P2: Leo

Intro:
Many times in school we're put in groups to discuss different ideas on our classmates writings, to try to improve each others writing, or simply revise grammar. Peer response has been a big role in students academic learning life. Peer response simply means classmates looking over each others writing while giving feedback to improve each others papers. Seeing how in this class we've mainly been working with peer response, and we've studied it and read over it made me wonder, is peer response and revision really effective? Are students actually learning through peer response? I certainly believe it has taught me in a much deeper and rather effective way. When I revise or my peers revise my writing by going over it and pointing out flaws and correcting or simply giving new ideas, I believe I get a better understanding of the writing and how it can be approached. Nancy Sommer’s Article “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” is a perfect example of how self revision is effective, yet not much students are experienced in this or simply don’t do it correctly. On the other hand Diana George’s "Working with Peer Groups in the Composition Classroom." and Gillam’s “Research in the Classroom: Learning through Response” are example’s of what peer response/revision can do for students. This can take a revision assignment to a higher level of thinking and learning. When students are made to revise each other’s work, they are rhetorically and thoughtfully expanding their minds to create much better writing while getting experience from other writers. To prove how effective peer response really is, I thought of having two types of experiments. One being surveys in which students are asked how they are handling peer response and peer revision, the second experiment would be interviewing english professors who use or don’t use peer response and revision in their teaching structures. This can represent how effective (or not effective) peer response/revision is.

Lit Review:
Nancy Sommers in her article writes about revision and how experienced writers use the method of revision for making improvement in writing. I plan on bringing up this article and comparing it to peer response and peer revision (pg. 386) If Sommers is all about revision and going over work, wouldn’t it make sense to go over more than one paper to improve your writing. would going over peers writing improve your writers. When going over someone else’s writing, we gain experience that most of the time improve our own writing. In Diana Georges article she is all for working in peer groups in composition classes. She gives more depth on how teachers role in peer groups is helpful. And also how teacher’s should encourage peer response, while still being involved as a “facilitator” (pg.325) I will use this source for proof of my theory. Diana George’s article is more focused on the teacher’s role in peer response. She says how it is still necessary to have a teacher that is well prepared to handle group work yet still not taking over control, and letting students drive their discussions.(pg 326) Gillam will be the one source which will be able to take my writing of project two to a much deeper meaning. Gilliam not only says that peer response can help students writing, but she brings the idea of “metacognition”, which is learning about learning and knowing about knowing; using strategies that can solve a problem (pg.98) When students are revising and responding to each others work, they learn to control their own thinking process. They learn how they take in text and makes it easier yet more challenging in a positive way to write better papers. “the believing game” from Elbow from Gillams article is the way we should think as far as peer response learning. We must “trust students capacity to learn from one another and for themselves” If we all believe, we call all achieve. (pg.99)

Connection Piece:
All of my three articles in some way connect to my writing study interest which in this case is peer response/revision. Nancy Sommers article talks about a general revision and how all students either experienced or new students should use revision in their writing. (pg. 387)I completely agree with this idea, but by taking it a step further and having peer revision, writing can be far more interesting. In Diana Georges article, she focuses her idea on how peer group works well for composition classes, this is exactly what my idea is about peer group and peer response go hand in hand for me. If students work in groups, they will naturally help each other. A perfect way to take that to the next level would be by peer response. Giving feedback from student to student is a great way to learn new ideas and experiences which in the end is what writing is about. My last article is Gillam, she says that students who revise other students work not only create better writing, but also learn to control how they think and what they think learning wise. I mostly agree with GIllams article, it just makes sense to me. Students learn so much more by revising each other’s paper.(pg. 99) After all we all learn from mistakes. Wouldn’t it make sense to revise?

