Tips for effective peer review of writing amongst students

by Richard Giles Smith |

Peer review is feedback given by another student from the same class or cohort.  These are points to consider when incorporating peer review from students as part of teaching writing.

Audience: Secondary, Adult, University

Audience Language Proficiency: Intermediate, Advanced

Materials And Technology:
  • Approach writing as a process including analysis, planning, drafting, reviewing and revision.  Peer review can be used at the reviewing stage, and also to give feedback on planning.
  •  Peer review brings the important benefits of increased discussion and negotiation into online learning (Ertmer, et al., 2007).  Online tools such as discussion boards, blogs and collaborative documents can be used to implement peer review.
  • Students value timely and relevant reviews from their peers (Best, Jones-Katz, Smolarek, Stolzenburg, & Williamson, 2015).
  • Students need training to give relevant reviews.  Allocate time to train peer reviewers using example reviews and monitored trial review exercises (Bhowmik, Hilman, & Roy, 2019).
  • Students also need a clear structure in order to give relevant reviews.  Use a rubric or guiding questions to prompt feedback on areas such as language accuracy, structure, content, and ease of reading.  Writers can also give questions to their peer reviewers (Berg, 2011).
  • The peer review should be carried out in a timely manner i.e. within one week, or by the next class.
  • Once a peer review has been given and read, time should be allocated for the writers to ask clarification questions of the reviewers about the given reviews.
  • After peer review feedback is clearly understood, students should reflect on the feedback given by their peer and decide on the areas where the writing will be revised.
  • Instructor monitoring of each stage of peer review is important for encouraging quality feedback.  The giving of relevant peer reviews can be included in the course learning objectives and assessments, again to emphasis value and encourage quality reviews.

Objective:

n/a

References:

Berg, E. C. (2011). Preparing ESL Students for Peer Response. TESOL Journal, 8: 20-25. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1949-3533.1999.tb00171.x

Best, K., Jones-Katz, L., Smolarek, B., Stolzenburg, M., & Williamson, D. (2015, June). Listening to Our Students: An Exploratory Practice Study of ESL Writing Students' Views of Feedback. TESOL Journal, 332-367.

Bhowmik, S. H. (2019). Peer collaborative writing in the EAP classroom: Insights from a Canadian postsecondary context. TESOL Journal, 10:e393. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.393

Ertmer, P. A., Richardson, J. C., Belland, B., Camin, D., Connolly, P., Coulthard, G., . . . Mong, C. (2007). Using Peer Feedback to Enhance the Quality of Student Online Postings: An Exploratory Study. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12: 412-433. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00331.x

TESOL Interest Section: Adult Education, English for Specific Purposes, Higher Education, Second Langauge Writing

This website uses cookies. A cookie is a small piece of code that gives your computer a unique identity, but it does not contain any information that allows us to identify you personally. For more information on how TESOL International Association uses cookies, please read our privacy policy. Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can opt out by changing your browser settings.