In the peer response, your task is to assume the role of an editor already committed to the eventual publication of the essay. At the same time, your task is not to decide whether you like the piece, in its parts, or as a whole. You're not in the business of judging. It's not done. You're not being asked to say whether the essay is good or bad. Those questions aren't appropriate questions to ask until the piece is finished. The words--good, bad, like, dislike--aren't appropriate words in this workshop. In the peer response, you attempt to describe and analyze the formal qualities of the draft. You're being asked to describe the draft as a system. Hopefully, what this does for you, as a peer reviewer, is take the pressure off. If you're not sure what the essay's limited persona is, then your job is to say you're not sure, or to make a guess. Your hesitance is important for the author to hear. If the obstacles in the rising action sequence aren't formidable enough yet, or the essay doesn't complicate itself (lacks rising action), your job is to say so. Again, you're describing the draft, not the author. We all want to make our pieces better, and our first task is just to respond to what's right there, on the page. Because all too often, the author has a lot more in their head than is on the page, and they think they've communicated something that they haven't yet, and they think the story means one thing, and the reader thinks it means something else.
In the Peer Response, you must help the author improve the piece. Because of this, you must always remember to be conscientious and constructive. Take a risk, say something that will help the author make their piece better, but say it in a way that can be received well. Always remember, this is a work in progress. As you're reading, always keep in mind what the essay might still become, not just what it already is. Think about the next draft, and the draft after that.
Choose from any of the prompts below which compel you as they relate to your peer's draft. You can write your entire response on one prompt. You can write a response to three prompts or six, or four! Be thoughtful. Look closely and avoid vague generalizations. Always remember: DO NO HARM. Your task is to have the author read your response, feel encouraged by it, but also have a concrete sense of what they might do next.
The Peer Response Buffet
What is the essay about? What are its large concerns? What about what it's about? What does the essay have to say about its subject? This is what Vivian Gornick refers to as the "story": "the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say."
What is the essay's limited persona? Is the persona limited enough?
Why is this memoir being told now? In other words, how is this problem still a dilemma for the author at the time of writing? How is this problem still vexing, still thrashing around inside the author? (If the author seems at peace now with this problem, there's often no clear reason why this is being told. If the author seems too much at peace (and you don't buy it), perhaps this is because the resolution is over-simplified, and the author hasn't yet embraced how this problem continues in the present.
Do you have all the basic orienting facts? If not, what's missing?
How is the essay an exploration of change? How might this change be made more clear?
What does the narrator want? What's in the way? Are the obstacles formidable enough?
What questions do you have that the essay does not yet answer?
What other craft areas might be developed that would make the draft stronger and more compelling? (A characterization more complexly drawn; the setting better described; an object or metaphor put to further use.)
What patterns are established that might be further developed? How do patterns of characterization, say, relate to patterns of imagery, or plot or diction?
In what way is the draft ambitious? How might this be enhanced?
The Peer Response should be 1-3 pages double spaced, typed. Make sure to indicate which questions you are answering by including the number above, along with your response to it.
Make sure to bring TWO COPIES of your peer response. One to give to me and one to give to the author.
Margin notes are the place where you say to the author: Nice image, or great dialogue, or good description, or Funny, or great transition, good characterization. When I like something in a draft, I usually put a checkmark by it. In your margin notes, you can heap on the praise and good will and fellowship. So read the draft with a pen in your hand, making margin notes along the way. Should you point out spelling errors, typos, individual sentences which confused you? Sure, that would help the author clean up their draft, but the real work is in the answers to the "big picture" questions up above.