In order to improve your essays, you will engage in a peer response process. These responses will provide you with feedback on your essay, allow you to see how some of your peers tackled the same assignment, and give you the opportunity to correct problems in your work before I grade it.

I will divide the class into peer response groups, each consisting of three or four people. When the essay is due, I will distribute the essays among the groups. Then, before the next class, you will type a response to each of your peers’ essays in which you will address the following issues:

1. Depending on whether your peer chose Option 1 or Option 2 for the essay, the thesis should either focus on a theme of either Invisible Cities or If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler or on one of the values Calvino discusses in Six Memos for the Next Millennium. What and where is it? Remember that a thesis cannot be a fact. Is your peer’s thesis an arguable point? Do you find it an intriguing point? Why or why not? Identify any part of the essay that seems irrelevant to the paper’s focus and should, in your opinion, be cut. I am referring to whole sentences or paragraphs only; issues of concision come later. Do not feel bad about this. Telling a writer what should be cut is one of the biggest favors you can offer. Conversely, if you think your peer makes an excellent point that is not relevant to the thesis — goes off on a worthwhile tangent, in other words — suggest a way to change the thesis so that that good point becomes relevant to it.

2.  The only possible evidence for this essay is close reading and analysis of Calvino’s texts. That means virtually every body paragraph should contain at least one quotation from at least one of those texts in it. But quoting is not enough. As I have warned, the danger in an assignment such as this one is that the essay can begin to resemble a collage, a patchwork pieced together from the thoughts of others, or the writer can begin to seem like an emcee, constantly introducing other people’s thoughts and then stepping aside. Your peer must use quotations properly: that means setting them up substantively (not just with something generic such as Calvino writes) and commenting on them in a way that supports his or her point. As we discussed, quotations must be mediated through the writer’s consciousness. Does your peer use quotations in an appropriate and effective manner? Does the writer comment on quotations at sufficient length to maintain a good proportion of commentary to quotation? Can any of the quotations be cut or shortened? Where and why does he or she need more set-up or commentary on a quotation? Where and why is the argument particularly persuasive? Your peer’s interpretation can be different from your own — whether you see Calvino’s works the same way is not the issue — but by reading the essay you should understand why your peer interprets Calvino’s works the way he or she does.

3. The essay should have a strong introduction and conclusion. A strong introduction means that the essay starts out with a clear sense of audience, which in this case should consist of people who have read Calvino’s works and have an interest and at least some background in literary analysis. That means that they don’t need common literary terms defined, and they don’t need an explanation of who Calvino was or what his books are about. Any introduction that starts out with a sentence like “Italo Calvino was a twentieth century Italian author” or “In Invisible Cities, Marco Polo describes cities to Kublai Khan” is virtually pointless. Instead, the introduction should define the essay’s focus and then state either the thesis or the issue the eventual thesis will settle. The conclusion should not repeat the essay’s arguments. Rather, it should echo the essay’s arguments and then ideally add one final twist — either a final point that makes us think of the topic a little differently, or at least a new and compelling way to phrase the essay’s main point. Does the introduction sound flat, like the beginning of an encyclopedia article? Does the conclusion merely repeat points without adding anything of interest so that you might as well have stopped reading a paragraph earlier?

4. Each body paragraph should have an identifiable central point, and that point should be distinct from the point made by other paragraphs. Is the essay appropriately paragraphed? Do all the supporting points within each paragraph belong where they appear, or would you move some around? At any point does the author returns to a particular subtopic after having left it? That is usually a sign of poor organization. (One way to spot this is to make an informal reverse outline as you read the essay.) Another problem is that paragraphs toward the end of the essay’s body tend to get progressively shorter. Are the paragraphs toward the end just as thoughtful and well-developed as the first couple right after the introduction?

