Importance of Peer Response

Brianna Sepulveda

Prof. Marcela Hebbard

ENG1301.04

March 29th, 2015

Importance of Peer Response!

My chosen construct is “Peer Response” .  Peer response is receiving and giving feedback,it is a way to critique each others papers, learn helpful tips, and improve your overall form of writing. The construct interests me because I nor my classmates never really understood the importance of it, or took it serious in high school. Everyone would talk about the positive in your paper and never tell you the negative. That is why all anyone ever did was depend on the teacher for feedback, even though they had multiple peers they could of asked. Now that I am older and I think about it, if we would of received real honest to God feedback from our peers, we would not be struggling so much when writing a paper. I never had this idea cross my mind until actually talking about the situation in class, but the correct form of peer response is a very important resource and it is something that we can always rely on when we are completely stuck. In a way I feel like my understanding of my construct can be limiting only because of the simple fact that some people do not really care when it comes to evaluating a peers paper. They will just ask simple questions instead of complex, open-ended questions that will truly help you when you’re writing and if someone is not giving you any real criticism, then you will never learn from your mistakes. I remember in High school there was this really big paper that was going to be due for english class and before we had to write the final draft there was one final step we had to do which was evaluate each others papers so that we could receive feedback and improve our feedback. All my partner pretty much told me was “I don’t know what to write” over and over again and compliment me on what I did right, before I thought nothing of it but now that I think of it I wish that she could of told me my mistakes as well because it would of helped me learn from it. There are not many misconceptions for my construct but the few that are there would definitely be the fact that peers think just asking a question is considered feedback, they don’t realize that there is much more to it. Second that giving others feedback is “hard” its not hard at all, all you have to point out is the good and the bad. Lastly the biggest misconception is that “Peer response” is pointless, some people really do think that the only criticism that matters is the teachers which is not true. The teacher is not the only person that knows right from wrong, your peers might also be students just like you but that doesn’t make them any less of a writer.

In order to investigate my chosen construct I designed a research question. My research question is “In what way is Peer response an important resource to practice with all students not just college students but Middle and High school students too?” I became interested in this topic because I never fully understood the importance of feedback till I began reading the Peer response articles in class. In High school the only important criticism to me was my teachers, I never paid attention when students would tell me what to revise because half the time they knew absolutely nothing of what they were talking about. Now that I’ve realized Peer response is a such a valuable resource I know that students would learn so much from this, they too would will realize the importance of  giving/receiving feedback. It is a way to open up your mind to others point of view and develop so many new writing techniques. One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t always depend on your teacher, Elementary all the way up until High school you have teachers babying you so once you go into College it’s a whole new ball game. You have to learn to depend on yourself and most importantly your peers, you definitely will not be babied anymore because you’re basically on your own. Feedback allows you to see that your paper is not as “perfect” as you thought it was and when hearing from others point of view you begin to see your mistakes and learn from them the next time you revise your paper.For example, Gillam’s article states the importance of Peer response and talks about students positive experiences when using the method. In Gillam’s article she states, “peer respondents learn to read, talk, and think about writing with greater maturity and sophistication.” Proving that peer response enhances your skill in every possible outcome. In no way will hearing others criticism harm you, they just want to help you succeed just like any teacher would want you to. Although Gillam does tell the benefits of Peer Response she does not explain the proper ways to give others feedback,  she gives you great points but leaves you thinking in that one certain aspect. In the second article by Neubert and McNelis, They gives very important points about the proper way to give peer response and shows us by the tests they perform, their entire experiment was based on teaching the students the difference between a vague response and a specific response. Neubert  and McNelis state, “How can we teach middle-school students to give focused and specific response to their peers during collaborative writing response groups?”(Pg.52) They explains how not everyone knows how to give the proper form of feedback. Some might be very specific, which is good, or some might be too vague, which is not the proper way to give feedback. Towards the end Neubert and McNelis leave a huge Rhetorical Gap, just like in Gillams article it is basically the complete opposite. Neubert  and McNelis explain how to learn the proper ways of giving/receiving feedback but they doesn’t highlight on the importance of Peer response, we are made to decide for ourselves with all the different data they have collected from their tests, which in my point of view only highlights the true importance of why feedback is important to us students. Lastly in the 3rd article that relates to my research question I chose Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”, she explains how having a shitty first draft is important, it allows you to learn as you write. You will not start off perfect. Just like first drafts are used to refine your writing so is giving/ receiving feedback from your peers, you will have to mess up a few times before reaching the final product. Lamott states,  “All good writings begin with terrible efforts...You need to start somewhere. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft--you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft--you fix it up. And the third draft is the dental draft where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.” (Pg.2) Lamott describes how both allow you to make mistakes and critique yourself not to hurt you but to benefit you. In the end both first drafts and peer response are there to help guide you as you struggle in your everyday classes. Lamott also left a very big Rhetorical gap, she doesn’t tell you why first drafts will benefit you, she leaves it up to you do decide if it truly is important and get your own feel on why a bad first draft will enhance your skills.

I’m planning on investigating my question by surveying many of my family that is still in school and even some of my friends. I’m going to ask the basic questions such as “Do you know what Peer response it?”, “Do you think Peer response is an important resource, if yes how does it benefit you? If not why doesn’t it benefit you?” “Do you think peer response really works?” “Have you had any experiences with a good or bad form of peer response?” Etc. I really want to show them that giving & receiving feedback is a extremely important resource that will benefit you and make writing a lot easier because you’re hearing from so many people’s perspectives. Since a lot of them are so young I know I really will open them up to the idea of “Peer Response”.

Below is the Interview questions I used to help me on my research. I used two middle school, two high school, and two college students in my research. Overall it worked out great.

Hello my name is Brianna and I am trying to conduct a study on Peer response. I have a certain question I’d like answered and I’d like to ask you for help! My question is, “In what way is Peer response an important resource to practice with all students not just college students but Middle and High school students too?” Would you mind answering the questions below? It would be greatly appreciated!

Name: __________ _______________                                                        (Check whichever you attend)

Middle School student _______        High School student______        College Student_______        

1. What's your definition of effective feedback (also known as peer response)?

1.  Based on your definition, do you think Peer response important? If yes, Why do you think “Peer Response” is an important resource that we all must learn? If not, why?

1. How has Receiving or giving feedback has enhanced your skills in writing?

1.  How will teaching students how to give the proper form of feedback at a young age make things a lot better when they write a paper in the future? Will they be able to depend a lot more on peers instead of continuously asking the teacher for help, why?

1.  Do you feel that your school should enforce the value of Peer response more, why or why not?

1.  How can Giving feedback help YOU learn from your own mistakes and teach you how to critique yourself?

1.  Would you feel proud knowing that because you’re excellent at feedback your peers choose to come to you for help instead of always going to the teacher, why?

1.   After completing this questionnaire do you felt like Peer response is a very valuable resource that you’d like to incorporate into your everyday life? (Check one)

1. Strongly agree ________
2. Agree _______
3. Not sure (In between) _______
4. Disagree _______
5. Strongly disagree ______

For my research I used three females & three males, three of which are related to me and the other three are friends. In the section below I will describe my participants, I used the same interview questions on all of them to see what data I could collect from different individuals opinions.