In one college classroom, a peer-response group worked on an essay for almost an hour, but its overall effect still seemed boring. Finally, one student exclaimed, “These sentences all look the same!”

And they were: every sentence in the essay was about the same length, and every sentence started with the subject. The group went to work again, shortening some sentences and revising others to create new rhythms. With the resulting sentence variety, the essay took on new life; it flowed.