Workshopping

So far, I don't think workshopping has been very productive for me personally, though I do enjoy reading my classmates' work. Usually I find that comments are not that helpful because there are not enough of them and provide little to no specific examples. I appreciate encouraging words and positive thoughts, but truthfully constructive criticism and suggestions would be more helpful. However, I can't blame anyone for this because we are usually short on time and have 3 papers to read through, edit, think about and respond to. It can be overwhelming, especially if you are making an honest effort to improve your classmate's work. To write a piece in this genre is a thoughtful process, though when we are swapping papers with people in class, the readers are anxious to get through it so they will have enough time to finish the other group members' papers too before they can leave. Thus, not nearly as much thought is going into the paper as was put into it originally, and a lot of key things can probably be overlooked. Like some people have suggested before, I think we could benefit a lot more from workshopping days if we either worked in groups of 2 only, or if we could take the papers home with us in order to write more thorough comments.