What thoughts and ideas or attitudes do you hear almost stated or hovering around the edges?

PHIL-1A-360
Paper 1 Peer Feedback Letters
Paper 1 Peer Feedback Letters Tasks and Deadlines
Due: Sunday, 11:59pm

Your Task: Mindfully read drafts from two of your group members and write thoughtful feedback letters to each person. Each letter should be 400 words minimum. (Canvas will automatically assign you two drafts, but they will be from your small group members.) The Advanced grade requires one additional feedback letter. Instructions for this are below.

Submit your feedback letters in the Paper 1 Draft & Feedback assignment. If you’re aiming for an advanced grade, submit your third feedback letter in the Paper 1 Advanced Peer Feedback forum.

. . . most people are far more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them.

– C. S. Lewis, Studies in Words

Feedback Letters Overview
Imagine you’re sitting around in the evening with some good friends talking about your college classes. You’re making progress on one of your projects, but you feel a bit stuck and you think it might help to talk about it. If your friends are good conversation partners, they will do several things. First, of course, they will carefully listen to the ideas you have so far. But then they will help you clarify and elaborate your ideas. They might say things like, “When you first started explaining it, you were saying it this way, but now you’re saying it that way.” Or they might say, “You’re saying X, but it really feels like you’re mostly interested in this other idea, Y. Is that right?” Or, “I was following you for the first part, but when you started saying XYZ, I lost you.” These are all ways of helping you clarify your ideas and give them sharper focus and coherence.

Eventually, if these are friends you feel comfortable with, the conversation might move toward discussing the merits of the ideas themselves. They might start saying things like, “Now I see your point, but I think you’re leaving this thing out of the picture,” or, “What you said about this doesn’t seem right to me, because of this reason and that reason. Can you say more about why you think it’s right, given those reasons?” Or, “you might be onto something, but I’m not sure how your point fits with this example that happened to me the other day. How would your view explain that?” These are all ways of engaging with and challenging your ideas in a way that helps you further clarify them and gives you a chance to explain your reasoning in support of them.

That is the kind of feedback process we will attempt in our feedback letters. Feedback letters are a way to engage in thoughtful, reflective conversation with your classmates to help them improve their ideas and writing. Just like the conversation we imagined above, your feedback letter to each person needs to do two things.

First, help the author clarify and extend their ideas by providing non-evaluative feedback. Your job is not to evaluate the quality of your classmate’s writing. You are not telling them what they did well and what they did badly. Instead, your job is to describe in detail your experience reading their paper—feelings of curiosity, understanding, difficulty understanding, confusion, and the thoughts and questions that arose in your mind while reading. Don’t underestimate this task! It requires attentiveness and carefulness to mindfully read someone’s draft while also noticing your own feelings and reactions as a reader. But if you make the effort, you’ll find this kind of feedback is often far more useful than telling someone what you think they did well or badly.

Second, you need to engage with the author’s ideas. Here your attention is focused not on how the author is communicating the ideas, but on the plausibility of the ideas themselves. Challenging other people’s ideas might feel awkward at first. But in philosophy, our goal is truth, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and no one can achieve these alone. We need other people to help us test, refine, and revise our ideas. There are ways to engage with and challenge each other’s ideas that are non-threatening and respectful. I provide guidance on this below.

You should not think of this as a standard “peer review” assignment, where you evaluate each other’s writing against some supposedly objective standard. Instead, think of this as part of an ongoing conversation. The author started the conversation with their process letter and paper draft. In your feedback letter you are simply continuing the conversation in a careful, mindful way.

I have been explaining this as though the person receiving the feedback is the primary beneficiary of the feedback process, but actually that’s not true. In fact, the value of feedback lies just as much in giving it as in receiving it. Giving feedback to other people makes you a better thinker and writer. So, if someone gives you a shallow, sloppy feedback letter, try not to be too frustrated. They lost out on an opportunity to improve their thinking.

How to Find the Drafts you Need to Read
Canvas will automatically assign you two drafts, but they will be from your small group members. To access your drafts, go to the Paper 1 Draft & Peer Feedback assignment. On the right sidebar (when viewing from a computer screen) you’ll see two names. Click on one of them and you will be taken to that person’s assignment. Download their draft via the small link located in the upper left region of the screen. (Learn how (Links to an external site.))

