Peer Review Reviewed

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While long a staple of the composition classroom, the recent Composition Conversation on peer review revealed a range of opinions about when and how it should be incorporated, as well as what it brought to the classroom. For example, ENGL 101 and 102 instructors saw peer response as an essential part of invention. One instructor described how students would give oral presentations on their research topics and arguments early in the research process. The resulting discussion would help writers focus their research and anticipate counter-claims and the rest of the class would benefit as well from the opportunity to learn about other people’s interests and thinking.

This initial discussion focused attention on the key benefits of peer response:

1. Writers benefit from early intervention in the process.
2. Readers benefit from exposure to other ways of thinking.
3. All benefit from being part of a community of writers and readers.

These benefits also, of course, define the composition classroom. The differences that emerged in discussion can be traced to whether one emphasizes the benefit to the writer or whether one emphasizes the benefit to the reader and community.
Out of the discussion emerged the following common concerns.

When? All agreed that early intervention was best, but most participants also believed that peer review prior to students receiving their first instructor-commented paper was “meaningless.”

How many? Pairs or groups of three were the most common configurations for peer review. Some instructors created peer review groups based on common essay topics, while some attempted to group students with a range of abilities (“low” student with a “high” student and so on). Some instructors preferred to let students find their own partners or groups, perhaps only asking students to work with different partners later.

How often? In general, most agreed that peer review or some kind of peer response should be part of every assignment. Instructors might try different kinds of peer response throughout the quarter. Students might peer review in pairs on an early assignment. They might later work in small groups with peer review worksheets. Later they might work in small groups with scoring guides.

How involved? On this question there was the greatest variation. While students might be familiar with the idea of peer review and even comfortable with it, they still need direction and guidance. Minimally, everyone agreed that instructors needed to communicate “ground rules” prior to peer review: what kinds of response were appropriate and what were inappropriate. Some instructors gave students written instructions for peer review during a prior class meeting. Others “trained” students to become better reviewers by having students look at sample essays and providing them with “tutor” training materials. Most used worksheets to focus the responses of reviewers. Some tailored peer review worksheets to specific assignments, while others used generic worksheets that focused the reviewer on rhetorical questions.

Eventually, two key questions emerged. How much control should an instructor exert over the peer review process? And what do we as instructors hope to realize from peer review? Unsurprisingly, the answer to the second question helps to determine how one answers the first.

Core Questions to Consider about Peer Review

• What do I think is most important about peer review? The quality of feedback the writer receives? Or the conversation about writing and the topic that might emerge?
• How much control do I want to exert over the process? Do I want to dictate who works with whom? Do I want to specify in detail what reviewers are supposed to do?
• How much am I willing to trust the reviewers? Do I feel the need to “train” them as reviewers? Do I feel the need to review their comments?

Staying Focused on Peer Review

In general, instructors felt that peer review should be a regular part of the composition classroom, but some noted how then it risked becoming routine. Instructors mentioned the following strategies for keeping students committed to peer review:

• If peer review is the last activity of the day, make sure students know that no one will be allowed to leave early.
• Tell students that if they finish early, they can use the remaining time to begin revising their essays.
• Have students vote on their favorite peer reviewer for the quarter.

Peer Review and Scoring Guides

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Scoring guides can ensure consistency in grading practices and transparency in the grading process by serving as a shared understanding of both the requirements of an assignment and the expectations of the instructor. Made available to students early in the term the scoring guide helps students understand what is expected of them and how they will be evaluated. But a scoring guide is not merely a convenience for students and teachers. It represents the expectations of the discourse community towards which students are moving. True members don’t merely join, they define what it means to belong.

While we might want to believe that once we distribute the scoring guide for a course and perhaps discuss it in class, students will know what to expect and perform accordingly, the reality is very different. As experienced writing teachers know, inexperienced writers (and sometimes experienced writers too!) often struggle to see problems in their own writing, though, they are usually able to see the same problems in other people’s writing.

This inability to see the log in our own eye is the basis for peer review and forms the foundation for an effective class activity that uses small groups to peer review essays, an activity commonly known as read around groups, or RAGs. The innovation is that the peer review groups are first subjected to the “norming” process familiar to holistic scorers and then are asked to score or grade the anonymous essays that they read. Here’s an overview of the process:

1. On the first day, students are “normed” using the scoring guide and sample essays that represent the range of the scoring guide.
2. On the second day, students are placed in small groups (three or four students per group).
3. Each group collects the essay drafts written by the group members and passes them to another group.
4. Each group member then reads each essay and assigns it a score or grade based on the scoring guide. Each group member is also encouraged to take brief notes that justify the score or grade assigned.
5. When each member in the group has read each essay, the group discusses each essay and the score or grade it should be given.
6. After the score or grade has been assigned, the group passes its essays to the next group, receives a new set of essays, and repeats steps 3 and 4.
   

This combined peer review/scoring guide “norming” activity usually requires parts of two class periods and many variations are possible. Students might be asked to bring multiple copies of their draft to facilitate group reading. The groups might read the essays aloud. Group scores and comments might be recorded and returned to the writer. Instead of scoring or grading, the group might vote on the best essay in each set, justifying their choice by referring to specific language in the scoring guide.

While students might focus on the voting and scoring, as any participant in holistic scoring knows the real benefit is the discussion of how writing is valued. The scoring guide provides students with language to talk about what makes writing interesting and effective. As they apply this language to the writing of others, the silent work of incorporation moves them closer to the academic discourse community.


What is a RAG?
A Read-Around Group (RAG) is a small-group activity commonly used in composition classes. Students in small groups read and respond to drafts of one another’s essays. Besides gaining feedback on their own writing, students gain insight into the assignment and learn useful strategies from other writers.

Helpful Hints

• Have students identify their papers with their initials or a code instead of with their name.
  
• Have each group select a group member to serve as note-taker.
  
• Give the groups a specific task to perform; don’t overload them with multiple tasks.
  
• Set time limits for the reading and stick to them.
  
• Consider having the groups read the papers aloud. (You will need to plan for the added noise.)
  
• Consider how comfortable you are with having students score, grade, or select the best paper. If you are uncomfortable with these tasks, consider having students select papers that best exemplify specific criteria in the scoring guide.
  
• Be sure to allow enough time for a whole class discussion.