Peer Review Letter Exchange

	Ways We Teach Collaboratively From the University of Central Arkansas Department of Writing

Our Collaborations Panel Grading Peer Review Letter Exchange Contact Us Sophie Bradford sophieb@uca.edu Jennifer Deering jdeering@uca.edu Lisa Mongno lmongno@uca.edu Resources Due Dates Fall '07 Due Dates Spring '08	Peer Reviewers On This Page Introduction Rationale Method Prompts Instruction Letter Introduction Peer review can seem like a great waste of class time. Often, students see in-class peer review days as a chance to discuss last night’s terrific party, or who broke up with whom, or who did poorly on the chemistry test, or even as a lovely and convenient opportunity to take a surreptitious nap. But the most significant impact of a wasted in-class peer review session is when students give each other ill-conceived and/or confusing advice—all within a fifty minute class period. Why, then, even bother having students peer review each other's papers? Because at its best, peer review can allow students to find out that they are not alone with their writing difficulties and anxieties and to build a vocabulary for discussing writing with a “real” audience. Peer review groups can also motivate each other to revise and be more aware of their use of language, and these groups can increase the sense of community in the classroom and promote active learning. Taking the basic principles of what a good peer review session should be, our small group of faculty collaborated to devise a system that extends the traditional in-class peer review structure: our students write letters to writers in other classes. Rationale Collaboration. What prompted us to think about student-to-student collaboration in the first place is the importance of collaboration in our own lives as teachers and writers. We want students to experience collaborating on a real document that provides real advice to real students. We have formulated some guidelines for our form of peer review. Our guidelines help students who seem to have trouble coming up with something to say, which may be a sign that they're not reading as reviewers yet, just as peers. The questions we ask on the guidelines are also open-ended and ask the audience to describe as well as to suggest. Furthermore, peer review letter writing slows the students down. Reviewers are also constructing their own piece of writing, which allows for more thoughtful and considerate responses. We wanted to be sure that writers were having a "talk" to the peer reviewers, mainly because this is part of the reflective thinking they need to be doing. In Radical Equations, Robert P. Moses suggests that we learn by doing something, reflecting on what went wrong and what went right, coming up with adjustments, and trying it again. We ask that writers ask peer reviewers to look at and comment on specific things, which forces the peer reviewers to reflect more deeply on what they’re reading rather than make the casual, flippant, and general comments they often do. Flattery. We all like to get personal letters. At a very basic level receiving a lengthy response to something that you've written is flattering—it’s nice to indulge in a bit of ego stroking now and again. Indeed, we make sure our peer reviewers start on a positive note even if they recognize that the writing isn’t particularly strong. If student writers have a positive feeling about their writing, we think they are more likely to play with and revise that writing. And as an inadvertent but important consequence of writing on a positive note, peer reviewers learn to write persuasively in a real world situation. They are genuinely trying to persuade a reader to change something. Objectivity. Why have students from different professors' classes peer review each other's papers? In short, objectivity. Psychologically, we believe most people are more likely to be "critical" with people they don't know. But objective, anonymous peer reviewing also builds a shared sense of what writing is between students, more so than within a classroom setting. Students are more likely to be less serious about peer review if they are familiar with each other—this is where the discussion of last night’s party rears its head. Thinking Critically. As teachers we often rely on text book readings to help students understand concepts. However, “perfect” essays by professional writers are not necessarily essays students relate to; in fact, students are often fearful of this near perfect writing. And that’s the problem: text book texts are almost faultless in terms of writing. Generally, text books don’t ask students to examine the writers’ writing. Students who examine their peers’ essays, however, that are a mixture of different ideas and different levels of writing ability can reinforce students’ understanding of their own texts—not only the ideas students present but also the level of writing ability. Furthermore, examining the texts of their peers really helps students better understand audience and purpose—no assignment can force that issue. Method We allocate a week to complete the peer review process. We collect