Students may be tempted to write a single draft for an assignment. Revising is a daunting but crucial task for students (Downs 66, Pytash et al 27). Revising is a skill that must be taught, and peer review can be useful for students to practice reading with a critical eye, identifying troubling aspects, and suggesting corrections, for their own work or their peers'.
O'Neill argues that “students benefit when teachers integrate assessment throughout the learning process through a variety of activities” (68). Moore and MacArthur agree that students “deserve carefully designed instruction to prepare them to write clearly and logically … so that they can be successful students” (1473). Targeted instruction on revision and implementation of peer review are assessments and activities that can engage students and motivate them to improve their writing beyond the first draft.
Students roughly know how to write a first draft but may not know the benefits of revising. In a first draft, the writer is “constantly throwing in ideas” that “may or may not have anything to do with [their] overall vision” (“Revising”). Revising can help writers organize and communicate their ideas more coherently (Limpo et al 188). To do this, writers must think of their goals for the piece, and consider each draft a part of “a living document” (“Revising”). Writing itself can provide new or different ideas for the writer; to improve their writing, writers must write multiple drafts, perhaps with multiple visions (Downs 66). Revising is “a sign and a function of skilled, mature, professional writing and craft” (67).
There are many different kinds of revision. Some revisions are mechanical, and some revisions are considered to have more substance. The substantive revisions address with global problems first (Limpo et al 179). The mechanical revisions deal with more local problems, even superficial problems, and may be better understood as editing (Pytash et al 24, Moore & MacArthur 1459). But revision is not merely editing; revision can be an “act of discovery” (Downs 66, Pytash et al 27). Revision is “significant development of a text's ideas, structure, and/or design” and is “central to developing writing” (Downs 66). Instructors surveyed by Anson and Anson report that they overwhelmingly concern themselves with higher-order concepts while grading revisions, like audience, organization, structure, and support (17).
Many students neglect revision. Cho and Schunn note that students “rarely practice writing and rewriting” (410). Revision is a step of writing that many students try to skip. They may be more comfortable in a “one-(draft)-and-done” mindset (Pytash et al 27). But this attitude is not a “personal failing. It's the failure of an overly ambitious plan,” wherein students think they can create a perfect draft on the first try (“Revising”). Some students “may see revision as punishment for poor performance;” teachers making revision optional or only allowed for weaker writing may only encourage this view (Downs 67).
“Revision may be the most underdeveloped part of the writing process,” but revision is the location of serious work for a serious writer (Pytash et al 24). In the revision process, students must “look critically at their writing,” and in order to learn revision, revising behaviors and thought patterns must be modeled for students; instructors can model proper writing practices by using their own writing “as a mentor text” (24, 27). By showing two drafts of one's own writing, instructors can demonstrate revisions and their effects, which students can return to as they revise their own work (24, 26).
Class activities where the writer takes the role of reader can help students with audience awareness (Moore & MacArthur 1452). “Audience awareness was made apparent in several ways” in later drafts by students making revisions or comments about considering appropriate tone for a certain audience, or recognizing other perspectives (1464). Revision can help a student improve their writing in this arena and eventually think of similar concerns in their first draft (1449-1450).
Revision allows for students to regulate their own learning, but as teachers, we must show students how to create workflows that allow for them to receive feedback and then revise based on that feedback (Anson & Anson 13, Downs 66). One way of creating time and space for revision and feedback is peer review.
Peer feedback, wherein students evaluate each other's works and offer comments, has grown more popular in recent years as many benefits have been demonstrated. There are various terms for this feedback: assessment for a focus on scores, or review for giving scores and more general comments (Wu & Schunn 1). Peer review allows students to discover how well they communicate via composition and teaches students how to read and assess their peers' compositions (Moore & MacArthur 1451).
Students need to learn how to assess their own work and the work of their peers (O'Neill 67). An important aspect of teacher assessment is showing students how to assess themselves – teachers might encourage self-reflection, emphasize certain aspects of writing, motivate students to consider and implement their goals, or bolster self-esteem (Anson & Anson 13). Keeping a positive tone helps students stay motivated in their revisions, while being negative or terse can cause students to become threatened and defensive (13, 19). This foundation helps students give useful feedback to their peers.
Peer reviews should focus on revision. Peer reviews should not be editing, though students often attempt to give only “surface-level correction” to their peers. The content of peer reviews should reflect the principles given value in the classroom (Anson & Anson 14). Such content should include global comments on composition and concepts (15). In order for students to perform in this way, instructors must also give feedback that is global and principled, so that expectations are consistent (22).
