How to Write Meaningful Peer Response Praise – Ron DePeter

 Summarize the main idea

 Think about how receiving feedback has impacted the way you look at writing. How does
written feedback make you feel?
 Give two questions about the reading for the next class

I believe that the main idea of Ron DePeter’s article, “How to Write Meaningful Peer Response Praise,”
is that peer response should be more thorough on what a peer thinks about another student’s writing. It
isn’t enough to just say that you like the writing or that more can be expanded upon. DePeter explains,
with food, why this is when he says that “It is not enough, really, to say that you like it ‘because it tastes
good.’ In this sense, good just becomes an empty word that doesn’t really say anything,” (DePeter, 2020,
p. 42). DePeter is showing that you could tell anyone that something is “good,” but it wouldn’t give that
other person any clue as to why they think that it is good. They just know that it is good, but they don’t
have anything to base off of what is good about it. DePeter explains that you need to provide more
information on how it is good. What about it do you like? What is special about this that makes it better
than something else? DePeter says that his favorite food is pepperoni pizza, but he gives more than just
that it tastes good. He gives explanations on where he likes it from, and what is special about this place’s
pepperoni pizza that makes it better than another place’s pepperoni pizza.

A lot of the time when I have gotten a peer response, it is usually something simple, such as “give more
detail,” or “make these paragraphs longer.” The problem with these is that it doesn’t help me to know
what I have to expand upon or what it is that I need to give more detail for. What is it that I’m missing
that I should add? What do I need to change in order to make the paragraph longer? When I receive
these types of feedback, I’m never able to apply it to my writing. I already knew that I needed to make
my paragraph longer, but I don’t know what to expand upon. DePeter gives an explanation as to why
students tend to receive this type of feedback, which is due to it being part of a grade. When a teacher
assigns someone to give feedback on another student’s paper, we try to do the bare minimum to just
get it over with and receive our grade. I have also been the type of person to write feedback that is not
helpful to other students, but whenever I read another student’s paper, I always feel that it is much
better than my paper and I always have a hard time to figure out what it is that I could give feedback on.

Questions:

1. What would be a good way to find something to give praise on when the writing is about
something that I am uninterested in, or if it is hard to find something to write praise about?
2. The writer says that students tend to do the bare minimum when reviewing a peer’s work just
for a grade. What would be a good way to get students to write better praise while still grading
it?