Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

Peer Review Oversight

Submitted by boudreault on October 9, 2007 - 12:15pm

For the first writing assignment in my RHE309 class, I decided not to have a peer review session. After getting the first versions of students papers, I realized that I had been mistaken and that students really needed that time with each other to go over their papers.

After returning their papers via email (they had been submitted and reviewed digitally), I decided it would still be worth it to have a peer review session even though they had already received my comments. I was concerned that it might go terribly wrong for a number of reasons but it ended up working out great. The fact that students had my comments helped them help each other to a much greater extent. Instead of trying to find things wrong with the paper, they were able to help their fellow students identify problems that had already been identified.

It was great and very productive.

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Peer review is, as David

Submitted by jonathanlamb on October 10, 2007 - 12:23pm.

Peer review is, as David Sedaris says, a perfect mix of sadism and masochism. The individual writer gives and receives pain in equal measure. And yet somehow it's a productive process. In your case, you seem to have taken the pain they received from your comments and redistributed it to their classmates after the fact. The pain circulates.

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I agonize over peer review

Submitted by SarahJett on October 16, 2007 - 10:43am.

I agonize over peer review every semester. (But that's no surprise! I agonize over everything. It's a wonder I ever manage to get anything done.) In the past, my students have responded negatively to peer review. I do notice that I get better results when I am incredibly specific about what I want them to look for.

Allowing them to talk with each other about instructor comments does seem productive. I can see why that would work. Now I'm thinking, maybe I should do it that way, too. I have some reservations, though. One of the benefits of peer review, as I see it, is that it demonstrates to students that I am not the default audience for their paper. I always come up with unusual, fictional situations and audiences that they're supposed to address because I think it's important for them to write for an audience, rather than for a teacher who's grading them. (Obviously, I am the teacher who is grading them, but they'll get so much more out of the class if they take away an understanding of how their rhetorical techniques will influence a particular audience.) A peer reviewer would certainly be biased by my comments and could not offer an independent reading of the paper. I really like the idea, though. I'm wondering if it could be some separate activity. Could students do a cold peer review and then later offer an explanation of instructor comments?

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