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Phenomenological Peer Reviews

Phenomenological = describing an activity, an event, a feeling, an effect.

Two models for reading and recording your peer reviewer partner’s essay on SoundCloud:

Model #1: read the essay straight through, without stopping, and trying to approximate the tone in which you think it’s meant to be read. After reading it, then provide a few minutes of phenomenological commentary.

Model #2: this is the one I did in class today — comment as you go, remarking on the experience and effect as you read, approximating the tone in which you think it’s meant to be read. This one can get a little more chaotic but also more fun because you are trying to describe your reading experience as you read.

What a phenomenological peer review does not do: focus only on praise, corrections, or criticism.

What we’re looking for is your experience reading the essay — how it made you feel, not making corrections or arguing back. A phenomenological-reading peer review is a description, so we expect to hear you saying things like,

“This made me feel …”

“I felt swept right up in the rhythm of that paragraph …”

“I’m confused here. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get from this”

“I’m not sure what that sentence is trying to do.”

“That made me laugh”

“This made me a little sad”

“This reminds me of …”

“My essay is on a similar topic, and this made me think about …”