ENGL 505A

I found Harris' article on the (similarities) and differences between tutor responses and peer responses to be very useful and interesting. As a composition teacher to both international students at a graduate school and native or bilingual speakers at a community college, I have relied on both as supplements to my own teaching in class. While I was very grateful to have these two resources available to me, I sometimes found tutor or peer responses could also hinder rather than help student progress in their writing. For example, at the community college, tutors were often identified by how well they performed in their English classes and were then hired as tutors. I do not know the specifics of what their training was like; however, the end result of a tutoring session was often a "fixed" paper. When reading students' drafts, I could even read the writing and difference in colored pen that the tutor used in order to mark the students' papers.

With peer response, I always had my students bring in their first drafts, and after completing a pointed self-evaluation, writers then shared this same draft with their peers in a group of three. In this way, the student first had to reflect on what he liked/didn't like or needed help with and then received feedback on the same draft from two different people. Many of my international graduate students had never experienced peer response nor had many of the students at the community college. Therefore, as a way of "training" or in order to help students with the process, I always provided peer feedback sheets that were to be completed during the reading of a peer's paper. With this feedback sheet, I was setting the agenda of the peer response group, although there was also room for the writer to indicate on what he/she wanted help. For example, for the first draft, students were first asked to fill out a self-evaluation and indicate what they liked about their paper and where they were stuck or needed help. Then with the peer response, I wanted to know if students' papers contained a clear thesis statement and clear organization. Therefore, there would be a line asking the reader to record the writer's thesis statement, explain in the reader's own words what he/she thought the main point or message of the paper was, and whether this message was clearly expressed in the thesis statement. Additionally direct items included "underline the first main point the writer uses to support his/her thesis statement. What examples are provided to illustrate or support this main point?"

I agree with Harris that in order to overcome these difficulties, training for both tutors and peer responders is essential.