The Peer Review Activity in the First Year Writing Classroom

Kathryn WellerAL877

Dr. David KirklandApril 17, 2013

Introduction• Peer review is an activity we have all

participated in as students and that many of us ask our students to participate in.

• What kinds of interactions take place around the activity?

• Do our students see or gain the benefits we believe the activity can provide?

Literature• Peer Editing In The 21st Century College Classroom: Do

Beginning Composition Students Truly Reap The Benefits? • Jesnek, Lindsey M. Journal of College Teaching and

Learning. 8.5 (May 2011): 17-24.

• Since peer editing is now well-established and accepted by the majority of composition professors, dislodging die strong (and in some cases blind) affinity for peer editing will be a difficult task. While peer editing should undoubtedly remain part of the composition classroom because of the undeniably valuable social context it provides for writers, problems with its facilitation do need to be addressed. Even though critics have been reevaluating the effectiveness of peer editing, no substantial conclusion has been drawn regarding the best way to improve it. 

Literature• Peer Review from the Students' Perspective: Invaluable or Invalid?• Brammer, Charlotte, and Rees, Mary. Composition Studies. 35.2

(2007): 71-85.• Only a few instances of empirical research examine what the

students themselves think of their participation inpeer review. Perhaps because peer response is practically instinctive to those who teach writing, few have felt the need to study the student perspective. Instead, studies have focused on the quality of peer comments, their effect on the revision process, and the best methods for conducting peer review. This lack of knowledge of student perception of the peer review process coupled with a concern about the difficulties inherent in group work motivated this study. In this article, the authors report the results of faculty and student surveys from one university as a way of revisiting peer review and its value to the writing process.

Methods and Data Collected• I observed two classroom meetings,

during the second class meeting the peer review activity took place.

• I conducted in-person interviews with the instructor and two volunteer students

• A third volunteer student completed an email survey

• I collected several students’ peer reviews

Key Participants• Lucy: instructor, African-American female,

graduate student, in-person interview.

• Gina: student, Caucasian female, in-person interview.

• John: student, Caucasian male, in-person interview.

• NJN: student, Caucasian female, email interview.

Peer Review Form• Invention• What is your classmate’s topic? What are the parts of the paper?• Next to each paragraph, write down a word or two that describes

the paragraph’s topic. You should have one topic per paragraph (except for your intro and conclusion)

• Arrangement• Is their arrangement effective? How would you re-organize the

sub-sections and/or paragraphs to make it more effect and why?

• Revision• What is their thesis? Is it clear? What suggestions would you

make to make the thesis stronger? Does the researcher explain why their sources are important and how it relates to the thesis/topic?

• Lucy, on the peer review format: • Earlier she has utilized the Writing Center

peer review form, which was a “good start”, but “I decided it was important to use some of the tools we’ve been using in class and require [the students] to articulate how those skills apply to the person’s paper…or analyses. So every single peer review they have to give an IARDS analysis…to prioritize invention, arrangement, and revision.”

• This peer review in particular was “a reflection of all the assignments we’ve been doing for this [paper].”

• NJN: I think the sheet attempted to analyze the essays well and I wouldn’t change it.

• John: [Lucy] definitely [tries to] makes sure we understood their paper.

• Uh, for the researcher I prefer more, I mean might as well, there’s a chance I could have missed something, for the reviewer I mean it’s more work. Especially you don’t really get too much out of it if you’re just strictly reviewing, so it wouldn’t really do too much for you, less work’s probably better if you’re not really getting anything out of it.

WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IS USED IN THE PEER REVIEWS?

How does the reviewer address the writer?How does the reviewer offer praise or suggest changes?

HOW DOES THE REVIEWER ADDRESS THE WRITER?

Nine of 14 reviewers do not include second-person pronouns.

• Laura to Stephen• A: The writer’s

arrangement is effective and works well w/the paper.

• Stephen to Laura• R: Their thesis is

that same sex marriage should be their choice. It is clear right away. No suggestions to make it stronger. She relates all sources to the thesis.

Five reviewers do not refer explicitly to the writer

• Daniel to Lisa• A: I liked the

arrangement. It flowed very well from one section to another.

• R: Some of the quotes were hard to find. Other then small grammatical and line spacing errors it was

put together nicely.• Peter to Nate• A: I would have the

history first then talk about the views on it then recent findings and advantages of stem cell research to show why it should be supported.

Maggie and NJNMaggie to NJN• A: I think the arrangement

is effective, putting this history first helps the reader understand the topic more

• R: Very clear and strong thesis that is supported throughout the paper.

NJN to Maggie:• A: I wouldn’t reorganize

anything, I think she organized the topics/paragraphs very well.

• R: It is clear what she’s going to talk about (benefits/drawbacks/ mass shootings) and somewhat analyzes sources. Maybe more analysis relating to quotes/thesis.

If the reviews aren’t written for the writer, who are they written for?

• According to NJN: “Many people fill out the peer review to fulfill the requirement. Not much time or effort is actually put into these…I believe they filled out the sheet just for the credit and wrote random comments here and there to make it look like they were doing something…I feel mostly for the professor because if we were not required to fill those out, most groups would not have done so.

• John wrote his peer review for “the person who wrote the paper? I mean, I was pretty much talking to them, in my writings, ‘Oh, you need to do this, you need to do that.’ I don’t think anyone else would bother to read that. Just the person who wrote the essay.”

• John’s review for Peter: – R: Clear thesis.– 2nd body paragraph doesn’t really relate to

thesis. All the talk about US having the highest BAC level.

– Overall try to tie each body paragraph back to your thesis a bit better.

