q&r3

What is PQP –Praise-Question-Polish?

This question is about the article “Peer Response: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions” by Neubert and McNelis. This is a very interesting article because I identified myself with the study Neubert and McNelis did. They realized that when the students had the task to revise their classmates essays they were very shy or gave very vague comments about the writing and some of the students did not find helpful comments to improve their writing.

PQP is a technique that means Praise-Question-Polish, Neubert and McNelis realized that the students are more focused in the task and they critique a little bit more. PQP consists of a series of questions, the students need to be in groups of two to five; first Praise is answering the questions “What is good about the writing? What should not be changed? Why is it good?” then, the part of the Question is “as a reader, what do you not understand?” and finally the polish comes about with the question “What specific suggestions for improvement con you make?”

Even though some students used this technique they still gave vague comments. They separated the comments in three groups: “vague, general but useful, or specific”, 19% of the students gave vague comments, 28% specific and 53% general but useful comments. I think students will get better at giving comment in their classmates with practice and this is a very fun and easier way to think more about what you are reading. They said that after repeating this technique the students started to give more specific and helpful comments.

In my case, I found this very useful since I have difficulty giving comments to my classmates’ writings. I realized that this is what we do in our class, and seriously this had helped me a lot because if the teacher gives us the questions like this (PQP), more ideas come to my mind just by answering those questions.