our students’ papers, meet to swap our papers, and redistribute the collected papers to our students. The time of a class is not really an issue, but the number of students in a class is. We swap with whichever instructor has the closest number of students compared to our own. Students spend a class period making notes about a writer’s paper or even getting started with their peer review letters. We do not allow students to take papers out of the classroom in case they fail to return them. A lone paper floating around on its own is a perfect opportunity for an unscrupulous student to plagiarize. Also, many students invariably forget to save their drafts before printing them out. We have learned that students are often unreliable in writing peer review letters, so we track students’ “reliability,” assigning copies of papers already being reviewed by someone more reliable to those reviewers who have not "come through" in the past. We collect the typed, full-page single-spaced peer review letters the next class meeting. It's probably a good idea to have students turn in two copies: one for you to grade and one for the student writer. Peer reviews must be typed and at least a single-spaced page long—fluff is not acceptable. (We use guidelines for every peer review). Peer reviews are graded by the instructor. We recommend that they count for a significant portion of the grade and that it is clear students will be graded on quality and not on completion points. We do not allow late peer reviews because writers are restricted in revision time. Peer reviews (unlike other writing) cannot be revised because they are needed before the writers begin revising and, therefore, have a short shelf-life. We, then, distribute the peer review letters to our students. Prompts Sum up what the writer has said in one sentence. If you can’t, why can’t you? Do you think this writer has satisfied the minimum requirements for a college paper? Audience Who do you think is the audience for this paper? Is the writer assuming her or his readers will automatically agree with her or him? Is the writer making assumptions about one reader instead of many? Has the writer said anything that offends you? Do you have trouble reading the piece because you feel uninterested? Has the writer written to the appropriate audience for the purpose of the piece? Purpose What do you think is the writer’s purpose? What does the writer seem to want readers to do or think after reading the piece? Introduction Look at the title, the introduction, and the thesis statement (the paper’s central idea or main point). Does the title and “hook” really work to engage your attention? Can you identify a controlling idea (a thesis statement)? If not, are there possibilities in the paper that you could identify as theme-worthy? What specific changes to the introduction would you suggest? Body Do the writer’s ideas flow well—are they unified, coherent, well-developed—from beginning to end? How so? How not? Does the topic sentence keep the paragraph unified? Or do other, unrelated ideas creep into the paragraph? What could the writer do to improve structure or development? Are there parts of the paper when you feel like the writer has just stuck something in to satisfy length requirements and did not fully develop the thought? Are there spots where the writer says too much—specifics that seem unrelated to the main idea and feel like rambling? Are there any spots where the writing says something that interests you but stops short, not saying enough? What specific changes to the body paragraphs would you suggest? Support Think about how the writer supports her or his ideas. Are you ever left wondering things like “Well, how is that so?” or “How do you know?” or “What do you mean?” Where does the writer leave you confused? Are there any places where you have to stop and think about meaning? Where you wonder if you read something correctly? Where you have to get meaning from your own understanding and not from what the writer explicitly said? Are there any spots where the writing says something that interests you but stops short, not saying enough? If the writer states something as fact, does she or he back it up with evidence? Is the evidence appropriate—does it assure you that what the writer is saying is trustworthy? Voice Can you feel the presence of the writer? Is the writer’s persona trustworthy, credible, well-informed, thoughtful, and fair? Does the writer’s voice strive to be plain and clear while retaining the engaging quality of a person who is enthusiastic about the subject? How so? How not? When you read the paper, do you ever feel like you just stepped into the middle of a conversation and felt like someone needed to fill you in on the details? Are there parts of the paper where the writer moves from a more formal voice to a more casual voice? Are there places where the tone stands out as inappropriate? Research If there is research, examine the writer’s use of it to support his or her ideas. Evaluate the writer’s reliance on sources, integration of quotations, and other evidence. Is there adequate support for the writer’s ideas