Peer Review

Peer review, though few people think of it in these terms much anymore, is your opportunity to induct your students into your discipline community’s main practice: proposing ideas, then having them read and critiqued by equals. I mostly hear peer review discussed as a nice way to break up the monotony of classroom instruction or simply as an exercise you’re supposed to do for whatever reason, and I think it’s for this reason that peer reviews often fail. I know several instructors who have attempted peer review and, frustrated with weak student response, abandoned it for a more traditional teacher-centered grading approach. My peer reviews have been pretty successful, so I’ve compiled a few tips I’ve picked up over the last 8 years. First, the objectives of peer review exercises:

• To decenter teacherly authority (a truly difficult task) and encourage student responsibility.
• To help those students who are interpersonal (social), kinesthetic (hands-on), verbal and “teaching” learners (others will learn better from writing it on the board, listening to a song, acting it out, thinking of it metaphorically, and so on (see Howard Gardner’s theory of MI for more on that)).
• To allow students to “get each others’ backs”—to catch an “error” before the teacher sees it with her red pen (if you give grades).
• To teach collaborative learning and working (this is one of the most desired skills in hiring, according to employment surveys).
  

Classrooms have different ends, and should thus have different means. Peer group practices will vary. What do you want to teach in your classroom? Creative writing? Self-actualization? Academic discourses? Your peer group questions and practices will need to be shaped accordingly. What won’t vary is the students’ need to be comfortable and honest with one another. Here is an outline of how I conduct peer reviews of writing assignments in my English 101 class; please feel free to take from it what you can. First-time teachers, just keep in mind that the most important elements in this exercise are being comfortable with honesty, mistakes and criticism.

Preparing Students for Peer Review:

1. Play Host(ess): One thing that will never change for peer groups is that students need to be authentically comfortable with each other in order to take advantage of this exercise. During the weeks or days leading up to the peer review, I encourage them to become friends. This involves a certain attitude, not just practices. I have to truly be interested in my students and want them to enjoy each other.
• First day introductions: I have everyone in class meet one other person and find the answers to a few questions that are designed to help them find someone with similar interests. They then have to introduce their new “friend” to the rest of the class. When there’s an odd number of students, I get to participate too. During the introductions, I periodically point out random students and ask the class for a name or major to quiz them – just makes it fun and makes them want to pay attention. See my post on What to Do the First Day of Class.
• Explicitly tell students to make friends. I tell them to get a few fellow students’ phone numbers for days they end up missing so they can make up the notes. I announce on the first day that I will never “re-teach” a class, but that they’re still responsible for everything they missed. When a student asks me what she missed, I refer her to another student (“You missed a lot. Ask Wayne; I know he takes good notes. Make sure he tells you about the email list.”)
• Prior experience in groups: Warm the students up to the group thing by having them meet for several assignments leading up to the revisions. I generally have at least one group project per week, but it can’t be something completely open-ended (such as “What do you think about the chapter you read?”). It should invite different opinions and encourage the students to recognize the insights around them. I like specific prompts like "Describe the two intended audiences for the two articles you read."
  
• Encourage group solidarity in class discussions: I invite short, personal-ish anecdotes when we discuss readings, and I often ask if anyone else can relate in order to promote “shared experiences” (things like dealing with bureaucratic processes, differences in addressing grandparents and friends as an exercise in audience awareness). I also often say group-defining things like “We’re smart today!” or “This is such a great class” (I know, Polyanna), and I ask about their weekends and other classes when I first come in.
2. Explain Peer Review in Detail
• On the board, I write: “An enemy multiplies kisses, but wounds from a friend can be trusted” (Jewish proverb).
• Pep talk: I give a few scenarios to help my students understand the practical aspects of what they’re doing and to encourage them to be honest with each other:
  
• Honesty is good: I ask the class which they’d prefer—someone telling them about the green thing in their teeth or someone pretending it’s not there to avoid embarrassing the owner of the mouth (and other situations: whether the jeans make them look fat, fly is open, booger hanging out their nose, etc.).I invite stories from the brave and then relate those to catching each other’s errors before the teacher sees them with my evil red pen.
• Mistakes are good: the toddler learning to walk must fall many times. They’re trying something new, so they should make mistakes. If their papers aren’t full of errors, they’re probably not trying anything new. I tell them this so that they feel comfortable with lots of marks.
• Criticism is good: I have them raise their right hands and repeat after me: “I will not be offended today at the comments my peers make on my paper.”
• The guidelines:
• I have the students tell me about the assignment requirements we’ve already established and write those on the board. I prompt them with “Who is the audience for this paper?” and then list the things as they call them out that are important for being effective in that context. For the academic ad analysis, the important things are 5-P essay structure(thesis statement, topic sentence, paragraph cohesiveness, etc.), MLA format, grammar and spelling, things like that.
• I tell the students to look specifically for this list of things in each other’s papers. I think this is really important because otherwise they’ll just look for grammar, or else they’ll give the paper back and say it looks good.
• They make groups of 3 and trade papers every 30 minutes. I often count their revisions of each other’s essays as a quiz grade.
• Those who don’t bring a draft are often some of the best writers (perfectionists, in fact, which is why they don’t bring a paper), and their insights can be very helpful, so I allow them to revise too as long as everyone else has had a chance first.

During the Peer Review

1. Bring candy! Food makes people talk, so before we begin I toss out candy for correct answers and pass around a bowl of sweets (be sure to bring both chocolates and fruities). I think it creates kind of a party atmosphere, so the students feel a little more free to talk and ask questions.
2. Continue playing host(ess): I walk around in the groups answering questions and looking over shoulders and encouraging them. I find they relax when I tap a comment they’ve written and say, “Good point,” or tell the owner of the paper, “Hey, you’ve got a good friend here! He’s really helping your paper.” For other papers, I cry, “More ink! Don’t you even care about this person?”
3. Be there for the questions: I get a lot of questions about MLA format and grammar, and I almost invariably get another student to answer.

The up side to peer review is that students truly do catch one another’s “mistakes,” so after a revision, I get papers that are already on their second draft. Plus, I get to answer a lot of questions that students didn’t have until they were actually writing the paper at home, and consequently didn’t ask, also leading to better second drafts. It’s usually a pretty fun class too.