teaching with writing
creating
effective peer response workshops
Pamela Flash
Peer collaboration
has become a standard feature of writing pedagogy and is used successfully
in writing and writing-enhanced courses across the curriculum. Peer
response workshops (activities in which peers read and comment on each
other's drafts or ideas) enable students to get quick, direct and timely
feedback on their works-in-progress. These workshops may involve pairs
of students or groups of up to five; might take place in class, outside
class, or online; and can take anywhere from five minutes to over an
hour.
In
courses where the primary instructional focus is not
on writing, instructors may question whether the benefits of
peer collaboration are worth the time and planning it requires.
The following is intended to help these instructors to make
informed decisions about whether or not to include peer workshop
activity in their courses.
What
do student writers get from effectively run peer response workshops?
- Opportunities
to improve drafts before it's too late: When "big picture" responses are given early enough,
before drafts are "set," student writers are more likely to make substantial
changes in their drafts. The questions and comments with which peers respond
to initial ideas or sequences of ideas can prod a writer to deepen her/his
approach to a subject, or to anticipate reader questions and therefore
incorporate answers. Later in
the process, after student writers have struggled to complete an entire
draft and set their ideas into a pattern of paragraphs, they may feel
reticent about cutting or radically altering the work they consider almost finished.
- An
expanded idea of audience: Getting
and giving feedback in a small group setting enables student writers
to enlarge their concept of readership. Prior to this process, they
may have written with the idea that their only reader was the course
instructor. Hearing comments
from a variety of readers with diverse, and perhaps contradictory, reactions
makes writers realize that they can't please everyone and that
they're going to need to revisit their original ideas of content and
purpose in order to make revision decisions. In this way, workshopping
can settle the responsibility of the writing and revision process back
onto the shoulders of the writer. This is different from simply "making
corrections" suggested by an instructor.
- Practice
in reading for revision: Reading and subsequently talking constructively
to a group of peer writers about writing can strengthen students' independent
ability to read for revision. In
the peer workshop, students practice making constructive comments that
are directed at writing rather than at writers, a distinction that can help depersonalize the process and
increase the usefulness of feedback comments. In addition, student writers are often relieved to get away from
their own drafts for a moment in order to see how others are handling
the assignment. Because they
are not emotionally invested in a peer's work (work that they did not
have to struggle to produce), student writers are often able to see and
articulate big-picture revisions more clearly.
At the same time, they might be able to reflect on the applicability
of these comments to their own drafts.
- Enhanced
communication skills: Talking with peers about their work can strengthen students' ability
to articulate specific reactions and suggestions. We know that negotiating a revision suggestion with our own colleagues
can require a tricky balance of tact and clarity. In successful student workshops, when it is made clear that "good
job!" and "this is perfect as is!" will not be considered satisfactory
remarks, students will develop speaking skills that they'll find useful
in future scholarly and professional endeavors.
- Increased
confidence: Students frequently start a course confident in their
assumption that writing done by classmates is much better than their own writing. When they see their peers' first
drafts and realize that drafts don't have to be perfect and that those
written by their peers look pretty similar to their own, they see that
it is safe to loosen up and take risks in developing ideas. In
addition, because they are able to act on their peers' feedback prior
to turning a draft over to an instructor, they have had a chance
to improve that second draft and are able to feel less vulnerable to "attack."
What
do instructors get from effectively run peer response workshops?
-
Better
writing and more time. Because students will have already been
through one round of guided response and have subsequently revised
their work, the drafts instructors see will, in all likelihood, be
more thoroughly developed and organized. This will leave instructors
free to address such higher-order issues as idea development and direction.
-
High
levels of student engagement. Whether the workshops last
five minutes or fifty, excitement is generated by participating
in an activity involving simultaneous conversations about writing. Students
hold each other accountable and are therefore offered incentives
to invest themselves in their writing.
-
High
evaluation ratings. Students recognize the value of effectively
conducted peer workshops.
What are the potential
drawbacks of using peer response workshops?
-
Successful
peer workshops require careful pre-class planning. Inadequate
structure and an absence of modeling can cause groups to flounder,
wasting valuable class time.
-
Peer
response requires class time. Whether instructors follow a five-minute
pair model or a full-period group workshop model, class time is used
to discuss the ways in which students are articulating course ideas
in writing.
-
Peer workshops are student-centered; instructors need to temporarily
remove themselves from the center of attention. In order to succeed,
the workshopping process should allow groups or pairs to work independently.
Student writers will depend on each other to give useful responses
if they are able to run their discussions without unnecessary intervention. Otherwise,
they will likely resent the group process and divest from it.
-
Some
of our best students (like some of our best instructors) are convinced
that they work most effectively on their own, and may resent having
to collaborate. Generally speaking, the academic world rewards
independent work. Often, strong students have been praised for their
self-sufficiency, and feel capable of completing assignments on their
own. These students may initially feel, therefore, that the peer
workshop is not going to offer them anything they couldn't do better
on their own. Once they participate in detailed workshop activity,
however, these students often recognize the value of receiving diverse
responses to their work.
-
Participants may harbor negative
attitudes based on prior experience with unsuccessful groups.
Both students and instructors have war stories about badly run groups.
These experiences can, understandably, interfere with students' willingness
to re-engage in the process. Allowing students to voice their reservations
early in the semester, when instructors give their rationale for
using the technique, should help to clarify the ways in which upcoming
workshops will differ from those of their past.
How
do peer workshops work?
Students
Editing/proofreading
stage:
5. Peers focus on specific stylistic/grammatical/format issues.
6.
Students turn in final draft with all other drafts and cover
letter.
