How do I write a good peer review?

Help me write my MA thesis...PLEASE?

• Okay, this is a long-shot, I know, but I need help finding information about someone referenced in a random Ph.D thesis I came across on teh intarwebs. His ideas are about the use of patterning in High School English education, and I'd like to acknowledge them in my own thesis. His name is Chad Wolf and he taught at Jefferson High School in '00-'01. My Google-fu is weak, but all my attempts return nothing. All the information I have below the fold. Ok. Here is a link to the pdf of the dissertation: http://www.google.com/search?q=umi+umd+1793.pdg&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=rNN&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB%3Aofficial&source=hp&q=umi+umd+1793.pdf&pbx=1&oq=umi+umd+1793.pdf&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=2389l2567l0l3372l2l2l0l0l0l0l155l305l0.2l2l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=8f081be56d55c625&biw=1440&bih=747 And here's some relevant information without you having to read one hundred billion pages of text: Dissertation Title: BRINGING TEACHER ASSISTANCE AND EVALUATION UP TO PAR: FIRST-YEAR TEACHERS’ RESPONSES TO SUPERVISION IN PEER ASSISTANCE AND REVIEW. By: Donna Redmond Jones, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Research was done in Elizabeth County Public Schools (ECPS) area, which I'm guessing is in Maryland, like the author's degree granting institution. Chadwick Wolf: Jefferson High School, 2001-2002 school year (taught 9th/11th grade English; he was a first year teacher who student-taught in Baltimore and got his credential at Johns Hopkins Immersion teaching program) Here's the relevant excerpts (page 147 followed by 188): For the first week of school Chad taught all of his students his system for identifying ways that writers use patterns in their writing to convey and develop certain ideas. Chad said that he introduced his “patterns system” prior to beginning the district’s prescribed ninth and tenth grade curricula because “I want them to have the foundation of writing before they start tackling their own separate curriculums.” This system of identifying patterns in literature would dominate Chad’s entire approach to teaching. Contradicting the district’s tenet that teachers should employ different instructional strategies to address a wide range of student learning styles, Chad Wolf said emphatically, “I pretty much do the same thing with all of the material that we read. I’m teaching them [the students] a system of decoding literature. I call it the pattern system, but I made it up, so it’s not like a technical term or anything.” Chad’s pattern system involved searching through text to find instances in which the author repeats an idea. According to Chad, “good authors never repeat themselves unless they need to. You know, ninth graders aren’t going to come into the school knowing about complex metaphors and a whole lot about symbolism and things like that, so you start out by [saying] ‘read this piece and look for places where the author literally repeats himself.’” Chad believed that once students started to recognize patterns in literature, they could begin ascribing meaning to those patterns, and eventually begin to identify more complex literary devices used by an author. He held to his fervent belief that this was the way to prepare students for college English classes. In his classes, he would ask students to identify words that the author repeats, and he would write these words in a list on the board. Then, students would begin to group the words that they felt had some connection in the text, and then they would begin making interpretations about the meaning the author was trying to convey. The best result possible would be finding a way of contacting Mr. Wolf and asking him about his system. If I can't do that, then I guess I'd like to know if anyone else has ever used a system like the one he mentions or if they've ever come into contact with anything like it. I'm interested in the idea from a pedagogical standpoint, as it seems to be something I've never heard of before in the decade or so I've been in education. So hivemind. HELP?!

• Answer:

  https://www.facebook.com/chadwick.wolf