Pairing off your students for MUTUAL improvement

When I first started teaching, I would group a high level student with a lower one when it was time to revise and edit their stories. This made it easier for me because I could just walk around the room, monitor the students' progress, and address specific concerns or problems.
After a while I recognized a problem with that approach. The only one who was really benefiting from this, besides the teacher, was the low student. He would get quite a few suggestions from his "higher" more knowledgeable partner and, working together, they could usually move the lower student's paper to at least the next score point. When it was time to look at the higher student's paper, however, the weak writer would think it was perfect and offer very few suggestions, if any at all. The strong student would think his paper was fine after comparing himself to the weaker writer, and would turn it in the way it was.

When I realized this was happening, I began pairing my students together , two "highs", two middles, etc. on down to the lower ones. While the strong students polish each other's papers by revising and editing, I would work with the lower ones doing what I call surgery.
If the group is still too large, I would group the students who could pass the writing at minimum success level to work together while I worked with the lowest students. When I felt they had enough to work on, I switched back to the other group, offering them suggestions and critiques.
I have seen incredible improvement in the stronger students as they push and challenge each other to higher and higher levels of achievement in Writing. One partner is able to find things that the other didn't catch or might have overlooked when revising and editing on his own.
This way of grouping is more challenging for the teacher, but allows all the students to improve at a steady rate, not just the weaker ones.

Slow Motion/Emotion - Developing "Voice" in Story Writing

One of the main reasons our students are not writing with as much voice as we may like is the amount of television they watch. In the olden days (as my kids like to say) we would read much more than kids do now. We were required to use our imagination. Today, T.V. nearly does away with the need for imagination; but wait - don't throw it out yet!
May I introduce an activity I call "Slow Motion/Emotion" that brings voice back into writing. Look for a DVD movie that includes events which cause at least one character to have an emotional reaction. Watch it the first time at normal speed, and then stop the movie to analyze with your students what just took place. After you feel they have the gist of what happened, watch it again, but this time slow it down to still step mode which allows you to see the movements frame by frame. Your students will take turns expressing what the character is doing with every movement of his body.
How did his face change? (eyes, mouth, eye brows...) What did the character do with his arms, legs, hips, fingers, etc.? Guess what he might have been thinking... what was going on in his mind and heart? What did he say and why did he say it that way? After seeing it again in slow motion, each will try to write out the scene, being as accurate in detail as possible using the same descriptive words as the class did. So much takes place over a few seconds in a movie that there is no way the viewer can catch it all at full speed.
What child won't jump at the opportunity to watch a movie? Now you can use this as an ally and a tool for improving voice when it comes to the emotions.