An Overview of Peer Response

A writer from New Hampshire, Robert Connors, once stated that we need to keep writing because it is the stories we share with each other that "finally are all that can ever body us forth to one another." We share our existence with others through the telling of stories, both fictional and non-fictional. What makes writing so special is that it provides us with the opportunity to share our unique perspective on an idea, an issue, an event with the world.

Unlike other types of writing that may be designed solely for the writer (journals and diaries being primary examples), essays (whether traditional paper-based or multimodal for the Web) are written for others, even if it is simply an audience of one. For this reason, you want your prose (a term for writing that is not in poetic form) to be as lucid, as well-supported, and as well-argued as possible. Often as writers--at least I know this happens to me--we write what we think is a perfectly comprehensible piece, only to discover later that the intuitive mental leaps that we made while writing, revising, and rereading the piece are not so easily made by our readers and that they need more explanation or clarification to "get" the points that we are trying to make. To ensure that we communicate as clearly and as effectively as possible, writers need feedback at various stages of the writing process.

In this class you will not simply be writing. You will also be engaging with your classmates in conversations about writing, listening to each other, reading each other's work, sharing ideas, and giving feedback (both oral and in writing). We will often have peer response sessions when brainstorming, when drafting the mid-process draft, and when copy-editing for the draft to be handed in.

We will discuss in class some of the potential drawbacks and benefits of peer response. We will also discuss and debunk misconceptions such as "I'm not an English teacher, so I can't tell you what to 'fix' in your paper." Peer responding is not about "fixing" papers or projects. And a person does not have to be an expert in English to give useful feedback to a writer. Each of you is an expert about your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings as you read someone else's essay. Sharing those thoughts is what peer response is all about.