and claims? Or has the writer relied too much on expert opinion (or his or her own personal experience, which makes the piece too personal and hard to relate to)—is the paper a “patchwork” of other people’s views. Is the research appropriate? Does it really back up the writer’s ideas or is it simply thrown in because x number of quotes were required? Do the sources, perhaps, seem biased? Does the research assure you that what the writer is saying is trustworthy? What can be added or changed in terms of research? What needs work? Grammar, punctuation, mechanics Do you find yourself distracted by grammatical, punctuation, or mechanical errors? If there is a consistent error (for instance, problems with comma splices), point it out. Are sentences too long, too choppy? Does the writer use transitions? Does the writer vary punctuation? Conclusion How might the conclusion more effectively bring completeness or closure to the paper? Does the writer synthesize (bring together her or his ideas into a meaningful whole) or just summarize the main idea? Or does the paper just stop? Does the writer try to bring in new ideas that should have been developed in the body instead? Does the writer make one final push toward the purpose? Assessment Finally, what did you learn from this essay that you did not know before? Ask questions if needed. Comment on either the ideas or on the writing strategies used by the writer. Instruction Letter Dear Students: Here we are, all sitting in our desks with new notebooks but old ideas about how this class will progress. You’ve all had English classes, and for many, knowing what to expect is a source of comfort. Here’s the usual scenario: Student writes paper Teacher grades paper Student, if lucky, is allowed to revise paper for a higher grade. Guess what? I’ve spent a good portion of my summer thinking of ways to improve that model, ways that will better serve you and prepare you to go into your upper level and major classes ready to dazzle your professors with papers that “pop” (okay, I also spent part of my summer watching HGTV, so I’m borrowing some decorating lingo there). So here’s what I’ve decided, and I want you to know that I think it’s going to be much more effective than the above model has been: In order to focus on PROCESS, I’m going to add two extra components to the class: You’ll be writing letters to your peers about their papers, You’ll get letters about your papers from your peers, and After that, we’ll send your papers out of class to be graded by a panel of professors. Why? Well: here is my rationale in a nutshell. Letter writing is perhaps the most common form of writing that professionals do on a daily basis. Writing a good letter is a skill, and a must-have for today’s electronic world (letters sent via the net count). Furthermore, writing someone a letter about his/her paper gives you time to carefully consider how you want to say something to that writer, and imagine how you would respond to those words and expression. Conversely, you’ll get such a letter about your paper. You won’t know who wrote it: They may be a student in my other class, or even a student from another professor’s class. Like you, they will be getting class credit for writing the letter; because we’ll write letters for each major paper, you’ll only do three longer papers in my class. Three papers, three letters. Of course, with any piece of writing there are requirements: no fluff allowed! And to avoid the no fluff issue, I want your responses to be at least page, and don't forget that both the writer and I can grade your letter, so you really have two audiences. When you receive the letter about your paper, you’ll get to take it home with you. You’ll be able to reflect on it, to consider what it has to say and whether you agree with it. If you have questions about the letter or question the validity of some of the author’s points, I hope you’ll bring it by my office to discuss. Sometimes, I won’t agree with what they have to say (though I often do. You’ll use that letter to polish and revise your paper; re-vise, as in re-see, re-envision. Then, the paper will be resubmitted, this time to a panel of professors. It will come back to you with a grade. I’ve agreed to do this with my peers in order to assure you of objectivity. I’m also looking forward to being your coach, and helping you to improve and play with your papers. That’s another reason we’ll only do three; it should give you plenty of time to come by and see me, to tinker with sections you think are less effective, or to polish a piece to perfection. In order for me to be the best coach possible, I’ll need you to come by for conferences on your work. I can not stress enough: If you don’t understand a grade you’ve gotten from the panel, or if you disagree with it, please come by and see me immediately! I love to read your work and meet with you, but I also want you to have feedback from other sources as well. I look forward to working with you this term. You should consider me… Your coach and advocate, Lisa Mongno
All images and text copyright © Sophie Bradford and Jennifer Deering. All rights reserved.

