Teaching Peer Review Helps Get The Best From Students | Alexis Azria

Including peer reviews in your writing course will give students a critical skill set in evaluating their own writing. By teaching them to see mistakes in others’ papers, they will be able to edit their own more efficiently. Unfortunately, instructors to properly teach peer review in their classes.

First, eliminate the assumption that students have somehow learned peer-editing skills through the process of writing essays in high school. Most students actually have little experience in examining a fellow student’s paper. Nor do they understand the assessment tools their instructors are using to grade their assignments.

Without classroom instruction, novice peer reviewers will leave anemic comments that tend to be neutral or slightly positive, such as “Pretty good” or “Too short, no conclusion.” Pointing out the obvious helps no one and softening the blow with half-hearted encouragement does not improve anyone’s writing.

There is a better way.

Teaching and assigning peer reviews give students experience in collaboration, evaluation, and close reading. They learn to carefully construct their arguments on paper and defend them verbally one-on-one. By reviewing each other’s drafts using appropriate assessment tools, they will better understand the…