Peer Review

Equally important to the types of writing assignments our students complete is their ability to critically read, evaluate, and revise those assignments. "Peer Review" is a strategy that teachers use to help students learn how to talk about and revise their own writing. In this collaborative learning environment, students take turns reading each other's work, commenting on structure, format, content, and overall coherence. After the "Peer Review" session, students use their classmates' comments along with their own ideas to revise their work.

Take a few minutes to explore the different features on this page. The "Literacy TA Process" and "School-wide" sections provide important details about how to teach the strategy. Once you are familiar with the content, think about how you might use the different elements provided on this page to enhance the teaching of this strategy.

Assessing the Skill

When assessing students' ability to participate in a writing workshop, teachers could...

• walk around the room and listen to what students are saying. Teachers should listen for how the students are talking about the paper. They should be making comments about the content of the paper, analyzing the structure of the text, reworking sentences, and making recommendations. The conversation should be academic and function at a high level with little guidance from the teacher.
• assess each student's ability to write clear, useful comments on the papers they are revising.
• use the strategy rubric below to assess students' ability to work productively during the workshop.
• ask students to write a brief reflection at the end of class that explains what they learned during the workshop. A template for a "Peer Review" reflection can be found in the Handout Bar below.
• assess how well students manage their time during the peer review.

Assessing Content Knowledge

If we are going to invest time teaching strategies that promote collaborative work, we should have some idea of how the strategy is improving students' application of critical concepts and skills. When assessing students' writing proficiency, teachers could...

• compare students drafts to their revisions as a way to evaluate growth and progress.
• ask students to highlight (with highlighter marker or colored pencil) aspects of the writing task that they have learned and practiced in class.
• use a rubric to assess the overall quality of the writing.
• utilize a writing portfolio so both teacher and student can be involved in monitoring and assessing growth.

Developing a Speaking Purpose

Before we ask our students to participate in a "Peer Review," we should develop a purpose for the workshop. What do we want our students to do? What will they revise? Do we want them to identify features like a thesis statement, author's claims, author's evidence, original support, or something else listed in the writing task? How much time will students have to revise? Will this be the only revision? Providing answers to these types of questions help students understand our expectations for task completion. Here are some purposes for "Peer Review."

• Students use colored pencils to highlight their peer's thesis statement, topic sentences, and supporting evidence.
• Students work together to replace "weak" verbs with "stronger," more accurate descriptions. They could also replace common nouns like "car" with descriptive nouns like "Chevy Camero." For a second workshop, you could ask students to go back to the descriptive nouns (let's use the Chevy Camero) and add description like "canary yellow Chevy Camero."
• Teachers can develop a series of revision questions that students can use to focus on a specific feature or section of text. 

Pacing and Supporting the Lesson

When introducing the "Peer Review" strategy, provide explicit directions and model expectations. If you want students to write comments in the margins, show them what that looks like. If you want them to identify thesis statements (or claims), supporting details, topic sentences, etc., show them how to isolate this information. For example, do you want students to underline information in the text or use colored pencil to make the ideas stand out on the page (see example photos)?

We should also explicitly teach the three elements that make up a successful collaborative environment: emotional (how students treat each other), social (how students sit and talk together), and academic (how students approach the work). Mastering these three elements will lead to highly effective, efficient writing workshops.

In the beginning, assign simple tasks so that students can concentrate on one skill at a time. As students become more familiar with the peer review process, you can add more sophisticated tasks. Time on task should also increase over time. Start with 5 to 7 minute activities. As students demonstrate proficiency, teachers can increase the amount of collaboration time.

Learning the Skill

Here are a few ways to help introduce the "Peer Review" strategy. 

• Provide a clear purpose for group work either verbally or in writing.
• Explicitly state your expectations.
• Explain each step in the process and remind students to use their "library voice" when speaking about a paper.
• Project a digital timer (see "Links") so that students can manage their time on task.
• Show students how to efficiently move in and out of groups (see diagram below).
• Provide sentence starters so that students can learn how to speak academically and respectfully.
• Walk around the classroom while students are sharing ideas and coach groups when necessary.
• Give students ample time to learn and master this strategy.
• Check-in often. Assess what they know and what they still need to learn.
• Gradually increase the time on task as students demonstrate proficiency.
• Project the strategy rubric and go over your expectations (see "Assessments").
• Have students complete the "Peer Review" Reflection (see handouts below).

Developing the Skill

As students develop their ability to engage in writing workshops, consider using the following strategies.

• Increase the amount of time students work together.
• Assign more sophisticated tasks as students become more competent at revising written work.
• Students should work in the same groups for a month or two in order to learn how to work together as a team.
• Slowly remove scaffolds like sentence starters and benchmarks (this means, teacher sets time limits for each activity).
• Walk around the room while students work in groups and provide feedback.
• Talk to the whole class about your expectations. Strike a nice balance between coaching and praising.
• Ask students to evaluate their collaborative groups. What do they do well? What do they need to improve?
• Have students complete the "Peer Review" Reflection (see handouts below).

Mastering the Skill

Mastery of any skill takes time, lots of practice, and a solid understanding of the strategy. Consider applying some of the following approaches when developing students' mastery of "Peer Review."

