SQR 2 Jesus Zapata

September 8, 2010

SQR 2
Jesus Zapata
ENG 1320/1301. 161
Phan Thi Thuy Trang
September 8, 2010
Peer Response: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions

Gloria A. Neubert and Sally J. McNelis “Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions”
The English Journal. Vol. 79. No. 5 (Sep., 1990). Pp. 52-56

Summary:
Peer Response is a great article about how students that write can simply improve their responses of editing their peers’ papers if they try using methods like the PQP technique. The PQP technique is a technique used involving group members of around two to five people and they take turns reading each other’s drafts out loud to help identify the mistakes they made so they can fix them to make their paper better. This method works because when doing this, it gives students the chance to hear their paper being read aloud by another student, to see how correctly it is really written. When making a response to another student’s paper, we really need to make sure we are specific in doing so, and not vague. That is what this article talks about, and we can get a good learning experience by applying them to our responses. When giving a specific response for a revision, it helps the other student get detail help, at what they need to work on in order to improve their paper. If for instance, if our revised response is too vague, then that will not help the student improve his/her paper one bit at all.

Question1: Why “peer response”? What can peers’ comments do for one’s writing?

Response:

Peer responses are very important to students because when doing the PQP technique, it helps student’s papers improve by making them realize some of the mistakes they made or information they forgot to add in their paper. When having your peers’ review your work and reading it aloud, it really helps students listen to what does not sound right in his/her paper. When you are doing a peer response, you have to make sure your response is not too vague, or too general because the student that you are trying to help will not get a clear understanding at what he/she needs to work on. When doing revision, we have to make sure it is really specific so that way it can be very useful to the writer. It will give the writer a specific direction for revion and let them know why they need to improve their work. You should also try to not be mean when explaining what they did wrong so they will not take it the wrong way and become offended. You should try to be as a kind as you can as at the same time you are doing your best at pointing out all the mistakes that they made. No one is perfect, and that is why techniques like revision have been created to improve not on your paper, but your classmates as well. You also have to be willing to take the criticism as constructive criticism. If you take it the right way and correct what you did wrong, then you will become a better writer and student in general as well.