Join us for conversations that inspire, recognize, and encourage innovation and best practices in the education profession.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more.
Peer responses provide a tremendous learning opportunity for young writers. These interactions help students with topic generation and idea development, increase their confidence about sharing their work, force them to look more objectively at their own writing, give them valuable feedback for possible revisions, and allow them to learn from the writing successes and challenges of their peers. Peer response also helps students learn how to give constructive feedback to others, an important life skill.
“Responding to Writing: Peer to Peer” visits the classrooms of three teachers—fifth-grade teacher Jack Wilde, seventh-grade teacher Velvet McReynolds, and eighth-grade teacher Vivian Johnson—to explore various ways that teachers can structure student interactions, from whole-class responses to informal writing partnerships.
The video highlights teaching strategies that help students learn how to respond appropriately and meaningfully to each other’s writing. Both Jack and Velvet model response using their own writing, and Jack and his students demonstrate how a whole-class response to an individual writer can help all the students hone their conferencing skills. We also sit in as Jack facilitates a small response group, another way of helping students learn how to respond to each other’s writing effectively.
“Responding to Writing: Peer to Peer” abounds with classroom examples of students interacting with each other. It also features interview segments with the three teachers, as well as comments from Linda Rief, an eighth-grade English teacher and the author of Seeking Diversity: Language Arts With Adolescents.
In this workshop, you will see effective practices for helping students respond to each other as writers. These practices include the following:
For more information and resources, visit the NCTE Web site at:
www.ncte.org
Vivian Johnson‘s eighth-grade students respond to each other’s writing both formally and informally, in pairs, in small groups, and as a class.
At the beginning of the year, Vivian uses humor to illustrate good conference manners by modeling what a bad conference looks like—the responder appears distracted, fails to listen, and is rude and obnoxious in other ways. After a discussion of the actual characteristics of an effective conference, Vivian relies on lots of practice to help her students become more successful in responding to their peers’ writing.
Vivian’s classroom segments in Workshop 7 include examples of pair conferences, small-group response, and whole-class response as well as her use of a technique adapted from Linda Rief’s book Seeking Diversity: Language Arts With Adolescents, which uses a conference form and sticky notes to allow many students to write responses to a single piece of writing.
Velvet McReynolds’ Lesson
Graphic organizers and acronyms are often helpful tools for students as they acquire new skills. To introduce peer conferencing, Velvet McReynolds uses the acronym PATS (Praise, Ask a question, Tell what stuck in your mind, Suggest a change for improvement), a response protocol that gives her students an anchor in unfamiliar waters.
To familiarize the class with the PATS technique and with responding to writing in general, Velvet relies on another successful instructional strategy—sharing her own writing. Velvet reads a draft of a personal narrative and then uses PATS to solicit feedback. After modeling the peer conference, Velvet organizes the students into pairs. Then the students share and respond to each other’s writing using the PATS technique.
Peer conference organizer
“PATS helps, because it actually tells you what to say.”
Jack Wilde employs an intentional approach to teaching his fifth-grade students to respond to each other’s writing. His practice includes using reader’s/writer’s notebooks to respond to literature, modeling response during class read-alouds, using his own writing to model response, having the whole class respond to pieces of student writing, setting up adult-mentored conference groups, and pairing the students into independent response partnerships. By November—the time his class was videotaped—Jack’s students are comfortable with peer conferences. However, Jack is still using all the strategies listed above to help his students learn to respond more effectively and independently.
Workshop 7 features extensive classroom footage of four of these strategies—Jack using his own writing as a response model, a whole class response to a student’s piece, an example of a response group comprised of four students and facilitated by Jack, and a peer conference featuring two students. Additionally, Jack offers insight into his methods of teaching peer conferencing and the process his students use in each conference.
On conference protocol:
“The first thing that we’re going to do in the conference is to have it—have the focus be on what’s working, what’s effective, because that makes it safe.”
On using literature to teach conferencing techniques and conference group rules:
“I do teach them to be good listeners in the sense that we conference the books I read aloud to them at my read-aloud time.”
Grouping students for peer conferencing
“When I create the conference groups, the first thing I want to do is have gender parity.”
On the importance of teachers as part of the writing community:
“That was an authentic first draft piece of writing that I shared with my kids.”
On teaching appropriate and meaningful responses to writing:
“I think one of the things that can be hard for kids in responding to each other is feeling they’re going to hurt somebody else’s feelings… .”
On providing writers with an ongoing and authentic audience:
“So in asking them to sort of become more self-aware of what’s going on in the conferences, the first thing that my kids tend to say is that they look forward to it, that they enjoy sharing.”
Teaching students to respond to what’s effective in writing:
“There’s some talk when we start talking about what was effective in their writing.”
Note: For more resources related to conferencing and responding, consult “Additional Resources” for Workshop 6: “Responding to Writing: Teacher to Student.”
Almeda. Cheryl. “In the End All Books Are Written for Your Friends: Motivating Writing Through Peer Audiences.” In Why Workshop? Changing Course in 7-12 English, edited by Richard Bullock, 57-66. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 1998. ISBN: 1571100849.
Ammer, Jerome. “Peer Evaluation Model for Enhancing Writing Performance of Students With Learning Disabilities.” Reading and Writing Quarterly (July/September, 1998): 263.
