Peer Review

On this page you will find peer review resources, practices, strategies, readings, and PowerPoints, as well as lesson plans and peer review activities from current and former E110 instructors.

Many students come into E110 with stories of bad peer review experience from high school. Students often complain that in the past, their peer reviewers only praised their papers or corrected grammar and spelling errors or were too critical or vague. Sometimes, they admit to being the student doing these things! It’s important, then, in E110 to help students develop their peer review skills. Giving feedback isn’t an innate skill, it’s one that is learned with guidance and repeated practice. Your job as an instructor is to help your students develop this importtant skill.

Constructing Peer Review

Click through these slides to learn strategies and best practices for conducing peer review in your E110 course.

Talk About It

Since many students come to E110 with bad peer review experiences, it’s a good idea to discuss and establish expectations for peer review. You can ask questions like, what have your past peer review experiences been like? What did you like or dislike about them? What makes feedback helpful or unhelpful? What do you want from an ideal peer review partner?

Set a Goal

Students need to know why they are peer reviewing and what they are expected to learn from peer review. According to the University of Michigan, “Being explicit about your goals can help [students] see how the peer review process fits into the larger context of your course.”

Provide Guidance and Structure

Students tend to flounder when told to just do peer review or when they are given too many things to look for in their peer’s paper. Effective peer review provides students with focused tasks or criteria to guide the process. Give students a few central questions or brief guidelines to help focus their responses.

Practice Actionable Feedback

The toughest part of peer review for students is giving actionable feedback. Actionable feedback is something that students can do. For example, instead of simply stating a sentence is confusing, students can ask questions like, “How can you clarify the meaning of this sentence?” or “What is the purpose of this sentence?”

Be Hands On

If you are doing peer review synchronously in class, don’t just leave the students to their own devices. Make sure to constantly circle the room, stopping at each group a few times to listen in and ask how they’re doing. If needed, step in to model what giving actionable feedback looks like or to steer the conversation in a more productive direction.

Check In

Make sure to check in with your students after peer review to see how they feel. Is the way you conducted peer review working for them? Are there changes they would like to see? Is there any lingering confusion or questions? This check in could take the form of a small group or class discussion, free write, or an (in)formal written reflection.