Ways We Teach Collaboratively

From the University of Central Arkansas
Department of Writing

Our Collaborations

Panel Grading

Peer Review Letter Exchange

Sophie Bradford
sophieb@uca.edu

Jennifer Deering
jdeering@uca.edu

Lisa Mongno
lmongno@uca.edu

Resources

Due Dates Fall '07

Due Dates Spring '08

Peer Reviewers

On This Page

Introduction
Rationale
Method
Prompts
Instruction Letter

Introduction

Peer review can seem like a great waste of class time. Often, students see in-class peer review days as a chance to discuss last night’s terrific party, or who broke up with whom, or who did poorly on the chemistry test, or even as a lovely and convenient opportunity to take a surreptitious nap. But the most significant impact of a wasted in-class peer review session is when students give each other ill-conceived and/or confusing advice—all within a fifty minute class period. Why, then, even bother having students peer review each other's papers? Because at its best, peer review can allow students to find out that they are not alone with their writing difficulties and anxieties and to build a vocabulary for discussing writing with a “real” audience. Peer review groups can also motivate each other to revise and be more aware of their use of language, and these groups can increase the sense of community in the classroom and promote active learning.

Taking the basic principles of what a good peer review session should be, our small group of faculty collaborated to devise a system that extends the traditional in-class peer review structure: our students write letters to writers in other classes.

Rationale

Collaboration. What prompted us to think about student-to-student collaboration in the first place is the importance of collaboration in our own lives as teachers and writers. We want students to experience collaborating on a real document that provides real advice to real students.

We have formulated some guidelines for our form of peer review. Our guidelines help students who seem to have trouble coming up with something to say, which may be a sign that they're not reading as reviewers yet, just as peers. The questions we ask on the guidelines are also open-ended and ask the audience to describe as well as to suggest. Furthermore, peer review letter writing slows the students down. Reviewers are also constructing their own piece of writing, which allows for more thoughtful and considerate responses.

We wanted to be sure that writers were having a "talk" to the peer reviewers, mainly because this is part of the reflective thinking they need to be doing. In Radical Equations, Robert P. Moses suggests that we learn by doing something, reflecting on what went wrong and what went right, coming up with adjustments, and trying it again. We ask that writers ask peer reviewers to look at and comment on specific things, which forces the peer reviewers to reflect more deeply on what they’re reading rather than make the casual, flippant, and general comments they often do.

Flattery. We all like to get personal letters. At a very basic level receiving a lengthy response to something that you've written is flattering—it’s nice to indulge in a bit of ego stroking now and again. Indeed, we make sure our peer reviewers start on a positive note even if they recognize that the writing isn’t particularly strong. If student writers have a positive feeling about their writing, we think they are more likely to play with and revise that writing. And as an inadvertent but important consequence of writing on a positive note, peer reviewers learn to write persuasively in a real world situation. They are genuinely trying to persuade a reader to change something.
Objectivity. Why have students from different professors' classes peer review each other's papers? In short, objectivity. Psychologically, we believe most people are more likely to be "critical" with people they don't know. But objective, anonymous peer reviewing also builds a shared sense of what writing is between students, more so than within a classroom setting. Students are more likely to be less serious about peer review if they are familiar with each other—this is where the discussion of last night’s party rears its head.
Thinking Critically. As teachers we often rely on text book readings to help students understand concepts. However, “perfect” essays by professional writers are not necessarily essays students relate to; in fact, students are often fearful of this near perfect writing. And that’s the problem: text book texts are almost faultless in terms of writing. Generally, text books don’t ask students to examine the writers’ writing. Students who examine their peers’ essays, however, that are a mixture of different ideas and different levels of writing ability can reinforce students’ understanding of their own texts—not only the ideas students present but also the level of writing ability. Furthermore, examining the texts of their peers really helps students better understand audience and purpose—no assignment can force that issue.