Barron, Ronald. “What I Wish I Had Known About Peer Response Groups But Didn’t.” English Journal 80.5 (1991): 24-34.
Brady, Suzanne and Suzanne Jacobs. “Children Responding to Children: Writing Groups and Classroom Community.” In Understanding Writing: Ways of Observing, Learning, and Teaching, 2nd Edition, edited by Thomas Newkirk and Nancie Atwell. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1988. ISBN: 0435084410.
Brunce-Crim, Marna. “Ready to Write. Talk It Up: Strategies for More Successful Peer Conferencing.” Instructor (May/June, 1992): 14.
Collins, Jeffrey L. “Establishing Peer Evaluation of Writing: Students Need an Informed Teacher Model.” ERIC Document Reproduction Service http://www.edrs.com ED 243122.
Dale, Helen. “Collaborative Research on Collaborative Writing.” English Journal 83.1 (January 1994): 66-71.
Denyer, Jenny and Debra LaFleur. “The Eliot Conference: An Analysis of a Peer Response Group.” Voices From the Middle 9.1 (September 2001): 29-39.
Duke, Charles R. and Rebecca Sanchez. “Giving Students Control Over Their Writing Assignments.” English Journal 83.4 (April 1994): 47-53.
Farnan, Nancy and Leif Fearn. “Writers’ Workshops: Middle School Writers and Readers Collaborating.” Middle School Journal 24 (May 1993): 61-65.
Fletcher, Ralph and Joann Portalupi. Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8. York, MA: Stenhouse Publishers, 1998. ISBN: 1571100733.
Freeman, Marcia. “Modeling an Efficient Peer Conference: Managing the Daily Writing Workshop.” [videotape] ERIC Document Reproduction Service http://www.edrs.com ED 432012.
Gillis, Candida. “Writing Partners: Expanding the Audiences for Student Writing.” English Journal 83.3 (March 1994): 64-38.
Green, Robert. “Behind Their Backs: Proximity and Insult in Student Response.” In Breakthroughs: Classroom Discoveries About Teaching Writing, edited by Amy Bauman and Art Peterson, 281-293. Berkeley, CA: National Writing Project, 2002. ISBN: 1883920183.
Hillebrand, Romana P. “Control and Cohesion: Collaborative Learning and Writing.” English Journal 83.1 (January 1994): 62-66.
Hughes, Judy. “It Really Works: Encouraging Revision Using Peer Writing Tutors.” English Journal 80.5 (1991): 41-42.
Hughes, Richard D. “Falling Off the Skateboard: Experimenting With Peer Conferences” In Why Workshop? Changing Course in 7-12 English, edited by Richard Bullock, 78-91. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 1998. ISBN: 1571100849.
Kerr, Jo-Anne. “Listening in on the Language of Collaboration in a Writing Workshop.” Middle School Journal 30.1 (Sept. 1998): 3-8.
Kirby, Dan, Tom Liner, and Ruth Vinz. Inside Out: Developmental Strategies for Teaching Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1988.
Kletzien, S. B. and L. Baloche. “The Shifting Muffled Sound of the Pick: Facilitating Student-to-Student Discussion.” Journal of Reading 37.7 (1994): 540-545.
“Making Writing Conferences Fun and Productive With ‘Three Pluses and a Wish.'” Curriculum Review (May 1996): 10.
Manning, Maryann. “Peer Content Conferences.” Teaching Pre K-8 (February 2002): 91-94.
McManus, Ginger and Dan Kirby. “Using Peer Group Instruction To Teach Writing.” English Journal 77.3 (March 1988): 78-80.
Neubert, Gloria and Sally McNelis. “Peer Response: Teaching Specific Revision Strategies.” English Journal 79.5 (Sept. 1990): 52-57.
“Peer Conferencing and Writing Revision: A Study of the Relationship.” ERIC Document Reproduction Service http://www.edrs.com ED 260392.
Reisin, Gail. “Learning by Sharing Graded Papers.” English Journal 79.5 (September 1990): 62-65.
Rhodes, Lynn K. and Curt Dudley-Marling. Readers and Writers With a Difference: A Holistic Approach to Teaching Learning Disabled and Remedial Students. 2nd Edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1988. ISBN: 0435072153.
Schaffer, Jane. “Peer Response That Works.” Journal of Teaching Writing 15.1 (1996): 81-89.
Silver, Kathi O. “The Extended Conference: A Technique To Encourage Writing.” English Journal 78.1 (January 1989): 24-28.
Spear, Karen. Sharing Writing: Peer Response Groups in English Classes. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1988. ISBN: 0867091894.
Steinlage, Theresa M. “Getting the Wrinkles Out: Students Become Their Own Editors.” English Journal 79.5 (September 1990): 60-62.
Stemper, Julie. “Enhancing Student Revising and Editing Skills Through Writing Conferences and Peer Editing.” ERIC Document Reproduction Service http://www.edrs.com ED165187.
Vatalaro, Paul. “Putting Students in Charge of Peer Review.” Journal of Teaching Writing9.1 (1990): 21-29.
Williams, Tom. “The Gift of Writing Groups.” English Journal 79.4 (April 1990): 58-61.
Zemelman, Steve and Harvey Daniels. A Community of Writers: Teaching Writing in the Junior and Senior High School. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1988. ISBN: 0435084631.