Tip #38: Strategies for More Productive Peer Reviews   

Contributed by Jessica Citti, Ph.D., HSU Learning Center

Have you planned peer review of a writing assignment for your class only to have students murmur vague pleasantries and write “good job" or "maybe add a comma” on their classmates’ drafts before falling silent? While faculty might see the value in peer review, having students comment on drafts doesn’t always work out as expected (Nilson, 2003).

There are ways to make peer review more useful for students. Peer review is a valuable tool to give students an audience for their writing, encourage multiple drafts, and help students see ways to approach an assignment (Lundstrom & Baker, 2009; Bean, 2011). Peer review also shows students how writing is a social practice that takes place within and for communities (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015) and encourages metacognition and self-regulated learning (Hattie, 2009; Henry & Ledbetter, 2011).

Constructive peer review requires planning ahead and preparing students for what to expect. When built into the revision process and aligned with course learning outcomes, peer review offers an opportunity for students to share challenges they face while writing and engaging in the “collaborative task of problem-solving,” an intellectual experience that can lead to stronger papers as well as increased understanding of course content (Henry & Ledbetter, 2011, p. 8).

Strategies for More Productive Peer Reviews

Before assigning peer review, discuss the importance of revision and feedback for all writers. Share your own experiences of giving and receiving feedback on writing projects. Acknowledge that sharing one’s drafts can be uncomfortable, but even the most skilled writers revise their writing and seek feedback (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015).   

Consider the goals for the assignment and for your peer review sessions. What do you hope students will learn and demonstrate through this assignment? Who are the audiences for their texts, and how do their classmates fit within this audience? What are you hoping students will learn through the peer review session about the assignment, about being critical readers, about writing and communicating in this course and in your discipline?

Encourage students to share previous peer review experiences. Based on these experiences, have students generate examples of productive and unproductive feedback.

Create a commenting sheet or set of prompts that students can follow during the peer review session. These prompts should align with the goals of the assignment and your course.  

Consider using descriptive, rather than evaluative, prompts to guide peer review (Nilson, 2003). For example, closed-ended questions such as “Is the paper clearly written throughout?” provoke evaluative, one-word responses, while imperatives such as “Highlight (in color) any passages that you had to read more than once to understand what the writer was saying” or “Outline this essay on the back of this sheet” show the writer what readers see in their texts and allow them to make decisions about what to revise (Nilson, 2003, pp. 35-36).

Encourage students to position themselves as interested readers, not as teachers, editors, or judges (Straub, 2005). Explain that, as readers, they should focus on global issues (argument, organization, analysis, ways to approach a specific part of the assignment, etc.) rather sentence-level concerns such as punctuation or word choice, especially in early drafts that will be revised multiple times (Straub, 2005).

Before holding a peer review session, practice as a class or in small groups using a student essay from a previous semester (with the student’s permission). Use your commenting sheet or prompts to model the types of feedback they can provide.

Include planning and reflection (metacommentary). Have students include a short memo or letter to their reviewers reflecting on their drafts. These reflections might include what the writer thinks is working well, what needs more attention, and what questions they have. In memos or cover letters on final drafts, students can address what they learned (or didn’t learn) through peer review and explain their revision choices.

Incorporate shorter or alternative approaches to peer review. For example, hold five- or ten-minute pair-shares, “speed-dating”-style, or whole class reviews of tentative thesis statements, research questions, method sections, hypotheses, introductions, etc.

Peer Review Resources:

• Creating Effective Peer Response Workshops, University of Minnesota Center for Writing  

• Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Clearinghouse, Colorado State University

• Peer Response Strategies, Louisiana State University

• “Speed Dating” Peer-Review Writing Workshops

• No One Writes Alone, MIT (video)

Peer Writing Support at HSU:

The HSU Writing Studio is staffed by undergraduate and graduate students from a range of majors who are trained to help their peers with drafting and revising writing projects. Free consultations available by appointment and drop-in, in-person and online. Open Sunday - Friday. Campus Events Field 2, 707-826-5217.

The Writing Studio also offers SkillShops on revision strategies, starting writing assignments, writing with sources, and other topics. For more information about how the Writing Studio can support faculty and students, contact jessica.citti@humboldt.edu.

References:

Adler-Kassner, L. & Wardle, E. (Eds.) (2015). Naming what we know: Threshold concepts of writing studies. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.

Bean, J.C. (2011). Engaging ideas: The professor's guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to

achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.

Henry, J. & Ledbetter, L. (2011). Teaching intellectual teamwork in WAC courses through peer review. Currents in Teaching and Learning, 3(2), 4-14.

Lundstrom, K. & Baker, W. (2009). To give is better than to receive: The benefits of peer review to the reviewer's own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18(1), 30-43.

Nilson, L.B. (2003). Improving student peer feedback. College Teaching, 51(1), 34-38.

Straub, R. (2005). Responding--really responding--to other students’ writing. In W. Bishop & J.

Strickland, Eds. The Subject is writing: Essays by teachers and students (pp. 136-46). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann/Boynton-Cook Publishers.

Upcoming Events