Peer review is very helpful in the writing classroom.
My first semester at my uni I had students doing a peer review. I had already told students that there was nothing we were doing in class that we did for less than 2 reasons, because I didn’t have time to teach everything I wanted them to learn. One raised his hand and asked what the point was and weren’t they wasting their time.
I told the whole class:
Peer review is useful for the person whose paper has responses. They see where others have identified the writing as being confusing and interesting. They can adjust for one while leaving the other.
Peer review is useful for the person who is writing the feedback, because it is easier to identify errors in other people’s work than in your own. However, identifying the errors in someone else’s work might tread you to recognize them in your own and/or to pay attention to them.
Peer review is useful for the person who has done the assignment well because they can see that they are ahead of the curve.
Peer review is useful for the person who has done the assignment poorly because they can see that they are behind the curve.
Peer review is useful for the person who is confused about the assignment as they can see other people’s approaches to it.
Peer review is also useful for the person who has done a good job but wants to improve as reading other people’s work can help you to think of your own in new ways.
Peer review is increasingly conducted in writing classes since the prevalence of communicative approach in recent years, and it has been proved as an effective approach to improve the writing skill (Corbin, 2012), to increase motivation to writing, and to learn how to treat writing as a collaborative social activity (Farrah, 2012).(24)
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It was found that not only did students enjoy the process and product, but also a significant development and change was observed in their writing skill. The peer review process engaged the students in frequent reading and writing, fostered their critical reading and reflection, sharpened their writing knowledge and skills, helped them to manage their learning schedule, increased their motivation and joy of writing, and promoted their information literacy.(32)
Shokrpour, Nasrin, Nikta Keshavarz, and Seyed Mohammad Jafari. “The Effect of Peer Review on Writing Skill of EFL Students.” Khazar Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences 16.3 (2013): 24-35. Web. 17 September 2015.