• Expect groups to monitor their own behavior and productivity.
• Expect students to produce more in a shorter amount of time.
• Have students use the strategy rubric to assess their own collaborative work.
• Direct students to solve their own problems while working in collaborative groups.  
• Challenge students with increasingly sophisticated tasks.

School Wide

In order to make a strategy transferable through a department and across a school, the name of the strategy must stay the same and it must be implemented and talked about in the same way. Although reading purposes may change from class to class, unit to unit, the work behind a strategy must be predictable and consistent for our students. When a set of effective literacy strategies are implemented throughout the school day, students gain a deep knowledge of how to use the strategy, when to use it, and most importantly, why to use it. The goal for school-wide literacy, therefore, is to develop students' mastery of a select set of strategies so that they can independently and strategically employ them in rigorous academic and professional environments.

English Description

Our students must learn the value of revision--to see their work anew. A critical component to revision is input from others. "Peer Review" is a strategy that engages students in a collaborative activity where multiple students consider what has been written or created and work--as a team--to improve it. As students review their peers' work, they not only help their fellow classmates, they gain a deeper understanding of how to do something like write an introduction to a paper, solve a math equation, interpret a graph, or conclude a speech. The "Peer Review," however, is only effective if the teacher provides a focus for the revision. In other words, the teacher tells the students what he or she wants them to consider and evaluate as they engage in the activity.

In the English classroom, the "Peer Review" strategy could be used in a number of ways. Students could review...

• a paragraph or short response.
• an outline or page of notes.
• various compositions written for the course.
• a written speech.

Teachers could ask students to look at diction, sentence structure, logic of ideas, evidence, text structure, and various other elements and features in writing.

Math Description

Revision in a math classroom looks different. Students are not revising sentences and paragraphs, nor are they checking to see if a thesis statement is present. In math, students check their work, going over each step to ensure they have not made a mistake. Often, students overlook the smallest of details because they are working the problem too quickly or not giving the problem the attention it requires. For whatever reason, students produce incorrect answers.  "Peer Revision" could be used to help with this problem. Do we want our students engaged in "Peer Review" after every homework assignment or in-class activity? No. But students would benefit from their peers checking their work from time to time. This exercise would demonstrate to students how important checking your work can be in math, and they will learn that mistakes do happen. There is a lot going on in each math problem, and students will benefit from carefully scrutinizing each step.  Then, when they go back to do their own problems, they will remember the mistakes their peers had made, work a bit slower, and include each step in the process.

Science Description

Our students must learn the value of revision--to see their work anew. A critical component to revision is input from others. "Peer Review" is a strategy that engages students in a collaborative activity where multiple students consider what has been written or created and work--as a team--to improve it. As students review their peers' work, they not only help their fellow classmates, they gain a deeper understanding of how to do something like write an introduction to a paper, solve a math equation, interpret a graph, or conclude a speech. The "Peer Review," however, is only effective if the teacher provides a focus for the revision. In other words, the teacher tells the students what he or she wants them to consider and evaluate as they engage in the activity.

In the science classroom, the "Peer Review" strategy could be used in a number of ways. Students could review...

• lab notes.
• a lab report or write-up.
• an analysis of data.
• an academic summary like an abstract.

Teachers could ask students to look at vocabulary, accuracy in evaluation or observation, text structure, and various other elements and features in scientific writing.

Social Science Description

Our students must learn the value of revision--to see their work anew. A critical component to revision is input from others. "Peer Review" is a strategy that engages students in a collaborative activity where multiple students consider what has been written or created and work--as a team--to improve it. As students review their peers' work, they not only help their fellow classmates, they gain a deeper understanding of how to do something like write an introduction to a paper, solve a math equation, interpret a graph, or conclude a speech. The "Peer Review," however, is only effective if the teacher provides a focus for the revision. In other words, the teacher tells the students what he or she wants them to consider and evaluate as they engage in the activity.

In the social science classroom, the "Peer Review" strategy could be used in a number of ways. Students could review...

• a paragraph or short response.
• an outline or page of notes.
• various compositions written for the course.
• a written speech.

Teachers could ask students to look at diction, sentence structure, logic of ideas, evidence, text structure, and various other elements and features in writing.

Standardized Exams Description

Our students must learn the value of revision--to see their work anew. A critical component to revision is input from others. "Peer Review" is a strategy that engages students in a collaborative activity where multiple students consider what has been written or created and work--as a team--to improve it. As students review their peers' work, they not only help their fellow classmates, they gain a deeper understanding of how to do something like write an introduction to a paper, solve a math equation, interpret a graph, or conclude a speech. The "Peer Review," however, is only effective if the teacher provides a focus for the revision. In other words, the teacher tells the students what he or she wants them to consider and evaluate as they engage in the activity.

When preparing for written exams, the "Peer Review" strategy could be used in a number of ways. Students could review...

• a paragraph, short response, or the essay.
• an outline or a mind map.
• a thesis statement.
• topic sentences.

Teachers could ask students to look at diction, sentence structure, logic of ideas, evidence, text structure, and various other elements and features in writing.