“Developing Authority in Student Writing through Written Peer Critique in the Disciplines” is an article written by Barbara Schneider an Jo-Anne Andre in which they provide a theorical framework about developing authority in students through peer critique.The authors say that when students come to university, academic writing is an unknown practice for them and there is no one-style-fits-all. Each discipline has its own particular features. Students need to start identifiying the different particularities of their discipline. For this purpose, the authors propose the use of written peer critique (i.e. the practice of having students read and comment the work of their classmates).
This practice helps students improve their writing skills. Although it is common to critique the work of other students orally, a lot of researchers have advocated for a written response. In the theoretical framework, the authors present how students begin to write using the conventions given by their teachers, but this is not enough to develop authority. Additionally, they identify the representations of self in written texts: the autobiographical self, the discoursal self and the authorial self. Three roles are recognized in the processes of student writing: The layperson role, the text-processor role and the professional-in-training role. Peer critique is proposed as a way to give students the opportunity to develop themselves as "professionals-in-training" and develop an "authorial self" in their texts.
In order to hear an authorial voice in students writing, teachers must ensure that students write their critiques from a strong background knowledge of disciplinary content and genre conventions. (Connector required here to connect genre conventions and students' need) Students need explicit teaching of academic genres. Although factors such as class, ethnicity, sexuality, genre, age, and educational attainment may play a role in inhibiting students development of an authoritative voice, a deeper barrier may lie in students' epistemological assumptions.
As for the setting, this study was conducted in Barbara Schneider's Communication Course. At the beginning of the course an essay was read. Then, the students were given an assignment: to write a one page review that covered the main points of the text. After looking at all the reviews, the authors found evidence of three forms of authorial voice:
- Comments related to disciplinary content
- Comments related to the handling of the summary genre
- Comments related to the commentator's experience as a reader
When you look at the methodology it is clear that the researchers made an effort to give students authority. They tried to preserve "objectivity" through knowledge of the subject and blind peer review but one could argue that the variety in the types of comments show that maybe students felt they had the authority to adress some aspects of their peer's reviews but not others.
Throughout this exercise it is clear that students adopt an authoritative stance and a critical position. The authors stressed how having a strong knowledge base helps them gain a good understanding of the essay and gives them confidence not just for summarizing but for critical thinking, thus increasing the value of their critiques and their position as writers. Both reader and writer become confident when commenting and accepting critiques. When students enter the world of literate practices they need to take into account their autobiographical selves and the subject positions offered by academic discourse. Peer critique gives importance to students' comments in their experience as readers.
Another characteristic of students' peer critique is that students temper the authorial voice in peer critique by using their personal voice and politeness hedges. This is why students` comments are perceived as equals' feedback rather than instructor's criticism. At first, this characteristic of students`comments may seem perplexing because of the rarity of this kind of sensitivity in instructors` comments. Even though students seem to avoid authority by hedging marks, qualifications and polite constructions, they show the opposite in their writings that is to say the meaning of a developement of an authoritative voice and critical perspective. Those strategies are in some level a way of resistance to the comments usually given by teachers, which are made in an authorial way that limits dialogues or competing interpretations.
At the end of the article, we find the epistemological foundations of the study and the pedagogical implications of promoting peer review in processes of student writing. The definitions they propose can be summarized as follows: (1) writing is a social activity. (2) It’s part of the role of university teachers to socialize newcomers into the ways of thinking and knowing of the community they (are supposed to) want to belong to. In this scenario, since responding to each other in writing requires them to take the time to construct a considered response, peer critique can be a valuable tool to help students construct an identity as authors.
What Barbara Schneider and Jo-Anne Andre propose in their text could be helpful for teachers to apply with their students. However, there is the issue of how to prepare teachers to develop this process in a way that students get really involved in it. Additionally, in terms of time it is difficult to handle a very sincere peer' critique because at least in our educational context classes are always shrunk.
Reviewed by: S. Cream In Letters
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