place in the groups and what changes might be desirable in the kinds of feedback being exchanged.
In brief, conducting peer responses in teaching writing needs more attention because this method is quite new for the students. Thus, the
teachers should have more preparation first. The teacher should lead naturally by providing guidelines for the students to give responses for
other’s work. At the end of the class, the students are expected to revise and rewrite their writing as suggested by their friends.
B. Relevant Studies
There are several relevant studies which had been conducted to find out the effect of peer response on the students’ writing. The results of those
studies are presented below: The first is Hamed 2012 who conducted research on the effect of peer
reviewing on writing comprehension and essay writing ability of prospective EFL teachers. The result shows that peer reviewing had a positive effect on developing
participants essay writing ability. Costello 2009 said in his study that his classroom research confirmed
what the literature suggested, that any form of peer response positively influenced the quality of student writing. However, the student
s’ feedback and final draft grades also revealed that when and how peer response is implemented can limit or
enhance the amount of improvement. In addition, peer response can be a valuable
tool in exposing high school students to the challenges of developing and analyzing strong and effective support.
The next is a study conducted by Widiati 2002. The findings of her study suggested that significant changes were obtained in all questionnaire items
regarding attitudes toward peer response. The students indicated that classmates oral and written comments helped them enrich the content of their writing,
improve the organization of their writing, and improve the language including grammar and vocabulary of their writing.
Then, Al-Jamal 2009 also conducted a study investigating the use of the peer response
as a technique in improving student’s writing skill. The result of his study showed that the peer response technique affected the participants attitudes
positively in a way that enhanced the development of their writing skill. In addition, Tang and Tithecott 1999 find some positive results in their
research on the value of the peer response. First, students are engaged in the socio-cognitive activities of reading, evaluating, pointing to trouble sources,
writing comments, and discussing task procedures. Second, some students used feedback from peer response sessions in revising their essays. Third, both less and
more proficient students benefited from peer response sessions. The studies desc
ribed above give support to the researcher’s believe that the peer response can improve students’ writing ability. Compared to the previous
studies, the researcher’s action research focuses on its implementation to improve the writing ability of grade VIII students.
C. Conceptual Framework