Peer reviews are beneficial because they allow students to understand the writing process (Anson & Anson 14). They are especially beneficial if they are reciprocal (Cho & Schunn 412). Moore & MacArthur find that students who give feedback improve their own writing more than students who only receive feedback (1451). Peer reviews are also more helpful if students receive annotations explaining certain assessments (Luaces et al 284). Annotation labels and assessment categories should be provided by the teacher, to help organize this peer review process (285). This should include a rubric, with clear instructions and values (Luaces et al 293, Panadero et al 197). Rubrics can thus serve as a “scaffold” (Panadero et al 200).
Peer reviews are not only critical, but constructive as well (Cho & Schunn 412). Reviews can learn how to provide both aspects in feedback by receiving such feedback (421). Wu & Schunn find that the more often a particular comment is given to a student, the more often that student will resolve the issue detected there (2, 9). Students are also more likely to implement the feedback they receive if they are impressed by the quality of the feedback (9).
There are concerns about including peer review in the classroom. A student's peers are obviously novices in subject matter and in composition, they are not trained in giving helpful feedback, and they may be biased (Cho & Schunn 410, Panadero et al 195).
Students are novices in their fields. Some students struggle with detecting issues enough to suggest improvements (Wu & Schunn 2). While teachers use certain terms in their responses more than students in peer reviews – like “source, specific, revise, focus, argument and develop” – students often copy the behaviors and beliefs modeled by teacher assessments (Anson & Anson 20, 22). Modeling what issues are worthy of consideration may help students detect issues in their peers' compositions.
Friendship is another concern. Some peer reviews can suffer if the assessed student and the assessing student are friendly (Panadero et al 195). Rubrics help alleviate these concerns by giving clear criteria and structure, but rubrics can also make more visible possible biases within friendships (196, 201). Overall though, these researchers remark that there are not many studies specifically regarding friendship's effects on peer assessments (197).
Despite these concerns, over 60% of those surveyed by Anson and Anson reported that peer response was “extremely” or “moderately” helpful for the writing process. Peer review can even replace instructor feedback at a mid-point in the writing process (Anson & Anson 16). The comments students receive in peer review can then inform their revisions.
Anson, Ian G. and Chris M. Anson. “Assessing Peer and Instructor Response to Writing: A Corpus Analysis from an Expert Survey.” Assessing Writing, vol. 33, 2017, pp. 12-24. Elsevier, doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2017.03.001.
Cho, Kwangsu and Christian D. Schunn. “Scaffolded Writing and Rewriting in the Discipline: A Web-based Reciprocal Peer Review System.” Computers & Education, vol. 48, 2007, pp. 409-426. Elsevier, doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.02.004.
Downs, Doug. “Revision is Central to Developing Writing Skills.” Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies, edited by Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, Utah State UP, 2015, pp. 66-67.
Luaces, Oscar, et al. “A Peer Assessment Method to Provide Feedback, Consistent Grading, and Reduce Students' Burden in Massive Teaching Settings.” Computers & Education, vol. 126, 2018, pp. 283-295. Elsevier, doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.07.016.
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Moore, Noreen S., and Charles A. Macarthur. “The Effects of being a Reader and of Observing Readers on Fifth-Grade Students' Argumentative Writing and Revising.” Reading and Writing, vol. 25, no. 6, 2012, pp. 1449-1478. ProQuest, doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9327-6.
O'Neill, Peggy. “Assessment is an Essential Component of Learning to Write.” Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies, edited by Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, Utah State UP, 2015, pp. 67-68.
Panadero, Ernesto, et al. “The Impact of a Rubric and Friendship on Peer Assessment: Effects on Construct Validity, Performance, and Perceptions of Fairness and Comfort.” Studies in Educational Evaluation, vol. 39, 2013, pp. 195-203. Elsevier, doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2013.10.005.
Pytash, Kristine, et al. “Guide on the Side: Collaboratively Writing and Revising with Students.” Voices from the Middle, vol. 25, no. 2, 2017, pp. 24-27. ProQuest, search.proquest.com/docview/1975976146?accountid=8361. “Revising Your Writing, Revising Your Plan.” The Simple Dollar, Newstex, 2013. ProQuest, search.proquest.com/docview/1327200897?accountid=8361.
Wu, Yong & Christian D. Schunn. “When Peers Agree, Do Students Listen? The Central Role of Feedback Quality and Feedback Frequency in Determining Uptake of Feedback.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol. 62, 2020, pp. 1-16. Elsevier, doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101897.