Peer Response for Privateers:
Elbow and bElanoff’s Sharing and
Responding
Jeff Paschke-Johannes
ID 601 – TPrep
October 25, 2007
My Sorry Attempts at Peer-Response
“It’s a problem of motivation…”
•
Early attempts effectively focused on editing, not
revising
•
Provided vague, short prompts to get students
started
•
Maybe I did it because it was expected and filled a
class session
•
“Blind leading the blind”
•
Desired more substantial peer-response from students, but how to get
there?
•
Even after developing thorough critique sheets for students to follow,
leading them to comments on higher order concerns, uncritical comments,
lack of participation, and advice that could actually be detrimental to
student writing persisted.
My Sorry Attempts at Peer-Response
Doing “Peer Review” not “Peer Response”
A Problem of Philosophy
• Considered peers’ role to give advice and evaluation, such as the
teacher might give; students get suggestions that they can
implement in changing their drafts
• Administered peer-response groups late in composition process,
when students have “finished” product that will be submitted in a
day or two for a grade
Sharing and Responding
By Peter Elbow and Patricia Belanoff in A Community
of Writers: A Workshop Course in Writing. NY:
McGraw-Hill, 1989, 1995. SR-1-SR-60.
•
Students need an audience, not evaluators or advice givers (SR-5), to
feel “presence of interested readers” (SR-6)
• “What we need most as writers is not evaluation of the quality of our writing or advice
about how to fix it, but an accurate account of what goes on inside readers’ heads as
they read our words” (SR-31).
Because…
•
“We speak because we are trying to communicate.” Likewise, we write for, “a reply, not
an evaluation” (SR-18).
• Evaluation and Judgment can be hard to receive before we know how well our readers
understand our composition, before we know what to expect of our readers
• “We benefit most from feedback on early drafts, but it doesn’t make sense to evaluate
an early draft” (SR-20).
• Varied forms of response help clarify whether the writer’s point is coming across and
helps peers develop a clear understanding of the composition, which is vital if useful
suggestions about the composition are going to be offered.
Sharing and Responding
11 Peer Responses
•
Written to students
•
Focuses on ways peers can effectively respond to
each other as good readers, giving fellow writers a
vision of what their readers might expect and ideas
on how to revise and develop based on that
perspective.
•
Responses are scaffolded, some working better for
early stages in writing and some for later stages of
writing, recognizing that different kinds of responses
are needed depending on the development of the
composition.
•
Likewise, responses allow for scaffolding for peer readers as well,
acknowledging that they may not yet be ready to respond in more refined and
technical ways.
(1) Sharing: No
Response
(2) Pointing &
Center of
Gravity
(3) Summary &
Sayback
(9)
(1)
(4)
(2)
(3)
(4) The Almost Said
(5) Reply
(5)
(7)
(6) Voice
(7) The Readers
Mind (A Movie)
(8) Metaphorical
Descriptions
(9) Believing &
Doubting
(10) Skeleton &
Descriptive
Outline
(11) Criterion-Based
Feedback
(6)
(8)
(9)
(11)
(10)
Sharing and Responding
1) Sharing: No Response
•
•
•
•
2) Pointing &
Center of
Gravity
Student reads work out loud to
peers
•
Peers do not respond but only
listen attentively
Student gains from actually having •
to think of her work as
communicating to others
Useful in early & late stages of
•
writing
•
Map
Pointing – identify striking words
or phrases
Center of Gravity – identify
particularly powerful moments in
the text
Allows writer to see areas of
development to enhance readers’
experience or to see new directions
in which the composition could go.
Useful in early & late stages of
writing
Sharing and Responding
4) The Almost Said
3) Summary & Sayback
• Summary – Peers summarize what
the text says
• Sayback – Peers describe they
think the writer is getting at
• Helps writer see whether main idea
is coming across or helps writer
establish what he or she is really
trying to say
• Useful in early & late stages.
