If, as I argue, student-to-student peer review is animated by "improvement imperatives" that make peer review a form of what Lauren Berlant calls "cruel optimism," then rhetoric and composition will need to imagine theories and structures for peer review that do not repeat cruel attachments. I offer slow peer review as a…

Although written communication is a foundational skill, especially for careers in management, faculty can be reluctant to utilize writing assignments for a number of reasons including the subjective nature of and time involved in grading. In this article, we present the IDEAL framework--an andragogical tool developed in an effort to address these…

This paper is a sequel to an earlier one that examines "the efficacy of two innovative peer-assessment templates ("PET" and "PACT") introduced to enable students provide evidence of their fairness in evaluating peer contributions to group project work" (Onyia, O. P. and Allen, S., 2012). In the present paper, three…

Writing and communication are essential skills for success in the workplace or in graduate school, yet writing and communication are often the last thing that instructors think about incorporating into a mathematics course. A mathematical modeling course provides a natural environment for writing assignments. This article is an analysis of the…

This paper describes a collaboration between a mathematician and a compositionist who developed a sequence of collaborative writing assignments for calculus. This sequence of developmentally appropriate assignments presents peer review as a collaborative process that promotes reflection, deepens understanding, and improves exposition. First, we…

A writing-intensive, upper-level undergraduate course which integrates content, context, collaboration, and communication in a unique fashion, is described. The topic of the seminar is "Scientific Writing in Chemistry" and an assignment-based curriculum was developed to instruct students on best practices in all aspects of science…

Poor quality writing skills among undergraduate geography students is a significant concern among university instructors. This article reports on a multipronged strategy aimed at improving student writing in a large, first-year human geography course. The strategy emphasized ways to provide effective feedback through teaching assistant training,…

We implemented two different approaches of using peer review to support undergraduate essay assignments for students taking large second-year courses in life sciences and biology: a web-based online peer review (OPR) approach and a more traditional face-to-face peer review (FPR) approach that was conducted in tutorial settings. The essays…

Online collaborative writing tasks are frequently undertaken in forums and wikis. Variation between these two communication modes has yet to be examined, particularly type of feedback and its effects. We investigated the type of feedback and the impact of English native-speakers' feedback on Spanish peers' discourse restructuring in the context of…

Calibrated Peer Review[TM] (CPR) is a web-based instructional tool that encourages "writing gain for students" without adding "grading pain for the instructor!" The use of CPR provides students frequent opportunities to hone both writing as well as peer review skills in a guided environment. And once an assignment is authored, instructors have…

Calibrated Peer Review (CPR), an online program that purportedly helps students develop as writers and critical thinkers, is being increasingly used by science educators. CPR is an enticing tool since it does not require instructors to grade student writing, and instructors can adopt assignments directly from a library. To determine the extent to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate problems and potentials of new technologies in English writing education. The effectiveness of automated writing evaluation (AWE) ("MY Access") and of peer evaluation (PE) was compared. Twenty-two English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Taiwan participated in this study. They submitted…

In order to help students to make connections in science and literacy through writing, the authors present them with an open-ended question (OEQ), which is a divergent assessment in the form of a writing prompt (a situation), and directions for writing at the beginning of each major unit. Students complete this assessment by the end of the unit.…

As class sizes increase, methods of assessments shift from costly traditional approaches (e.g. expert-graded writing assignments) to more economic and logistically feasible methods (e.g. multiple-choice testing, computer-automated scoring, or peer assessment). While each method of assessment has its merits, it is peer assessment in particular,…

Every day students are able to discuss complex ideas relatively easily in spontaneous conversation, yet when they attempt to express complex ideas in a written paper, students often experience great difficulty. The features of face-to-face conversation and of written communication differ in a number of respects. This study examines student's…