Method

We allocate a week to complete the peer review process. We collect our students’ papers, meet to swap our papers, and redistribute the collected papers to our students.
The time of a class is not really an issue, but the number of students in a class is. We swap with whichever instructor has the closest number of students compared to our own.
Students spend a class period making notes about a writer’s paper or even getting started with their peer review letters.
We do not allow students to take papers out of the classroom in case they fail to return them. A lone paper floating around on its own is a perfect opportunity for an unscrupulous student to plagiarize. Also, many students invariably forget to save their drafts before printing them out.
We have learned that students are often unreliable in writing peer review letters, so we track students’ “reliability,” assigning copies of papers already being reviewed by someone more reliable to those reviewers who have not "come through" in the past.
We collect the typed, full-page single-spaced peer review letters the next class meeting. It's probably a good idea to have students turn in two copies: one for you to grade and one for the student writer.
Peer reviews must be typed and at least a single-spaced page long—fluff is not acceptable. (We use guidelines for every peer review).
Peer reviews are graded by the instructor. We recommend that they count for a significant portion of the grade and that it is clear students will be graded on quality and not on completion points.
We do not allow late peer reviews because writers are restricted in revision time.
Peer reviews (unlike other writing) cannot be revised because they are needed before the writers begin revising and, therefore, have a short shelf-life.
We, then, distribute the peer review letters to our students.

Prompts

Sum up what the writer has said in one sentence. If you can’t, why can’t you?

Do you think this writer has satisfied the minimum requirements for a college paper?

Audience
Who do you think is the audience for this paper? Is the writer assuming her or his readers will automatically agree with her or him? Is the writer making assumptions about one reader instead of many? Has the writer said anything that offends you? Do you have trouble reading the piece because you feel uninterested? Has the writer written to the appropriate audience for the purpose of the piece?

Purpose
What do you think is the writer’s purpose? What does the writer seem to want readers to do or think after reading the piece?

Introduction
Look at the title, the introduction, and the thesis statement (the paper’s central idea or main point). Does the title and “hook” really work to engage your attention? Can you identify a controlling idea (a thesis statement)? If not, are there possibilities in the paper that you could identify as theme-worthy? What specific changes to the introduction would you suggest?

Body
Do the writer’s ideas flow well—are they unified, coherent, well-developed—from beginning to end? How so? How not? Does the topic sentence keep the paragraph unified? Or do other, unrelated ideas creep into the paragraph? What could the writer do to improve structure or development? Are there parts of the paper when you feel like the writer has just stuck something in to satisfy length requirements and did not fully develop the thought? Are there spots where the writer says too much—specifics that seem unrelated to the main idea and feel like rambling? Are there any spots where the writing says something that interests you but stops short, not saying enough? What specific changes to the body paragraphs would you suggest?

Support
Think about how the writer supports her or his ideas. Are you ever left wondering things like “Well, how is that so?” or “How do you know?” or “What do you mean?” Where does the writer leave you confused? Are there any places where you have to stop and think about meaning? Where you wonder if you read something correctly? Where you have to get meaning from your own understanding and not from what the writer explicitly said? Are there any spots where the writing says something that interests you but stops short, not saying enough? If the writer states something as fact, does she or he back it up with evidence? Is the evidence appropriate—does it assure you that what the writer is saying is trustworthy?

Voice
Can you feel the presence of the writer? Is the writer’s persona trustworthy, credible, well-informed, thoughtful, and fair? Does the writer’s voice strive to be plain and clear while retaining the engaging quality of a person who is enthusiastic about the subject? How so? How not? When you read the paper, do you ever feel like you just stepped into the middle of a conversation and felt like someone needed to fill you in on the details? Are there parts of the paper where the writer moves from a more formal voice to a more casual voice? Are there places where the tone stands out as inappropriate?

