Enrichment · Arts and Creativity

Feedback the writer
can actually use.

A workshop goes wrong when the first reader opens with a fix and the writer spends the hour defending page one. Here the writer asks the first question, every reader starts with what stayed with them, and suggestions wait for the writer’s yes. The organizer keeps each response, flags the ones that skipped a step and ends with the writer’s own plan.

Set up a workshopWhat you get
$5one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $5

Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Arts & Creativity collection, $69 for 23 items.

Your workshops

The worked example is made up: a six-page short story read by three classmates, one of whom skipped straight to cutting the first page. Saved on this device only; readers and writers appear as codes.

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What you get

Enrichment · Arts & Creativity$5

What you finish with
A record per workshop with the writer’s code, piece, kind of writing, date, pages and the writer’s question; each reader’s response with what stayed with them, a question, the writer’s permission and a suggestion; five ground rules; a plan to keep, change and try. Flags responses that skipped a strength or gave a suggestion without permission; counts responses per writer.
Who it is for
Creative writing classes, writing clubs and literary magazine staffs from middle school through college, and the teachers who run them.
Format
Browser organizer with a saved record per workshop. Prints one workshop for the writer, every workshop as a table or a blank response sheet for readers; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
$5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Arts & Creativity collection ($69) and the Enrichment Suite pass ($119), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Arts & Creativity space in Caveat Enrichment.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. The writer shares the piece ahead and writes one question.
  2. Readers read the whole piece before the session.
  3. Each reader responds in the four moves, in order; the writer takes notes and stays quiet.
  4. The writer answers each request to suggest with yes or not now.
  5. The writer writes the plan: keep, change, try.

Set up a workshop

The four moves

Four moves, in this order1What stayed with youMeaning first: a line, an image, afeeling2The writer asksTheir own question gets answered3A neutral questionCurious, with no opinion hidden inside4Permission, then a suggestion“May I suggest something about theending?”Four moves, in this order1What stayed with youMeaning first: a line, an image, afeeling2The writer asksTheir own question gets answered3A neutral questionCurious, with no opinion hiddeninside4Permission, then a suggestion“May I suggest something about theending?”
Adapted from Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process; the writer may answer “not now” at the last step.

Why start with what stayed

A reader who names what worked tells the writer what to protect in revision, and it shows the writer they were read closely. It also slows readers down: you cannot say what stayed with you without having read to the end.

Why the writer stays quiet

When writers explain, readers stop reporting their own experience and start debating the writer’s intention. The piece has to work on the page without its author in the room. The writer’s turn comes at the end, in the plan.

Sources

  1. Lerman, L., and Borstel, J. Critical Response Process. Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (lizlerman.com).
  2. Elbow, P. Writing Without Teachers. Oxford University Press.
  3. National Writing Project. Resources on writing groups and response (nwp.org).
  4. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Peer response and writing workshops (owl.purdue.edu).

The worked example is made up. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat; pieces themselves stay in your own documents. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.