f Gain knowledge of a wider variety of course topics. In brief, peer response technique gives many benefits for teaching-
learning of writing. Beside to make the students think as the real writers, it also makes the students think as the potential readers. The students can
measure their capability in writing and describe the mental processes when they write.
c. The Implementation of the Peer Response in Teaching Writing
The implementation of the peer response in teaching writing needs more preparation. Those preparations, however, should be understood by
the teacher and the students as the main elements who are involved directly in the classroom.
Murcia 2001:228 states that one way to guide peer response is the teacher should provide a short list of directed questions that students
address as they read their own or other students’ paper. A first
exercise can involve giving students a short checklist of attribution to look for in their own papers, such as checking for a particular rhetorical
feature such topic sentences or checking no irrelevancies. Then, the checklist is submitted to assume responsibility for reading over. Next,
students can be trained to read and respond to other students’ paper by reviewing on essay written by a student in a previous class and working
through, as a class, a peer response sheet that ask a few specific
questions to elicit both general reaction to the paper and suggestion to improvement.
Flash 2008 proposes a simple guide of implementing peer responses in the writing class. First step is writing the draft. The students
are asked to write the draft1and to distribute to their peer. The second step is peer workshop. It means that the students give comments or critics
to their peer’s first draft with a guideline sheeta sample. The last step is revising. The students write the final draft from the draft 1 based on
the memo or comments from their peer. In its application Ferris 2003 also explained that careful planning
by the instructor is the key variable to the success or lack thereof of peer review sessions. He adds that the researcher or the teacher have to give
students peer feedback forms with questions that are clear and specific and that require students to be specific not just answering “yes” or “no” and
both positive and constructive. He shows the guidelines for the peer response in the L2 writing class:
1. Utilize peer feedback consistently. 2. Explain the benefits of peer feedback to students.
3. Prepare students carefully for peer response. 4. Form pairs or groups thoughtfully.
5. Provide structure for peer review sessions. 6. Monitor peer review sessions.
7. Hold students responsible for taking peer feedback opportunities seriously
In doing peer revision, students have an opportunity to discuss and construct ideas about the content of their writing, and help other students
in developing writing skills. The students are also aware of their problems in writing through talking with peers with similar problems. Benesch
1998 stated that membership in a peer response group entails three interrelated spheres of learning: the first is learning to write, the second is
learning to respond to writing, and the third is learning to collaborate. In order to give students a sense of what they should eventually be
aiming for, teachers can devote some class time for modeling. Modeling of good response can be done through the whole class-feedback to the
teacher’s drafts as the teacher lets the students know how their responses would or would not be helpful to them in revising, as well as through the
teacher’s written comments on their students’ drafts. One advantage of whole class-practice is that students, who have
often had little experience with responding to writing, can experience with responding to writing, can experiment with different types of response and
then get immediate feedback on the effectiveness of their comments. The teacher’s role is to monitor the interactions taking place in the
groups and to intervene in two ways: through on-going modeling of effective feedback and through guiding discussion about what is taking
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