- Include
description of draft systems and workshop procedures (with brief
rationale) in syllabi.
- When
creating course schedules, block out time for major peer response
workshop(s) and time to discuss, model, and assess the process.
- Develop
peer review guidelines (samples)
for each assignment that is to involve peer response and put these
guidelines into handouts and/or on overhead transparencies.
- Organize
groups.
-
Overview
workshop procedure
and rationale.
-
Go
over response guidelines in class.
-
Model
response using guidelines and examples of student drafts. (Instructors
will need to obtain student
releases for these.)
-
Provide
opportunities for peer groups to debrief
and assess.
How
long does all this take?
In
5-10 minutes, any of the following can be discussed in pairs:
In
20 minutes, any of the following can be discussed in groups of three
or four:
-
Topics
- Theses,
claims, or hypotheses
- Sequences
of ideas
- Target
audiences and rationales
- Supporting/countering
arguments
In
20-40 minutes:
- Conduct
a "read-around" on a part or entire short assignment. (In
a read-around, students bring two copies of a section of a draft—a
proposal, a lead, an annotated bibliography, etc. All sets of
copies are placed on a table so that participants can pick one
up, write brief comments, return it to the table, and take another
draft at their own pace.)
50+ minutes (with out-of-class reading)
- Full
essay peer-group conferences, using guidelines.
What
will make peer response workshops fail?
- No response guidelines are provided. Peer response
groups do not work automatically. If specific focus points are
not provided in advance, students will likely feel that they
are being asked to comment on how much they like the draft and/or
how they feel about the person who wrote it. "Good Job!" or "Nice!" are
often the most frequently voiced comments in these situations,
augmented only by an occasional, "You might want to run spell
check," or "You might want to put a period at the end of your
third sentence." After that, there's nothing to do but chat or
reach for cell phones and PDAs. To prevent cursory treatment, provide guidelines that give students concrete
aspects to look for ("Star what you take to be the thesis") and questions
that guide their response ("Which of our established criteria does the
thesis meet?") Make sure that there is a clear connection between the items
on this guideline list and the criteria you use to grade their final drafts.
Also, consider standardizing your procedure. You can outline the "steps" and
designate time allotments for each on an overhead transparency or on the
board.
- Too many guidelines are provided.
Overly-ambitious guideline sheets can overwhelm student readers
and can result in their spending too much out-of-class time preparing
for groups and too much in-class time talking about a single
draft. This, in turn, can result in a group of paralyzed writers
who are unable to prioritize the points on their revision plans.
Recursive assignments that start with a few target guidelines
and then build during the semester allow students to become more
comfortable and skilled with the process as more items are added.
- No models are provided. Again, students may
never have seen an effective peer response workshop. Show them
how it's done by slapping a student draft on the overhead projector
and modeling comments of the sort you would like to see them
making. To build a stockpile of usable drafts, create a standardized
release form that can be signed by student authors at the conclusion
of a course.
- Uneven attendance or lack of preparation by some students. Usually
these problems arise when neither credit nor accountability
are worked into the procedure. Given their busy lives and massive
to-do lists, students usually make clear distinctions between
those activities and assignments that carry credit and those
items they are expected to do for no credit. Counting "participation
in the workshop process" as part of students' final course grade
may motivate them to read the drafts more thoughtfully and give
constructive classes. Because instructors are not part of the
peer groups, however, it is advisable to provide opportunities
for each peer group member to briefly assess the usefulness of
their peers' feedback. Consider asking students to use a check,
check minus, check plus system for this and include it with a
cover letter that is attached to their final draft. Also, collecting
all copies of workshopped drafts when final drafts are turned
in allows you to monitor the types of comments students are making.
- Insufficient time is allotted. If students
aren't given adequate time to read peer work with guidelines
and discuss the draft and comments, they will be sorely tempted
to return to the "good job" comments. Students should allow approximately
30 minutes to read and comment on each four-page draft. In class,
if groups of four are workshopping full drafts, they should be
allowed at least 50 minutes to discuss comments they've prepared
for each peer draft--that gives each student a little over ten
minutes to hear comments on their drafts.
- All assignments are designed with instructor as only
audience. One of students' chief complaints about
peer response workshops is that they are pointless. ("Why should
we have other students respond to our writing," they might
reason, "when the instructor created not only the assignment
but also the grading criteria, and both are based on said instructor's
subjective and idiosyncratic scale of likes and dislikes?")
Designating different audiences for assignments can allow for
more authentic student response. Try creating an assignment
whose primary audience is members of the peer group. Other
assignments can be directed at specific publications, the campus
newspapers for example. Proposals can be targeted toward funding
sources. Arguments can be directed toward hypothetical groups
of readers who are invested in the opposing view, and so forth.
- Students feel uncomfortable in their role of respondent.
- Instructor is uncomfortable "stepping back." As
with any cooperative learning venture, interdependence needs
to be built into the activity—students need to rely on each other
to give formative feedback that will enable them to make necessary
changes. A hovering instructor, or a variety of instructor interruptions,
can damage the group's autonomy and may cause students to feel
that the peer response process is merely an unnecessary hoop
the instructor is forcing them to jump through before s/he gives
the "real" feedback.
- Students have only one chance to make workshops work. Long
before they hit your class, most of your students will have already
experienced some form of the peer workshop and will have therefore
formed opinions about how well they do or don't work. It often
takes one full go-round with the procedure you are initiating
to allow them to see how well they can work in your class. The
second time they won't need to be convinced.
- Peer response workshops are assigned by an instructor who doesn't believe
they are worthwhile.
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