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#13 PEER FEEDBACK ON WRITING: AN ASSESSMENT-FOR-LEARNINGTOOL

Shelley Stagg PetersonOntario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Peer feedback, when guided by teacher modeling and assessment criteria, is a useful assessment-for-

learning tool that has been shown to support students’ writing development and contribute to students’revisions to improve their writing (Boscolo & Ascorti, 2004; Graham & Perin, 2007). Peer feedback can

 be helpful across the elementary grades, though extensive teacher support is needed in grades one and

two. Peers’ comments about how the writing made them think or feel, together with their commendationsor suggestions about the content (e.g., characters or plot of narratives; inclusion of examples and other

needed information in essays or persuasive arguments), or about the language and other elements of theauthor’s writing style, provide helpful starting points for revisions that improve students’ writing. Certaintypes of feedback, such as emotional responses that show what kind of effect the writing has on the

audience, and feedback that focuses on scoring criteria, have been shown to be most useful to studentwriters (Hansen & Liu, 2005; Peterson, 2003). In a grade eight classroom (Peterson, 2003), for example,students were more likely to revise their writing when peers suggested that particular events did not seem

 plausible. Three of the four focus students did not revise their writing in response to feedback indicating aneed for greater clarity, as they viewed such peer feedback as a reflection of their peers’ carelessness in

reading the writing, rather than a need for revisions.

Peer feedback benefits not only the students who receive suggestions for improving the writing, but alsothe feedback providers, as they gain a greater awareness of qualities of good writing through assessingand commenting on peers’ writing. Peer feedback also develops students’ self-assessment abilities, as

they gain experience in using the criteria to read their own writing (Cho & MacArthur, 2010; Lundstrom& Baker, 2009). In these respects, peer feedback is truly an assessment-for-learning tool (Black,Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2003) that should be an ongoing part of writers’ workshop (Graves,

1994).

Teachers’ Support for Peer Feedback

It is important to teach students how to give feedback to their peers and how to work with the feedback.This includes setting parameters to ensure that students do not feel discouraged or hurt after receiving

 peer feedback and maintaining a sense of ownership over the writing: students should be aware that they

do not have to use feedback that they feel will not improve their writing. It is also important to provideguidelines for the content of the feedback. Researchers recommend teaching students revision strategiesand qualities of good writing assessed by scoring criteria that students know (MacArthur, 2007). Students

in a grade one class, for example, provided feedback that their peers felt was useful and made many

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revisions and edits that incorporated peers’ suggestions after receiving such formal instruction. Theirteacher used ongoing modeling, examples, and reinforcement through posting reminder charts around the

classroom and giving students feedback on how well their peer feedback matched the helpful feedbackcriteria established by the class (Peterson & Portier, 2012). Another effective practice involved studentsobserving two peers using a set of criteria to give feedback, discussing how effective the feedback was,and then applying what they learned when giving feedback to peers on their writing (Van Steendam,Rijlaarsdam, Sercu, & Van den Bergh, 2010).

When desk or tables are arranged so students can easily talk to each other while they write, informal peer

feedback is often a natural part of students’ writing processes. Students may ask each other for help withideas, words, spellings, etc. or they may run a sentence or idea by peers to get a sense of audiencereaction. Authors’ groups (Graves & Hansen, 1983) are a commonly-used forum for peer feedback.

Students read their writing aloud to each other in turn and often take a “two stars and a wish” or“sandwich” approach where two positive comments are included alongside a more critical comment that

identifies an element that could be improved (Peterson & McClay, 2010). In one study, students workingin pairs as one student read the other’s writing, identified an aspect that was not clear to her/him, and then

discussed with the author possible ways to revise in order to clarify the point (Boscolo & Ascorti, 2004).In addition, a successful peer feedback context implemented by a grade 8 teacher involved invitingstudents to exchange their drafts with a partner, write comments on the draft and then give oral feedback

to each other (Peterson, 2003).

In summary, peer feedback on writing develops students’ self-assessment abilities through providingopportunities to learn and apply scoring criteria. It also provides helpful information to guide revisionsthat improve students’ writing. Teacher support through modeling, providing examples, and giving

reinforcement on the content and processes for exchanging peer feedback, is necessary to ensure theeffectiveness of peer feedback.

Further Reading

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for learning: Putting it

into practice. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

Boscolo, P. & Ascorti, K. (2004). Effects of collaborative revision on children’s ability to write

understandable narrative texts. In L. Allal, L. Chanqouy, & P. Largy (Eds.), Revision: Cognitive andinstructional processes (Vol. 13, pp. 157-170). Boston, MA: Kluwer.

Cho, K. & MacArthur, C. (2010). Student revision with peer and expert reviewing. Learning and Instruction, 20, 328-338.

Graham, S. & Perin, D. (2007). A meta-analysis of writing instruction for adolescent students. Journal of

 Educational Psychology, 99, 445-476.

Graves, D. (1994). A fresh look at writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Graves, D. & Hansen, J. (1983). The author’s chair . Language Arts, 60(2), 176-183.

Hansen, J. & Liu, J. (2005). Guiding principles for effective peer response. ELT Journal, 59, 31-38.

Lundstrom, K. & Baker, W. (2009). To give is better than to receive: the benefits of peer review to thereviewer’s own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18 , 30-43.

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MacArthur, C.A. (2007). Best practice in teaching evaluation and revision. In S. Graham, C. MacArthur, &J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Best practice in writing instruction (pp. 141-162). New York: Guilford.

Peterson, S. (2003). Peer influences on students’ revisions of their narrative writing. L-1 EducationalStudies in Language and   Literature, 30, 239–272.

Peterson, S.S. & McClay, J. (2010). Assessing and providing feedback for student writing in Canadianclassrooms. Assessing Writing, 15(2), 86-99.

Peterson, S.S. & Portier, C. (in press). Grade one peer and teacher feedback on student writing.  Education

3-13, 40(4).

Van Steendam, E., Rijlaarsdam, G., Sercu, L., U Van den Bergh, H. (2010). The effect of instruction typeand dyadic or individual emulation on the quality of higher-order peer feedback in EFL.  Learning and Instruction, 20, 316-327.