that's all I have to say about it." Plus it's just nice to hear what people liked about the things we put time and effort into!
ReplyDelete