SQR 2

Zalina Nazarova
Eng 1320/1301
Trang Phan
Peer Response: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions
Summary:
This article written by Gloria Neaubert and Sally McNelis explains how students had problems with making appropriate peer review and how teachers found the way that made students to respond effectively to one another’s writing. For one year they studied this problem and they came up with the technique called PQP- praise – question- polish. This technique helps students focus on the task and maintain a positive attitude toward the critique process. This technique requires group members take a turn and read their drafts aloud so the others students can hear it and this reading helps the writer to hear the piece in another voice and identify possible changes. Then the responders get their PQP forms in order to comment on the writing and then they share their reactions and thoughts with the writer and at the conclusion the PQP forms are given to the writer in order to use it during revision. This technique is very useful and helpful because it teaches students how to revise correctly which means making specific revision. As the percentages showed there is an increase in “specific” comments from 28% to 60% which is a huge improvement.

Question:
Why “peer response?” What can peer’s comments do for one’s writing?
Peer response is when reader reads somebody’s paper and writes his opinion about the paper and what changes should be made in the paper. After writer gets his paperback he could see mistakes and suggestions from the reader and then he can make changes based on the revision. I think that it’s very useful because when you write you may think that everything is very good in the paper and that there is no mistake but when somebody reads it and finds a mistake you can see that your paper is not perfect. In order to make the paper perfect you need to have many revisions from the peer. With every revision your paper gets better and better and at the end it’s just perfect. Sometimes you can’t see what your peer sees that’s why peer’s comments are very important. You can learn from them and you can also improve your writing. Also when you forget something to mention or you don’t continue to write on the topic peer sees it and makes suggestions for you to do this or to write that. Sometimes peer comments might be specific or not specific, useful or not useful, and it depends on the peer and how well he knows the techniques. For example when I took English class at school we had to write an essay and then make a peer review. So I gave my paper to the classmate for the revision and when I got back my paper I could barely see any revision it looked like my paper was perfect. Later my teacher graded my essay and I got B and I was very surprised. I couldn’t believe it because on peer review my paper looked perfect. That was the only time when I got not useful peer. It is very important to know the right techniques for the peer revision.