How to Write Your Feedback Letter
First, open a file for your notes.

Now read the author’s process letter. This will tell you how the author is feeling about their draft.

Begin reading the draft, carefully and mindfully. Pause after each paragraph and write down any thoughts or feelings. Did it flow smoothly? Are you confused? Are you clear about what the author is trying to say?

Also pay attention to the author’s main claims, and the reasons given for those claims. Do the claims sound reasonable to you? Are they surprising? What kind of evidence does the author provide?

After you finish the draft, review all your notes and look for patterns. You probably shouldn’t include in your feedback letter everything you noticed. Take some time to figure out what you think would be the most helpful feedback for the author. Sketch a basic plan for your feedback letter.

Now start writing your feedback letter. This should be in its own file. Address your letter to the author (“Dear Mariah, etc”). Your feedback should be in full, developed paragraphs, not a list of statements or bullet points. You can decide whether you want to separate into different sections the process of helping the author clarify and extend their ideas from the process of engaging with and challenging the ideas themselves, or whether you want to weave these together.

End the letter by signing your name.

1. Helping to Clarify and Extend the Author’s Writing*
Below is a list of some prompts that will help you give non-evaluative feedback, and some examples of how to respond to the prompts. Don’t use this as a checklist. Instead, review the prompts, then go read your peer’s draft and make notes about your feelings, thoughts, and questions. If you feel like you’re not having feelings, thoughts, or questions, pause, do some breathing exercises to recenter your mind, review these questions again, and then read your peer’s draft again.

Examples for Non-Evaluative Feedback
Questions to Prompt Non-evaluative Feedback

Example Responses

What does the text say? What is the main idea?–the supporting ideas?

“I see your main idea as ____.”

“I see you trying to support your point about ___ with this example, but the example feels like it actually supports a different point about ____.”

What does it almost say? What thoughts and ideas or attitudes do you hear almost stated or hovering around the edges? What does the writer imply or assume? What is the writer’s point of view or stance? What follows or what are the consequences of what is said? How does the text ask you to see the world?

“On p. # you say ____, but it feels like you really want to say ____. Am I understanding you correctly?”

“On p. # you say ____. But that idea implies that XYZ is also true, and I don’t see you discuss this in your paper. Do you agree with XYZ?”

“When you say ___, it feels like you’re assuming XYZ. XYZ seems reasonable, but I’m wondering if you should explicitly discuss this assumption.”

Believing feedback: be an ally or pretend to believe fully the writer’s view–and find further points, support, or evidence. What would a person do who believed what is said?

“When you said ____, that made me remember a movie I watched about ___. It would be a good illustration of your point.”

“In my psychology class I learned that ___. That seems like further evidence for your view.”

Describe how you experienced the writer’s voice, tone, stance.

“When you said ____, it made me feel like you weren’t taking the opposing view seriously.”

“I liked when you said ____, because it shows that you care about ____.”

Which words or sections do you like or remember? What do you want to hear more about?

“Your paragraph about ____ sticks with me because ____.”

“Your point about ____ felt very insightful. It helped me see a connection I’ve never noticed before.”

“I was fascinated when you said ____. I’d love to hear more about how that connects with what you said on p. # about ____.”

Do the paragraphs feel connected, or do you feel lost when you start a new paragraph? Do all the paragraphs feel connected and unified around the main idea?

“When I started your paragraph about ____ on p. #, I felt confused because I wasn’t sure how it connected with the previous paragraph.”

“The connection between the two paragraphs on p. # felt smooth. Consider making your other paragraph transitions more like that.”

Give “movies of your mind” as you were reading: tell the story of the actual thoughts, feelings, and reactions that went on in your mind as you were reading. This is easiest if you periodically interrupt your reading and tell or write what has been going on in your mind. (But leave out evaluative reactions.)

“When I read your example about ___ it felt so clear and obvious that I wondered why I hadn’t thought of the same thing.”

“I nodded my head in agreement with your main point when you described it at the beginning of your paper, but when you started arguing for it, I found I myself resisting and even fighting you.”

“At the beginning of your paper I felt clear about your thesis and where you were going with it, but by the end it felt like you were running out of energy.”