Research
If there is research, examine the writer’s use of it to support his or her ideas. Evaluate the writer’s reliance on sources, integration of quotations, and other evidence. Is there adequate support for the writer’s ideas and claims? Or has the writer relied too much on expert opinion (or his or her own personal experience, which makes the piece too personal and hard to relate to)—is the paper a “patchwork” of other people’s views. Is the research appropriate? Does it really back up the writer’s ideas or is it simply thrown in because x number of quotes were required? Do the sources, perhaps, seem biased? Does the research assure you that what the writer is saying is trustworthy? What can be added or changed in terms of research? What needs work?

Grammar, punctuation, mechanics
Do you find yourself distracted by grammatical, punctuation, or mechanical errors? If there is a consistent error (for instance, problems with comma splices), point it out. Are sentences too long, too choppy? Does the writer use transitions? Does the writer vary punctuation?

Conclusion
How might the conclusion more effectively bring completeness or closure to the paper? Does the writer synthesize (bring together her or his ideas into a meaningful whole) or just summarize the main idea? Or does the paper just stop? Does the writer try to bring in new ideas that should have been developed in the body instead? Does the writer make one final push toward the purpose?

Assessment
Finally, what did you learn from this essay that you did not know before? Ask questions if needed. Comment on either the ideas or on the writing strategies used by the writer.

Instruction Letter

Dear Students:

Here we are, all sitting in our desks with new notebooks but old ideas about how this class will progress. You’ve all had English classes, and for many, knowing what to expect is a source of comfort. Here’s the usual scenario:

Student writes paper
Teacher grades paper
Student, if lucky, is allowed to revise paper for a higher grade.

Guess what? I’ve spent a good portion of my summer thinking of ways to improve that model, ways that will better serve you and prepare you to go into your upper level and major classes ready to dazzle your professors with papers that “pop” (okay, I also spent part of my summer watching HGTV, so I’m borrowing some decorating lingo there). So here’s what I’ve decided, and I want you to know that I think it’s going to be much more effective than the above model has been:

In order to focus on PROCESS, I’m going to add two extra components to the class:

You’ll be writing letters to your peers about their papers,
You’ll get letters about your papers from your peers, and
After that, we’ll send your papers out of class to be graded by a panel of professors.

Why? Well: here is my rationale in a nutshell. Letter writing is perhaps the most common form of writing that professionals do on a daily basis. Writing a good letter is a skill, and a must-have for today’s electronic world (letters sent via the net count). Furthermore, writing someone a letter about his/her paper gives you time to carefully consider how you want to say something to that writer, and imagine how you would respond to those words and expression. Conversely, you’ll get such a letter about your paper. You won’t know who wrote it: They may be a student in my other class, or even a student from another professor’s class. Like you, they will be getting class credit for writing the letter; because we’ll write letters for each major paper, you’ll only do three longer papers in my class. Three papers, three letters. Of course, with any piece of writing there are requirements: no fluff allowed! And to avoid the no fluff issue, I want your responses to be at least page, and don't forget that both the writer and I can grade your letter, so you really have two audiences. When you receive the letter about your paper, you’ll get to take it home with you. You’ll be able to reflect on it, to consider what it has to say and whether you agree with it. If you have questions about the letter or question the validity of some of the author’s points, I hope you’ll bring it by my office to discuss. Sometimes, I won’t agree with what they have to say (though I often do.

You’ll use that letter to polish and revise your paper; re-vise, as in re-see, re-envision. Then, the paper will be resubmitted, this time to a panel of professors. It will come back to you with a grade. I’ve agreed to do this with my peers in order to assure you of objectivity. I’m also looking forward to being your coach, and helping you to improve and play with your papers. That’s another reason we’ll only do three; it should give you plenty of time to come by and see me, to tinker with sections you think are less effective, or to polish a piece to perfection. In order for me to be the best coach possible, I’ll need you to come by for conferences on your work. I can not stress enough: If you don’t understand a grade you’ve gotten from the panel, or if you disagree with it, please come by and see me immediately! I love to read your work and meet with you, but I also want you to have feedback from other sources as well.

I look forward to working with you this term.

You should consider me…

Your coach and advocate,

Lisa Mongno