Tips on Creating a Productive Peer Response Experience for Students:

• Groups of three students often work best – if one peer responder doesn’t offer any advice, the student can turn to the other responder. If neither responder offers good advice, direct the student to the Writing Center for expert peer advice!

• Have students write at the top of their drafts three questions or concerns about their papers that they would like peer responders to address.

• Give students tips on how to offer constructive criticism in a non-threatening way.  See the following from peer response directions for students...

You’ll need to carefully consider the tone of your peer response. You don’t want to be so positive and complimentary that the writer gets no sense of what to revise. You also don’t want to offend the writer with rude or overly harsh criticism.

If you are nervous about offending someone, try the following techniques when you offer criticism in your memo..

Use "Soft" language …….. "You might want to add an example…" "Maybe deleting this paragraph would help…"

Use "I" statements …….. "As a reader, I got lost after your first example…"

                                           "I was confused by the example in the second…"

                                           "As a reader, I wanted more detail when you described…"

 

• Encourage Positive Feedback first. Prompt students on your form/directions to give each other specific positive feedback before they leap to provide constructive criticism…writers need inspiration and hope in order to go back and revise a draft!

• Avoid yes/no questions on your peer response form:

• Instead of "Is there a focus?" say "In your own words, summarize what you think the focus of the paper is."
• Instead of "Does the paper need more support?" say "Where do the ideas need more support" or direct the student reader to "Ask three questions in the margin that will prompt the writer to support his/her points."

• Show students samples of weak written peer responses (overly complimentary and vague) and strong peer responses (helpful specific criticism) – ask them which one would help them improve their paper.  See attached.

• Use a cover sheet for your final draft to reinforce the peer response. With their final draft, ask them on the cover sheet to indicate the advice they got from their peer responders and how they revised the draft after receiving this advice.

• Respond to student resistance.  If students say, "I’m not a writing teacher, and I’m not a very good writer, so I can’t possible tell someone else what to do," tell them, "You are not grading the paper like a teacher; you are responding as a reader. As a reader, if you are confused by the focus or organization, that’s helpful for the writer to know. If as a reader you really like a part of the paper, you don’t need to be a teacher to tell the writer that!"

• Steer students away from commenting on grammar -- many students will misdiagnose long complex sentences as run-ons or correct each other’s papers and feel resentful that they had to fix someone else’s paper. Direct them to underline and mark with a question places where they are confused by word choice and sentence clarity, but to focus their comments on larger issues like purpose/focus, organization, support.

• Clarify the role that native students should take when responding to papers with ESL error – unless they’re trained writing tutors, most native speakers will freak out and correct every single error. Do you want them to do this? I tell native speakers, "Underline places where you are confused by word choice or sentence clarity and use a question mark, but it is the writer’s responsibility to edit for error, and that this is not your job."

If you have time in class…

• Do a read-around. 

Have peer groups read their drafts out loud to each other…students will often "hear" their own errors and inconsistencies as they do this. Sample instructions.

• Model a peer response.

Use an average sample draft (with writer’s name taken off) and have the whole class "peer critique" it as practice for what they should do in their own groups. Have the group start off with "what is working" in a draft (start with the positive) and then move on to "what needs work." List all student suggestions/critique on the board and then ask them to prioritize: "What three pieces of advice will most improve this draft?"

• Give students time in class to discuss their responses so they can ask questions as they provide each other with both oral and written feedback.

• If you are going to provide students with opportunities for oral feedback, try a "fishbowl" exercise

After you discuss a sample draft as a class, have three students form a circle in the center of the room and "role play" a peer response – one student pretends to be the writer and the other two pretend to be responders. The group models what they’d say while the class watches. After modeling, the class talks about what the group did well and what they’d add to the oral feedback.

back to Responding to Drafts