2. Engaging with the Ideas Themselves
Part of your feedback letter needs to engage with the author’s ideas, not merely how the author expressed them. Your overall goal here is to help the author improve their ideas. This means moving beyond mere agreement or disagreement. If you do agree with a point, do it in a way that helps the author deepen and extend the point. If you disagree, do it respectfully and in a way that invites further development of ideas and response from the author.

You might find it useful to structure this part of your feedback letter around a thinking routine. Here are some suggestions. You are welcome to pick one of these routines and follow it exactly, or you can use all of them to prompt your thoughts and then structure your feedback in your own way.

See-Think-Wonder – As you reflect on the ideas in this paper…

See. What do you see? Focus on specific words, phrases, quotes. Example: “I see that you said ___.”
Think. What do you think the author is trying to say? What kinds of interpretations can you formulate, based on what the author said? Example: “I think your point is ____ [say it in your own words].”
Wonder. What are you now wondering about, based on what you saw and have been thinking? Examples: “I wonder if that’s really true, because ___.” “I wonder if you have considered ___.”
Compass Points: E, W, N, S – As you reflect on the ideas in this paper…

Excitements. What excites you about the author’s ideas? What are some upsides?
Worries. What do you find worrisome about the author’s ideas? What are some downsides?
Needs. What else do you feel like you need to know or find out about the author’s ideas?
Stance, Steps, Suggestions. What is your current stance or opinion on the author’s idea? What suggestions do you have at this point?
Red Light, Yellow Light – As you reflect on the ideas in this paper…

What are the red lights here? What things stop you in your tracks as a reader/listener/observer because you doubt their truth or accuracy? Example: “This feels like a red light for me because ____.”
What are the yellow lights here? What things slow you down a bit, give you pause, and make you wonder if they are true and accurate or not? Example: “This feels like a yellow light for me because ____.”
Take care with your words and tone not to sound accusatory. This is about your experience and your thoughts about the author’s ideas. It can be useful to indicate that with words like, “This feels like a red light to me.” Notice how this statement is about your own mind, not the author’s writing. Also, make sure you give your reasons why it feels like a red or yellow light.

What to Avoid
Comments to Avoid
Don’t say

Instead say something like

“Your interpretation is unclear.”

“As I read your first paragraph, I’m having difficulty understanding your interpretation of ___. Did you mean to say ___?”

“What you said here doesn’t make sense.”

“When you said ___ I felt confused. I wonder if an example would help me see what you’re saying.”

“You didn’t include a thesis statement.”

“By the time I got to the end of your paper I wasn’t sure what your thesis is.”

“This is a weak argument.”

“I see you arguing that XYZ, and your reasons are that P and Q. I’m having trouble seeing why P and Q support your point. To me it looks like they support a different point about ___.” Or “…but I’m not sure that P is true, because ___.”

How to Submit your Peer Feedback Letters
Go to your peer’s assignment (this is where you downloaded their draft). In the comments area (right sidebar when viewing from a computer screen), attach your feedback letter AND put some text in the comments box. The text can be simple, like “My feedback letter is attached.” If you don’t include text in the comments box, Canvas won’t mark you as having completed the assignment.

Be Advised: For some reason Canvas often won’t display your attached file after you submit the comment. Refresh the page and see if it appears. If not, try attaching it again.

Students aiming for an Advanced grade on Paper 1 Assignments must complete one additional peer feedback letter. Submit this letter through the Paper 1 Advanced Peer Feedback discussion forum. Submit that feedback letter as an attachment to a reply post.

Grading
I will grade your First Draft and Peer Feedback Letters together. First, I will check to see whether your draft is fully complete (including a process letter), meets the word count, and includes the required citations.

Second, I’ll look at your peer feedback letters. I’m looking to see that they are respectful (not hostile or demeaning), and that you invested real effort in close reading and carefully formulating your feedback. I’m also looking to see if you provide both non-evaluative feedback on the writing and substantively engage with the author’s ideas.

*The prompt questions and example responses below lean heavily on handouts (Links to an external site.) from Peter Elbow, especially Questions for Non Evaluative or Non Critical Responding (Links to an external site.) and on Ron Richhart, Mark Church, and Kerin Morrison’s Making

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