Peer Review Example
After students have written initial drafts, you might wish to share a version of this handout with them, noting that it covers only global issues at this initial stage of composing.
Writer/teacher Anne Lamott notes that "you don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it, too" (156). What does she mean?
To read more Lamott, find Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994. PN 147.L315 in Wallace Library
After you read and respond in writing to the questions below, begin the conversation by reading the writer's paper aloud. Robert Frost wrote of the "sound of sense and the sense of sound"; try to listen for ways in which the paper's sounds and senses do or do not work together.
Once you've read the paper aloud, confer with the writer about your evaluation.
General Guidelines for Peer Response
This peer response session has three goals: better communication among writers about writing; improved writing processes throughout your lives, and more logical, better-organized, more precisely written papers.
Peer responses improve the readers' and the writers' approach to writing. Even if you feel that someone else's writing isn't as developed as yours, working with him or her will strengthen your ability to articulate observations. You need to go beyond saying, "This doesn't sound right." You need to explain.
As a writer, you know that sharing your work with others can be as threatening as it is thrilling; the search for response always involves risk. Please remember this vulnerability when you respond to someone else's work: you are not Error Hunter, but you are Respectful Reader. Be honest and diplomatic. Keep the emphasis on the work and be as specific as possible when you are praising and when you are criticizing, too.
This response session will focus only on global issues (content, logic, organization, development, etc.) that are revisionary. We won't use this session to read for local issues such as grammar and mechanics because the papers aren't yet ready for such a reading.
Please answer the following questions, writing out the answers and then discussing them with the writer:
1. Sum up the essay in one sentence:
2. Does the writer have a stated thesis? What is it? Does it meet the five criteria for a thesis?
3. Who seems to be the intended audience of this paper? What elements of the paper helped you determine who that audience is?
4. Does the writer do a good job of supporting his or her position? Is everything he or she says accurate? What does the writer do to support his or her position? (Give reasons? Give examples? Rely on authority?)
5. What are some possible objections to the writer's position?
6. Global Focus.
Does the writer stay with the same point throughout the essay, or does the essay make many points?
7. Local Focus.
Review each paragraph. Does each paragraph focus on only one idea, or do some paragraphs focus on several ideas?
8.What is the most interesting and/or surprising aspect of this paper?
9. What do you think are this writer's strengths? Be as specific as possible, please.
10.How can this writer produce a better paper?
The Writer Speaks
After the discussion, the writer should write out a response to the evaluation. What did you (as a writer) learn from the evaluation? How will it impact your revision? What else would you have liked from it?