I know from just talking with several of you that many of us had disastrous (or at least not beneficial) peer review sessions as undergrads. Peer reviews tended to fall into one of two categories with me: 1. "good paper" with no other comments, or 2. suggestions that were completely wrong. Both of these are, I think, legitimate concerns. While I think that Bean attempts to combat some of these issues with his suggestions for response-centered, advise-centered, and out-of-class reviews, I still wonder whether students will know enough to be able to diagnose and offer advise for improving problems with one another's writing.
Here are a few other things that I'm thinking of that might help to combat these problems:
1. Do a practice peer review together. This could be done with a Smart Board or an overhead. Students could take turns reading paragraphs aloud and discussing what they would suggest to improve.
2. Anonymous peer reviews. While this removes the possibility for dialog with the reviewer, it might also encourage students to be honest (rather than polite) about the paper's flaws. Aaron Harms does this in his classes. Essentially, students bring drafts of their papers without their names on them (he has them put their student #s on the drafts, but I would likely use a number that I would assign to each student). The students take the drafts home and write a response (about a page) answering a series of questions. The reviewer brings back the marked up draft and the review, marked with only his/her student number, stapled together and a photocopy of the entire packet. One copy of the packet is returned to the student whose draft it was, the other goes to the instructor. The reviewer is then graded on his/her peer response. It seems complicated, but might remove some of the anxiety students have with reviewing and being reviewed.
3. Grade the students' responses. I alluded to this in #2, but I'll restate it here. I think that this will encourage them to help one another with their writing. Furthermore, knowing that I'm going to read their drafts and their responses will make them take them seriously.
4. I don't plan to use peer reviews for the first paper. I want them to have some experience under their belts, to have gotten back a graded paper, to have visited the writing lab, etc.
I'd be anxious to hear any other suggestions.
--Bri
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3 comments:
Peer reviews is not the simplest way of group work so they can easily go wrong. I would not start this activity in the beginning of the semester either.
It makes sense to start practicing together. Will it be a good idea to try explaining them why they need peer reviews? E.g. that this will improve their writing and, consequently, their grades.
Grading their responses is a great idea. After that, a teacher can say few (good!) words in front of class on their responses and abilities to analyse and revise writing.
Bri, these are some great ideas. I like the class-constructed peer review- that would be great practice (for those who pay attention, anyway). Starting with the second paper cycle also gives students a chance to see what the instructor's comments are like- and we are the most likely model for them to use, I'd guess. The only drawback is they only get two chances to do it, and this might mean less group cohesion and skill at reviewing.
I certainly intend to grade peer reviews, anonymous or not- I don't think this is a case where nonevaluated work will float. The more practice they have critiquing papers, the better they'll get at critiquing their own papers. At least that's what I'll tell them.
I certainly agree peer reviews should be graded, and that some effort should be put into "training" students on how to effectively participate in peer reviews. However, I would argue that there is a value to doing a peer review session for all the papers, including the first one. First, not only is it a good rapport building activity, but it also helps the students to get their feet wet regarding looking at other students' papers critically, and considering the criteria by which their essay will be judged effective. A good peer review session will present the students questions to consider in regards to the essay that will give the student some insight into the questions that the instructor will consider in grading the essay. Indirectly, this leads to the student looking at their own paper critically. So while peer review begins with looking at other papers, it ends with the student looking at their own paper in a different light. That change in perspective will probably prove more valuable than the comments they receive from other students anyway. So while the process itself has shortcomings that are probably impossible to solve considering the very nature of peer review, I think the end result will be valuable to the student as long as they use the experience as an avenue into looking at their own paper from a critical perspective.
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