WHAT LANGUAGE DO REVIEWERS USE TO OFFER PRAISE OR SUGGEST CHANGES?

Language used to praise/support

• One review does not offer praise.

• In 13 reviews: – “good” x 8– “clear” x 7– “like/d” x 5 – “strong/ly” x 5– “effective/ly” x 5

– “well” x 2– “relates” and

“relevant” x 1 each

– “helps” x 1– “nicely” x 1

Language used to suggest changes

• Four reviews do not suggest changes• More variation in language used to

suggest changes than to offer praise.• “Try” x 3, “maybe” x 3, “should” x 2,

“more” x 3, “add” x 2, “relate” x 2, “need” x 1, “would” x 1, “could” x 1.

HOW DO THE PARTICIPANTS FEEL ABOUT THE ACTIVITY?

• [Q: Did you feel what you wrote in this peer review reflects your honest thoughts on your partner’s piece?]

• NJN: No, I don’t. No one wants to rip apart their partners paper just because he/she may feel it should be written differently. Of course grammatical errors should be corrected and spelling or word choice but beyond that I believe it’s solely up to the writer to proclaim their thoughts in whichever manner they choose. It may not be how the reviewer would have done it, but that’s the beauty of writing…various ideas and topics can be collaborated and presented in countless ways.

• [Q: Did you feel what you wrote in this peer review reflects your honest thoughts on your partner’s piece?]

• Gina: Yeah…at the beginning we didn’t know each other, it was sort of awkward, but now …we all know each other, we’ve been around each other this whole time, so it’s really easy to express all your opinions, and I don’t sugarcoat my opinions during class…”

• John: I think that I might have sugarcoated it? But I definitely made my point clear…instead of saying “this is completely useless” I’d be like “I don’t see how this relates to the topic.”

Benefits of being reviewed--NJN

• I felt it was helpful, but all in all the paper you write is chosen based on the way in which you wish to present it. People’s comments may help, but most of them are so the professor sees you participated. Beyond that I truly think only the writer impacts his/her paper and not comments from their classmates.

Benefits of being reviewed--Gina• I like it, like you get different people’s opinions on

how your paper sounds, and like what you should change about it, and it’s not just like one person, like you and another person, you have like a group of people, so they each read your paper and edit it the way that they think it should be, so it’s a wide variety of changes.

• [The reviewer] make[s] sure like I didn’t skip any mistakes and if my grammar’s correct, if it flows; like, I can read it and I’ll be like “oh yeah that sounds fine” but somebody else may be like, “oh this is really choppy, change it like around,” so it’s like a different view of your paper.

Benefits of being reviewed--John• John: It’s just what I knew, pretty much. I def, like,

mine wasn’t a finished paper, I knew what I needed to work on, rearranging, stronger points, make it overall a better essay, and he told me that. He reassured what I was thinking, but I guess like, I could have came to that conclusion myself.

• [When] I wrote my paper, I kinda know my strengths and weaknesses of the paper, I guess there’s a chance I was thinking something was really good and I was, didn’t understand what I was writing? But normally if someone tells me some part of my paper was really bad I already know that.

Benefits of being reviewed--Lucy

• They can have an intimate conversation about their papers, um, and so I asked them to do this IARDS analysis…they’re…determining, you know, what it’s about, what the topic is, what the topics are, what the revision or what the purpose is of the author. So that was my goal.

Benefits of doing a review--Lucy

• I think that they can feel comfortable reading and analyzing the paper then they can become stronger writers.

• I want them to criticize anything that comes their way, any type of media that comes their way, whether it’s text,whether it’s an article, whether it’s, so I’m trying to set them up not just for their classroom but for their lives.

• I want them to understand RAIDS because if they understand RAIDS they’ll understand what analysis is [and] definitely understand what revision it.

Benefits of doing a review--NJN

• I hope to take some of the ideas I gave him/her and relate them to my own paper. Maybe even recognize mistakes he/she made and ask myself if I made similar errors. I feel as if for a lot of the time I don’t focus heavily on peer reviews solely because I’m stubborn about my papers and don’t typically listen to peer reviews.

Benefits of doing a review--John

• [Q: Do you see a benefit in completing a peer review for someone?] Reading someone else’s writing? In general I’ll say no? I feel like a lot of times a lot of people in your class have around the same level of writing that you’re in, definitely reading does improve your writing skill, read like a philosophical book it’s gonna increase how you write, but someone else’s? Unlikely. Especially in like a first-level college class, I don’t think you’ll find anything just amazing. Kinda just bland.

Benefits of doing a review--Gina

• Well I like to see other people’s ideas and how they write it, how it flows in their minds, like it’s different than how I see it, and also learn more, cause we did the research projects, so like we reviewed other people’s papers and I learned about different topics, so it’s nice to do that too, and it’s to practice my grammar and stuff, just like checking and everything.

Discussion• Lucy and these three students have

different understandings of what the peer review activity does.

• Farthest from the intended purpose, some students (NJN in particular) see the activity as performance, something required for a grade, and as not useful either as writer or researcher.

Discussion• Closer to the intended purpose, but still

at odds, is the view of the peer review as a check for lower-order concerns. Gina, John, and NJN rarely refer to larger issues like analysis in their discussions.

• John and NJN also see themselves as aware of their writing and believe that their peer reviews rarely tell them something they don’t already know about their paper’s weaknesses.

Discussion• From this data we can begin to see

how the students understand and perceive the benefits they receive.

• Analysis of their drafts and future writing might potentially shed light on whether they are or are not receiving the benefits the peer review activity is intended to confer.