Methodology:
I am doing two forms of research. One is quick surveys while the on the other hand is a more elaborate and intricate interviews. I will be doing surveys to students that are or have taken an english class. This survey consists of four basic questions. They will provide me with feedback that will be able to prove or not prove my theory and see how really effective peer response is. The other one is doing surveys to professors. This i will get to sit with them and actually see what they personally think of peer response. If they actually use it or what exactly they think this helps or does not. These two forms of experiments will provide good feedback on to further develop and even prove my theory. Getting actual conversations and answers from people that experience peer response in first hand will greatly benefit me into looking how exactly peer response is being done and how effective this is.

Research Data:
I've done my surveys so far, which was very interesting. Seeing the different type of people that I went around to survey and the answers I received; said something different about everyone. I had ten total surveys. I thought ten where enough for my research because each surveyed had thoughtful and elaborate questions which required sentence answers. I thought having four elaborate surveys instead of forty "quick check" questions was more helpful in my research project. In each survey i gave the definition of peer response, to make sure everyone that took the survey was sure of what the questions were about. There was four different questions that all correlate to each other and help me come up with a conclusion. Five of the surveys said that going over classmates writing does not personally help them; they do not benefit. On the other hand four of them said it does. One of the surveys was done on an older man who was in grad school. He was very secure on his writing so said that writing usually does not help him and “it is a waste of time”. As far as what they think of the role of the teacher while peer response is being done, they all mainly think that the teacher is crucial while working in groups. Most of them said that the professor should be able to keep everyone on track and present clear ideas, which this helps them to go over peers work. I also interviewed my senior English teacher from High School. She said that peer response is not something new, it has been done for a while now. What is knew is that outcome. She talked about how not only do students learn to revise work, but also benefit by improving in their own writing and reading skills. She said that for her (as a teacher) her job is to keep students on task and give out information which is necessary for peer response to be productive. She notices “that many times if a member of a group is not cooperative, the team as a whole does not advance”. She took peer response as more of a group discussion and teamwork.

Research Analysis:
It was interesting seeing all the outcomes of the surveys and interview. What i found out is that peer response is being done in many classrooms, but little do students know they do it themselves. Even more fascinating is that they do not realize the opportunities and advantages of going over their peers work. They don’t see how they actually benefit. It was pretty evened out how many students actually think the benefit by peer response and how many don’t. Surveying a grad student made me realize that maybe peer response should be more welcomed in undergrad courses. As far as the interview with my former high school english teacher, I realized that a teachers role in peer response and revision is very important. A teachers role in peer response should be to keep everyone on track and present ideas while not taking over control; and letting students lead discussion and revision with each other. Another point that was interesting was that many of the people that i surveyed thought peer response as group work, and now that i ponder upon that conclusion i really think they are right. Working in groups is what peer response is about, getting constant feedback by peers and working along side of classmates is what peer review and response is all about.

Conversation Piece:
Doing this research made me realize that a lot of students don't really have a clear idea of what peer response really is. Taking surveys and trying to get an idea of what they thought about how it affects them and what they think teachers role in peer response, all this has made me realize that students need to most importantly know what peer response consists of, which is going over classmates writing to revise. I initially started to seek if this was truly effective to further develop a better writing and learning process. But now seeing my results, i believe that we can’t fully understand if it is effective or not, because many students don’t realize they do it everyday. To really get an idea of this being effective, teachers must communicate while peer response is done, in order for students to develop better writing criticism.

Conclusion:
After analyzing my sources and my surveys as well as interview, I come to conclude that peer response can not be measured it’s effectiveness fully. It is different for everybody. As my surveys said about half of the people said it was effective after realizing what peer response was. The other half don’t realize they do it, and did not think it was effective. I believe this research should be demonstrated to instructors from elementary to the college level, since peer response is all throughout the learning process. This can show teachers and professors what they need to improve on, which would be to let students know what they expect from them while put in groups or simply when they are put to revise a students work. Teaching students to give constructive and meaningful feedback is extremely important and necessary. Learning to constructively criticize and give feedback during peer response, is necessary to become a better learner, writer and reader. All these aspects are in peer response. While it can be extremely helpful, if a student does not know what to do when he/she is handed a paper to revise; how will they benefit? It is a teachers responsibility to teach what needs to be done when peer response is done.