How Can I Better Prepare Students to Participate Effectively in Peer Response Groups?

[Julianne Dillard]

 

 

Hello!  My name is Julie Dillard and I currently teach composition at TMCC, but am getting set to teach some courses in comp and literature next year at Davidson.  In my current lower-level comp classes, we work a good deal on developing effective paragraphs and feeling more confident about using standard English to convey ideas.  In the higher class, we move part-way through the semester from paragraphs to personal and academic essays.  This year I've made pre-writing a priority and we worked on a variety of strategies for this (in hopes that students would find what works best for them).  I'm most proud of the effort I make to create a supportive, enjoyable atmosphere in the classes.  I spend time on community-building because I know how tough sharing writing is for many.  Students in class with me will find that each day there is time for interacting with classmates, time for individual work and reflection, and a constant push toward awareness of their areas of challenge and taking responsibility for using the tools at their disposal to become better writers.  As a result, I push revision and make it clear that I'll regrade anything they are willing to make better (after meeting deadlines with the initial work). 

 

One area I would like to improve in my composition classes is peer response groups, and at this point that's my working question.  I feel there must be ways of preparing students to be more effective in giving both encouraging and constructive feedback, specific feedback, to help one another make plans for revision.  I've tried setting the stage for these interactions with discussion, examples of helpful and unhelpful feedback, and (lots of) guided response sheets, but I suspect that I've not yet done anything that truly works to help them see that this is an important process and that their thoughts are valuable/useful. 

 

So, in short, my question is "How can I prepare students to participate effectively in peer response groups?"  I believe many writing instructors use peer response as a tool in their classrooms, and I'm curious to find out what some suggest for helping students move past "That was good" and into thoughtful, meaningful interactions with their peers' work.  I hope to be able to offer perspective from students about the task of peer response and to share techniques I discover in my quest for a better way. 

 

 

[Sara Kwasna]

Hi Julie,

I really like your question and think it is a valuable one. From reading your post, I think we probably have a similar style to teaching writing. I usually spend one class for sharing when an assignment is due and volunteers will share their writing. I would make students respond and would not accept "that was good" or "I really liked it" comments. If they did respond that way, I would often follow up with "what was good about it?" or "what did you like about it?" That usually prompted them to offer a more specific comment, but not always to the depth I was hoping for. Modeling helps. I encourage note taking when students share so that the students who are responding have things written down to use when replying. You may even consider having the students share their papers and respond in writing (chain note style) to one another. I look forward to seeing your presentation and seeing what you uncover.

-Sara

[Julianne Dillard]

Hi, Sara! I really appreciate your sharing both what you've tried and your suggestions. I'm adding them to my notes! I think there's potential in all of the techniques you mention--nice variety of tools! Thanks so much. Julie

[Jennifer Reynolds]

Hi Julie,

I think that are topics are very similar, but my class is very different than yours (7th graders, regular education). . . so there are different challenges. With students who are high level in my classes, I think that the best way that I have gotten them to respond with specifics for revision is by using academic talk (accountable talk.) These are sentence frames that require additional feedback beyond the basic "it was good." I know that there is a lot of research on it. It might help you out with the research aspect of your demonstration.

There was also some stuff I read in one of the books I am using called The Revision Toolbox by Georgia Heard. She talks about having students read their writing to the entire class while the class writes questions as you have mentioned. However, she continues on the common practice by having the author then leave the room and the group sit together and generate a set of questions/responses for the author as a whole. When the author comes back in, they ask the questions and make their responses. It's kind of the two brains are bigger than one theory. She used this technique on a class that is similar to the dynamics of your class. You could try it and see if you get any results???

There is also something in the Breakthroughs book about using highlighters to add sensory details. Depending on the writing genre being revised, it seemed like an idea that might get results.

Hope this helps. I am interested in seeing your demonstration since we are using the same topic, but on different ends of the spectrum.

Jenny Reynolds

[Nicole Marvin]

In addition to what the other ladies wrote- there are little tools like highlighting etc. that are awesome. Something else to think about to is eliminating those vague terms like good, better, nice etc. As time goes on, I have decided the more specific your revision focus is the better they tend to peer edit. It would be a dream if we could just say "Alright, go read your classmates papers and tell them what you like."

If students are writing argumentative essays a focus on their argument should be required and the reviser should back up their revision with specifics from the paper. At lower levels this could take more practice but at your level it could work both as a process to focus their editing and allow other students to see why someone else might be more convincing than they are.

[Nadyne Burra]

Getting students to respond constructively can be a difficult task to undertake. I have tried to involve student into giving positive constructive feedback on many occasions, and every time I seem to get the generic responses that you have mentioned. It doesn't matter how much coaching I give my sped students, they seem to always take the easy way out. I hope that you find a myriad of strategies that you can share with the rest of us when you give your presentation.

[Christy]

Hi Julie,
Getting students to respond constructively is a task that is very difficult to accomplish. I really enjoyed reading the chapter Everything I Know About Teaching Language Arts, I Learned at the Office Supply Store in the Breakthroughs text. It is a clever chapter. On page 191-192 it discusses writing workshops and getting students to demonstrate good peer response. The author says, "don’t you wish you invented the post-it-note." I think this is true for all of us. Post its are the key to my response groups and re-vising and editing. In this chapter a reflective feedback technique is used and is called "telling" This strategy is used to make feedback more useful than usual. I feel that this is a good way to think of the goal in mind, which is to create good feedback from students. In my class I use accountable talk. Accountable talk helps students direct their peer response using good speaking skills. Accountable talk encourages students to refrain from those one word answers (good, it's ok, nice work)! I am looking forward to your presentation. This is certainly a tough area for me to accomplish with my students. I would like to learn a way to get beyond the post-it notes!
Christy

[Stephen B. Duncan]

Your statement about regrading anything your students are willing to make better is one that causes me to ponder. Would this simple statement motivate my students to redo their papers and revise them using given feedback? This is something I may have to try. As for peer response groups in general, I wouldn't know how to even implement it without using up too much class time and taking away from my own curriculum.

[Julianne Dillard]

Hi, Stephen! I just wanted to tell you that I have always been surprised that more students don't take me up on the regrading thing. The ones who do seem to show a good deal of improvement, though! I had a student last semester who was struggling in the beginning, but she made a point of re-doing all the graded work and by the end, her writing was better organized and included more detail. That was very heartening!

Stephen B. Duncan said:

Your statement about regrading anything your students are willing to make better is one that causes me to ponder. Would this simple statement motivate my students to redo their papers and revise them using given feedback? This is something I may have to try. As for peer response groups in general, I wouldn't know how to even implement it without using up too much class time and taking away from my own curriculum.

[Ron Bonomo]

Julie,
Thank you for such an interesting post. It made me think back to the Breakthroughs book. One thing that was pretty much a constant was the need for peer review of writing. I am about to confess a horribly secret. Shhhhhhhh! I have never ever done a peer response on any writing in my classroom! I teach social studies and find much of this outside my scope. Currently I amlike a blind man feeling along the wall for a light switch in a pitch black room but knowing it is there somewhere. I know I am in a room. I know that I am in the dark. I even know what the light switch is for. If only I can find it! The light switch isn't so much for me as it is for everyone else. Actually maybe when I find the switch I won't be so blind.

It seems that I will have to change my class to be far more student centered then it already is. If I attempt peer groups of any kind I had better get the student to participate effectively. Thank you very much for possibly filling in the next step for me. One, develop more student centered lessons that include writing. Two, make sure that the lessons and peer groups are effective. Three, find that damn light switch.