5. Minimally, your peer must write clearly and grammatically; ideally, he or she should also write gracefully and concisely. Identify any places in the essay where you find the writing confusing. Note that confusing writing is usually not the result of bad grammar but of poor syntax, imprecise word choice, and wordiness. Identify whether you see any particular technical mistakes — these include grammar, spelling, format, concision, and error list errors — especially if the writer makes them repeatedly. However, do not attempt to note (let alone correct) every problem; that would rapidly become laborious and take up too much of your time.

6. Review the formatting of your peers’ quotations citations, and works cited. Note where you see problems, but do not go into much detail. This is one type of problem that is easier to point out and discuss in person. See below.

Write your responses directly to your peers, not to a third party. Say, for example, “You need more support for this statement,” not “She needs more support for this statement.”

Be critical. Students writing peer responses often indulge in what I call the Mary Poppins “spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” approach. That means they preface any criticism with a bunch of vague praise, or else they undercut any criticism by adopting an apologetic tone. For example: “First, I want to say I think you are a really good writer and this is a great essay. I wish my own essay was this good. One thing, though — and this may just be me, so feel free to ignore it, as I could be wrong — but I don’t see a thesis anywhere.” Remember that when you critique someone’s writing and point out problems, you are helping to make the essay better. Thoughtful criticism is more useful than praise.

That said, you should always criticize the essay, not the writer. Do not assume that the document you have in front of you is the best of which the writer is capable. This means you should say, “The last half of your sixth paragraph makes almost the same point as your third paragraph. I suggest you move sixth paragraph’s last three sentences to paragraph 3; you will have to do a little cutting to eliminate repetition. Paragraph 6 then becomes quite short, so you will either have to develop that point further or cut it.” You should not say, “You are repetitive and have poor organization.”

Your response should be well paragraphed. Paragraphing encourages you to connect larger concerns with specific examples. When you do not paragraph, your response tends to read more like a series of notes than a coherent response. Begin with more substantive issues regarding the thesis and argument before turning to organization and finally to more technical ones such as grammar, rather than proceeding sequentially through the essay. (Note that the order of the questions listed above encourages you to do that.) If you start by saying something like “The first thing I notice is that your title is unclear” or “Your opening sentence does a good job of grabbing my attention,” you are taking the wrong approach. No more than one-third of your response should discuss issues of grammar, style, or format.

Do not respond to each question separately, and do not number your responses. For some essays, you may have little to say about some of the questions. For example, if you see no problems with the paragraphing, fine — skip it. Give your attention where it is needed.

You should not attempt to go through the essay and mark every single error. That is not your job. Not only is it time-consuming, it is not particularly helpful. You may make an occasional mark on a peer’s essay as a note to yourself or to help you identify where a problem occurs when you discuss it in your response — for example, “I’ve put an asterisk where I think you should split the third paragraph.” But you should not attempt to go through your peers’ essays correcting every problem.  If you see a particular problem repeatedly, simply note it once and say something like “You make this mistake a lot.”

Your peer responses will be judged on your thoughtfulness, the quality of your advice, your organization and sense of priority, and your own clarity; your complete set of responses will receive a single holistic grade (A+-F). I will replace the grade of your worst synthesis post of the semester with your score on these peer responses. If none of the synthesis post grades would be improved, I will use the grade on these responses to replace a missing or otherwise poor reading post. If none of your reading posts scored below a 3 and your peer responses earn a B or higher, I will award you some extra credit on your final grade: .5 point for a B, 1 point for a B+, 1.5 points for an A-, or 2 points for an A.

Penalties for not participating fully in peer response either through absence or lateness are severe. Part of the benefit your peers receive comes from reading your work. Failing to provide a complete essay to your peers will result in a penalty of 10-50% to the benefit you would receive from the assignment, depending on the degree of incompletion.

An important part of the peer response process is the discussion that occurs in class. Missing the class in which a peer response session takes place will result in a 30% penalty to to the benefit you would receive from the assignment (provided you send the response to me before class). Arriving late for a peer response session is also unacceptable and will be penalized 10%-30%, depending on the degree of lateness.

Penalties are cumulative.