What Students Can Do to Take the Burden off You

about student-centered techniques lately, and research generally concludes that students learn at least as much from a teacherless class as from a traditional class, provided they write a great deal.1 Student-centered techniques, then, would be perfect for beginning teachers. Such techniques are completely between student and teacher, require no radical revision of existing English programs, emphasize individual instruction, and make room for more actual writing practice. At the same time, they take some of the burden off the new teacher. One obvious device to minimize the effect of a teacher's inexperience and maximize learning is peer group evaluation. Because this method lets students read other's papers, pointing out both errors in mechanics and problems of content and organization, it saves agonizing hours spent in correcting student themes by beginning teachers anxious to be fair and complete. A new instructor who wished to use peer evaluation could spend class time at the beginning of the semester to arrive at some mutually acceptable standards for mechanical competence and good