Peer review has a mixed reputation among teachers because it often produces vague comments such as "good job" or "fix your grammar." When it is structured well, however, it gives students a reason to read each other's writing closely and to notice problems in their own. A unit on Tvrdica is a good fit because the play is short enough for students to reread and the essay prompts are focused. The key is to give reviewers specific tasks instead of asking them to give general feedback.

Begin with a short training session using a sample essay, ideally an anonymous one from a previous class. Ask students to find the thesis, underline the evidence, and write one question for the author. Compare their responses and discuss which comments would actually help a writer revise. This practice shows them what useful feedback looks like before they try it on a classmate.

Next, assign each reviewer a focused checklist tied to your rubric. One round might focus only on the thesis and whether it makes an arguable claim about Harpagon. A second round might focus on evidence and whether each quotation is followed by analysis. Separate rounds prevent the overload that comes from asking students to evaluate everything at once.

Structuring the Review Session

Pair students deliberately, mixing strengths so that a stronger writer can model skills for a developing one without dominating the exchange. Provide sentence starters for comments, such as "I was confused when you said..." or "Your best evidence is..." These scaffolds make feedback specific and polite. They also help students who are uncomfortable critiquing their peers.

• Reviewers highlight the thesis and write one sentence summarizing it
• Reviewers mark one quote that is well analyzed and one that is not
• Reviewers write a question the draft does not yet answer
• Writers respond in writing to two of the comments they received
• Teachers collect the review sheets to confirm participation

Holding Students Accountable

Peer review often fails because students feel nothing is at stake. You can raise the stakes by grading the quality of the review itself, or by requiring writers to submit a short reflection explaining which suggestions they used. This shifts the emphasis from simply completing the activity to engaging with it. Even a small participation grade can change how seriously students treat their partner's work.

Collecting the review sheets also gives you useful data. If most reviewers write that the thesis is clear, but you see many weak theses in the drafts, you know that students need more instruction on what a thesis is. If reviewers consistently identify the same weakness, you can address it with a mini-lesson. In this way, the process informs your teaching as well as the students' writing.

Combining Peer and Teacher Feedback

Peer review should supplement, not replace, teacher feedback. A common approach is to have students revise after peer review, then submit the improved draft for your comments. Because the obvious problems have already been addressed, you can focus on deeper issues of interpretation and style. That makes your grading time more valuable and your comments more targeted.

AI feedback tools can add a third layer by giving students quick rubric-based comments before they meet with peers. The student arrives at the review session with some awareness of their draft's weaknesses, which makes the conversation more productive. Teachers keep control by deciding when and how these tools are used in the process. Together, the layers of feedback help students improve faster than any single source would.