Comment Review Week

I enjoy reading the introductions blog posts and then moving on to their storytelling blog. It helps me get a feel of who they are and why they write the way they do. When commenting on people's stories, I always like to give spelling and grammar edits separately. That has to be the number one detriment to the flow of story. When the word choice is wrong or the phrasing is awkward, it throws everything off for me. So, I like to start off with that. Then I move on to the story as a whole: parts that I like and don't like. Whether the requirement is a short or long comment, I pretty much try and go into detail either way.

The easiest part about commenting, like I said, is pointing out any grammar or structure issues. The hardest part is pinpointing where the story needs improvement. Sometimes I will read a story and be generally unimpressed with it, but it is hard to figure out what about it could be improved. Actually figuring out what about the story I didn't like can be difficult. When you're reading something, and it's not bad but not necessarily good, how do you figure out where to improve?

Although the commenting is a great way to hear what people think about my stories, it doesn't quite create the same connection or discussion that you might get in a classroom. I'm not sure how to remedy this. I thought maybe using a chat-room type deal, but it would be difficult to coordinate times between everyone. There just needs to be more back and forth between the students. Usually after leaving a comment, you don't hear anymore from the person.

In lieu of recent news about the Department of Justice's investigation of the Ferguson case, this seemed appropriate. (Source)