Gradedown! Post 3

A few more hebdomadals down, and the alterna-essay:

• 47 hebdomadals
• 66 exam essays

I'm being too indulgent with these, aren't I?

Here are some quick statistics about peer review. The average grade increase from Essay 1 to Essay 2 was 0.43 percent. The essay grades of students who peer-reviewed their essays went up, on average, 3.0 percent: an impressive difference amounting to about a third of a letter grade. The most impressive datum, though, is how amazingly effective star reviewers were -- those five peer reviewers who earned mondo extra credit for putting serious thought and time into peer-reviewing their peers' work. Students whose second essays were peer reviewed by these star reviewers saw grade increases of 8.9 percent: basically a full letter grade. That is seriously, seriously amazing stuff.

Remember that when I graded these second essays, I didn't even glance at the peer reviews: in most cases I didn't know that an essay had been peer reviewed at all.

Thank you, peer reviewers, for making essays on average 3% more pleasant to read. I hope you all keep at it: the statistics here seem to show that a couple hours spent working through a peer's critical comments can boost your grade massively. Massively.