Peer Review of Student Writing - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Peer Review of Student Writing

Undergraduate Studies Writing Office

Instructor Workshop

September 30, 2009Slide2

Goals for Today

Review the research on peer review as an instructional method.

Describe different methods of peer review.

Consider ways to implement peer review methods in your class.Slide3

The Peer Review Requirement

According to the criteria set by the Faculty Council, students in Writing Flag courses must have an opportunity “to read each other’s work in order to offer constructive criticism.”

—

Document 5155-5163

of the General Faculty.

Slide4

Why is Peer Review Required?

Students can learn a great deal from seeing how their fellows approach the same writing problems they have tackled.

Reading someone else’s work gives students a sharper eye for nuance, potential

misreadings

, and mechanical flaws, helping them see their own writing through others’ eyes.

Peer feedback can convince a student to take an instructors’ comments more seriously. If, for example, two or three peers agree with the instructor that an explanation is unclear, the student is less able to rationalize criticism as coming from “a really picky professor.”Slide5

Research on the Effectiveness of Peer Review

Patchan

et al. (2009) found that, with guidance (a rubric and incentive to take the task seriously), students can provide feedback similar in both quantity and quality to that of instructors.

Monroe and

Troia

, (2006) establish that collaborative writing helps students develop higher standards for writing and better self-assessment skills.

Lundstrom

and Baker (2009) found that students who gave feedback improved their writing more than those who only received peer feedback. Students with the poorest writing skills improved the most. Slide6

The usefulness of peer review depends upon the instructions and guidance you give students

.

Show students how to give good feedback. Modeling it will help them give good feedback themselves.

Have them refer to the

evaluative criteria for the project.

Push for specificity.

Ask them

to

refer directly to the text as they critique.

Where

did the reasoning seem sloppy?

Which

examples were unconvincing?

Show

students how to provide feedback

supportively, focusing

on what would improve the document

. Be gracious when giving or receiving feedback yourself. Slide7

Some Options

for Peer Review

Peer review may be response-centered, with peers simply describing their reactions to the writing (“I was confused here,” “This description doesn’t make sense,”), or advice-centered, recommending specific changes (“Focus more on how the controversy played out in the press,” “Explain why Chu’s opinion is the one we ought to be concerned with”). You can ask students to do either or both

.

In all cases, students should have guidelines for the review process.

Have two or more students

exchange of

drafts,

read them, and write reviews of them informed by a rubric or set of questions.

Have students read

drafts

aloud to one another, and discuss them in small groups.

Have students respond

to

one another’s work in online forums.

Analyze a student paper as a class via overhead projection.

Meet with small groups of students to discuss and revise papers.

Use

Blackboard’s Discussion Board to share and comment on

papers.Slide8

Sample Peer Review Guidelines

Seth Kahn, Director of Composition at West Chester University, gives students the following instructions for peer review:

While reading your classmate’s draft,

Find at least five or six places you want information/details you’re not getting, and ask for them as specifically as possible;

Mark the center of gravity in the narrative, whatever you think is the most interesting or important part of the story; and

Mark the passage where you like the writing best, and try to explain in a sentence or two what you like about it.

Kahn

then follows up with in class revision sessions where students address peers’ responses. This method focuses students on ideas, requires them to use specific language, and provides some structure for the revision that should follow peer review.Slide9

Privacy Issues

Please

note that that peer review

does not violate

FERPA privacy protections for students. UT’s Legal Affairs Office states that peer teaching is explicitly allowed under

FERPA

(

t

he

Supreme Court has held that even peer grading is allowed under FERPA

protections).

If your class includes assignments that may be very personal in nature,

warn students ahead of time that they will be sharing their work with their peers.Slide10

Additional Resources

University of Hawaii-

Manoa

Writing Program: Peer Review

Forms http

://www.mwp.hawaii.edu/resources/wm7.htm

Undergraduate Studies Writing Program: Peer

Feedback

http

://www.utexas.edu/ugs/teaching/writing/Slide11

References

Bean, John C.

Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom.

San Francisco:

Jossey

-Bass, 2001.

Kahn, Seth. “Re: Best practices in hard times.” Email to Writing Program Administrators Listserv. 28 Jan. 2009.

Lundstrum

, K, and Baker, W. (2009) “To give is better than to receive: The benefits of peer review to the reviewers’ own writing.”

Journal of Second Language Writing

, 18(1), 30-43.

Monroe, B.W., &

Troia

, G.A. (2006) Teaching writing strategies to middle school students with disabilities.

Journal of Educational Research, 100,

2006, 21-33.

Patchan

, M. M.,

Charney

, D., &

Schunn

, C. D. (2009). A validation study of students’ end comments: Comparing comments by students, a writing instructor, and a content instructor.

Journal of Writing Research, 1 (2), 124-152.