A year-long exploratory project examined how well students could effectively respond to a piece of first-year writing using an articulated framework--Assignment, Focus, Organization, Support, and Proofreading (AFOSP). The students in these small-group writing tutorials received peer-facilitated support while they were enrolled in first-year composition. Results from a one-way repeated measures ANOVA showed statistically significant gains in students' abilities to respond to writing using the framework. The findings suggest that teaching students to use such a framework can improve their ability to critically assess writing. (Contains 2 tables.)