Peer Response

What is Peer Response?

Peer response is a technique often used in English composition classes. Peer response is students reading and commenting on one another's work.

Why do Peer Response?

1. It gives students an audience other than the teacher for their writing.
2. It allows student-writers to hear how several readers other than the teacher react to their writing. These reactions tell student-writers where their writing is clear and where it needs more work.
3. It allows student-writers to learn from the ways other student-writers have written about a topic.
4. It gives student-writers practice in critical reading that they can apply as they read their own writing.

Cultural problems with Peer Response

The way groups function in Japan can cause problems in peer response.

1. Japanese students will often try to keep group harmony rather than make any critical comments about another student's writing. They often keep silent rather than say something that will embarrass another student.
2. Japanese students are sometimes hesitant about claiming their authority as readers. If something is not clear, they may think, "It's my fault that I can't understand what the writer is saying."
3. On the other hand, they may see other students' criticism of their writing as being the reader's problem, not the writer's problem.
4. When Japanese students do make comments they are often given as questions rather than direct suggestions.

We will continue to use peer response in Communicative Writing this year. Please remember it is possible to make suggestions or even criticisms without destroying group harmony.