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Peer Response Groups in Action is a further exploration begun in Karen Spear's Shared Writing (Boynton/Cook, 1988), and it steps into the classroom under the tutelage of nine English teachers, all of whom have worked as teachers and/or teacher consultants in secondary schools. Each contributor sets up collaborative writing projects appropriate to various classroom situations.
Underlying Peer Response is the prevailing philosophy that Elizabeth Minnich's Transforming Knowledge (1990), among others, articulates--namely, the historical emphasis on separate knowing and the consequential absence of respect for connected knowing. Ms. Spear does not waste our time whipping a resurrected horse, arguing the superiority of one over the other; both are necessary:
If our experiences in schools, both as students and teachers, have been largely characterized by isolation and competition, collaboration and connection offer the missing half of the dialectic. . . . Writing provides a good example of the rhythmic interplay of solitary contemplation and doubting on the one hand and social exploration and validation on the other.No matter how devoutly one embraces this creed, believers often bump their heads at the classroom door; Ms. Spears acknowledges the difficulty of moving the theory of response groups into actual student settings, especially given the training and predilection of most English teachers. Consequently, the contributors have shared, not only their success with collaborative learning, but also their trepidations and failures. There are plentiful examples of student transcripts, drafts, and revisions in a variety of assignments from literature to research papers from junior high to the college freshman level.
In her chapter "The Delicate Fabric of Collaboration," Heather E. B. Brunjes counsels, "Teachers attempting peer response groups in their writing classrooms should set forth with the smallest expectations and the greatest patience." On the whole, however, readers who have all too often found collaborative efforts in the classroom flat and disappointing may find this book reassuring. Though the road is dark, there are other travelers afoot here, and occasionally one may carry a lantern.
Katharine S. Boling
Francis Marion University