Sayback particularly useful in early
stages when writers ideas may still
be vague
Map
• Writer asks peers
questions about what
is implied but not
stated and what peers
would like to hear more
about
• Helps writer with development of
composition by finding details
that may be missing or
determining whether subtle
details are working as intended
• Useful in middle to late stages
Sharing and Responding
5) Reply
• Readers respond with their
thoughts about the topic
and/or the writer’s view
(discussion of content, not
composition)
• Discussion can generate
problems with topic/view,
reveal counterarguments that
need to be made, or provide
ideas that writer hadn’t
considered
• Useful in early to middle
stages
Map
6) Voice
• Peers help assess tone and
language of the work – feelings
and attitudes expressed,
trustworthiness, vividness,
uniqueness
and
individuality
• Thinking in
terms of voice
allows peers to describe writing
with less need for technical
language
• Useful in early or late stages,
depending on what aspect of voice
is examined
Sharing and Responding
7) The Reader’s Mind
(A Movie)
• Peers describe what they are
thinking while they listen to or
read the composition,
their progression as a
reader.
• Writer might stop
peers in the middle of
the text or ask for “I” statements
about readers feelings
• Useful in later stages, when
writer is fairly confident about
composition and is
looking for effect on
the reader
Map
8) Metaphorical Description
• Peers build metaphors for the
writer’s composition
• Such indirect description can
help writer see
composition in new
ways
● Useful at any
stage, but may be more useful in
later stages when writer needs new
vision
Sharing and Responding
9) Believing &
Doubting
• Believing – Writer asks
peers to pose as though they
believe everything in the
composition and to provide additional ideas/development that will
enhance and improve arguments
• Doubting – Writer asks peers to pose as though they doubt everything
in the composition and to propose what problems exist in the argument
and what opposing views must be responded to or counterargued.
• Helps writer get opposing feedback from readers about the
persuasiveness or argumentation in the composition
• Useful in middle to late stages, when arguments need to be fine tuned.
Map
Sharing and Responding
10) Skeketon
& Descriptive
Outline
•
•
•
Skeleton Feedback –
Peers identify how
the composition is
outlined – main points, subpoints,
evidence, assumptions, etc.
Descriptive Outline – Peers break up
the composition into “says” and “does”
statements: “says” statements
summarize sections of the composition;
“does” statements describes each
sections purpose for the whole
composition (rhetorical effect, function
for the rest of the piece, etc)
Useful in later stages
Map
11) Criterion-Based Feedback
• Peers respond to specific
criteria or standards for the
paper, whether generated by
the writer or by outside
demands (i.e. grading –
thesis/focus, organization,
development, etc.)
• Calls for specifics from peers,
references to
passages & words
• Useful in later
stages, esp. when
preparing for
grade.
Sharing and Responding
Implementing Peer Response
• Model the peer-response process
• Use it throughout the writing process
• Allow students to make decisions about what kind of questions to ask
and response to ask for
• Consider students’ development as readers as well as writers and adjust
peer response activity accordingly
• Apply all techniques of any small group work – consider group dynamics
and construction; give clear instructions before students disperse into
groups; establish a clear and demonstrable outcome; limit time allowed
so that students must stay on task to finish; circulate, ask questions,
check progress, and make suggestions
• Make yourself a resource that students can use during peer response
A Bibliography
Elbow, Peter and Patricia Belanoff. Sharing and Responding. A Community of
Writers: A Workshop Course in Writing. 2nd ed. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1995. SR1-SR-60.
Elbow, Peter and Patricia Belanoff. Sharing and Responding. A Community of
Writers: A Workshop Course in Writing. 2nd ed. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1995. SR1-SR-60.
Grimm, Nancy. “Improving Students’ Responses to their Peers’ Essays.”
College Composition and Communication. 37.1 (Feb. 1986): 91-94.
Graner, Michael H. “Revision Workshops: An Alternative to Peer Editing
Groups.” The English Journal. 76.3 (Mar. 1987): 40-45.
Hansen, Jette G. and Jun Liu. “Guiding Principles for Effective Peer Response.”
ELT Journal. 59.1 (Jan. 2005): 31-38.