Wendy Bishop--"Helping Peer Writing Groups Succeed"

The St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing. Cheryl Glenn and Melissa A. Goldthwaite. Eds. Bedford/St. Martin's: New York, NY. 2014

"Has group work been overrated? Have teachers been deceived? Or, have teachers become confused by the apparent simplicity of a rather complex teaching method? I would like to explore these questions by reviewing research that discusses the use of peer writing groups, by profiling successful and unsuccessful peer writing groups and, finally, by offering a plan for preparing and training students for the method. Such a plan must also include guidelines for evaluating the effectiveness of peer writing groups in the composition classroom."

Research on Peer Writing Groups

Workshops have been oversimplified.

Basing her argument on research revealing the success of peer writing groups, Bishop argues that the problem with peer writing groups doesn't lie with the model itself. Rather, ill-prepared teachers and poor teacher awareness lead to flaws in peer writing groups.

She also responds to criticisms that "students are not always sure of their group role, aren't able to stand back form their own writing, don't know what they want to know, and have reluctance to offer critical comments." Bishop responds by saying these problems "can be somewhat alleviated by student and teacher preparation for the method...Clearly, there is a need to introduce writing students to the vocabulary and terminology of the composition community."

Profiles of Peer Writing Groups

Bishop recommends rating writing groups using a continuum that ranges from "fully developed" to "under developed" to "broken down." The profiles are "only useful in that they give a teacher a way to begin to sort out group interaction patterns...By profiling her own writing groups, a teacher can learn how writing peer groups can become useless and sometimes lifeless."

Bishop then provides different profiles and characteristics for failing and successful groups: (below list copied from text)

Ways Peer Writing Groups Fail:

• Too much or too little leadership.
• Poor attendance or participation or preparation of some students leading to resentment between members.
• Unclear group goals; group doesn't value work or works too quickly.
• Group doesn't feel confident of group members' expertise or members are afraid to offer criticism.
• Group doesn't understand new role of instructor.
• Group never develops adequate vocabulary for discussing writing.
• Group fails to record suggestions or to make changes based on members' suggestions.

Ways Peer Writing Groups Succeed:

• Group successfully involves all members.
• Group works to clarify goals and assignments. 
• Group develops a common vocabulary for discussing assignments. 
• Group learns to identify major writing problems such as organization, tone, and focus, as well as minor writing problems such as spelling errors, and so on. 
• Group learns to value group work and to see instructor as a resource which the group can call on freely. 

 "Most writers are in agreement, students and teachers need preparation and training for successful peer group work.

Preparing for Peer Writing Groups

To better conduct peer writing groups, teachers should read widely about collaborative learning and then expose students to the theory as well via "handouts, class discussion, and continual monitoring of group work."

Bishop then enumerates the various ways teachers can group students:

• pairs that merge into larger groups
• by interest
• gender and age
• based on writing proficiency 

Bishop lets students stay in the same group for around 5 meetings but never the entire semester.

She also recommends students work out inner-group conflicts on their own and develop a group name to help establish a sense of community. Group members should each have a role: monitor, historian, etc.

Training Peer Writing Groups

Teachers should train the groups in two areas: group roles and writing response. Handouts detailing group roles can assist in speeding up the training. Historians should know what their job as secretary entails. Monitors should knows that they must keep an eye on time, etc.

More important is the teacher's responsibility to teach the class how to talk about writing. "In this effort, the teacher functions as the conduit linking the class to academic community. She may begin by teaching the class necessary terminology (concerning writing process and writing analysis) and by training writers and readers to work together through role playing, reviewing sample essays, and so on.

Monitoring Peer Writing Groups

Teachers don't look busy during this time, but they are. They must visit with groups, listen, interject (at times), facilitates, lead, and know when to pull the class back together as a whole.

Evaluating Peer Writing Groups

Teachers can have students keep a group work folder as a form of evaluation and accountability.
"Measurements of student growth in collaborative learning techniques and writing in general can be accomplished with pre and post testing in the following areas:

1. pre and post written descriptions of what students feel can be accomplished in writing groups
2. pre and post written descriptions of students' writing process
3. pre and post writing apprehension tests
4. pre and post essay samples 

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