Student Reflections

	Total per Teacher	Positive Responses	Somewhat Positive	Negative Responses
Cantrell MTSU	17	6	1	10
Clayton MTSU	14	4	4	6
Legg Bryan C	20	13	4	3
Lumpkins CSCC	22	13	4	5
Total	73	36	13	24

Counting “positive” and “somewhat positive” responses together (49), twice as many students found some value in doing peer response via e-mail as those who found no value in the experience (24).

Only in one class (Cantrell’s at MTSU) did the majority of students judge the e-mail peer groups negatively (10 to 7). (It may be significant that this class is a Raider Learning Community group who has contact in their dorm on a daily basis. Because these students enjoy the privilege of classmate peer groups both in and out of class and because many of the students are roommates and/or friends, they are not a typical English 111 class.

On the whole, students at Bryan and Columbia State found more value in the experience of e-mail peer groups than students at MTSU. Over twice as many Bryan/CSCC students (34) remarked favorably to their experience than MTSU students (15), and twice as many MTSU students (16) remarked unfavorable to their experience than Bryan/CSCC students (8).

“My peer group helped in producing draft 3. They offered small suggestions that help [sic] my paper grammatically and the organization. Overall my peer group was helpful. Not much was surprising about this experience. My group communicated very well. Everyone had their work on time. This experience was helpful with me evaluating my own writing. I saw the writing level of these other students and I was able to compare my writing to theirs. This helped me to see what level my writing was on, and how it compared to the level of these other students. I feel a little more confident now in my writing because I am on the same level as these students.”

“My internet peer group was challenging when sending essays and responding to them several at a time but, they all responded and I got some good advice. One of my members named Karen, was especially helpful, because she gave a lot of good advice about fixing certain areas in my paper which initialy [sic] made it sound and flow a lot better. I was surprised because I thought the whole ‘internet peer group’ would not work and people wouldn’t respond, but we all did our part, and I think we have all helped each other a little bit. I learned to read what I’ve written before handing it in because there’s always a mistake you missed the first time. All my members of my peer group comented [sic] on my use of ‘first person’ in my essay, which I quickly corrected, and in turn made it sound, and flow better. This was a good experience with working with people over the internet and was nice to have a change from the regular routine. I hope my comments helped my group as their comments helped mine.”

“I can’t really say I learned anything major from collaborating with students at other universities. Yet I did notice that one of my group members seemed somewhat undeveloped as a writer. In reading his work, I felt a little less self concious [sic] about my own paper and writing. Also I found simply having feedback from people I didn’t know and couldn’t see to be helpful. I felt I was getting “straight-up” feedback without the overall “politeness” found in peer groups conducted in person. Over all [sic] the idea, concept and project of working with student’s [sic] elsewhere worked for me. I enjoyed it and would do it again if the opportunity arose."

“The peer group experience was an interesting and helpful one on this essay. Although I didn’t receive much help from my peer groups, I did end up helping myself when I was responding to my peers’ essays. I noticed that some of the problems that my peers were encountering were the same problems I was having in the context of thesis development and relevance. I was surprised at the lower level of writing that my peers had. I guess I expected more out of them. I was also surprised how one of my peers was from Nigeria, but is going to a Christian college in Tennessee. She seemed like a normal, interesting person. I guess the main thing I learned through this peer group does not have to do with writing at all. My perception had been that at a small community Christian college in Tennessee there would be mainly White Anglo-Saxon Protestant students. I realize now after doing this assignment that they are more varied than I thought.”

“My peer group was somewhat helpful. I had one response on my essay stating that my only problem was the wording of the thesis. I have since done revisions on that specific area, but I feel that I could have used some more criticism an suggestions because I am not happy with my paper at this point. I was surprised to find that (in all fairness) some of the papers that I and my peers within my english [sic] class recieved [sic] were not adequate as far as relating to the topic at hand and also not quite at the writing level that I had expected. I don’t know if this was due to time restraints, lack of interest, etc., from some peers at other colleges or that they had perhaps been taught to write in this fashion. In my contact with eon member of my peer group, I found that she had gathered more than enough information but that she lacked thesis, or structure in her paper. I tried to be as fair in telling her this as possible. Overall the email system was a creative idea and opened my eyes to other styles of writing within other colleges.”

“One of the easiest things about this essay was the peer group responses. It was easy to read their papers and give them feedback on their papers. [. . .] Talking with students from Columbia State Community College and Bryan College was also a new experience. I learned that we all can take the same set of directions follow them completely different! I didn’t like responding via e-mail but I believe it worked well enough. I also learned I have a problem with keeping everything in the paper related to the thesis."

“The most challenging and my least favorite [part of the assignment] was the peer process. I did not hear from one of my peers and another got a little defensive. My final peer however, was clear and precise on how to make my thesis fit into my paper. [. . .] One of my peers [sic] essays lacked detail that was interesting to me. However, the other peer turned in an essay that was vivid with detail and painted a picture that was clear. I gave responses to both of them trying to help them make their papers interesting for others to read. The over all [sic] experience was quite different, but the difference is what made it unique and fun. I enjoyed writing this essay and getting responses from others outside my peer group.”

“Communicating with other students I guess was somewhat helpful. I feel that students can’t give you that much help on our writing because they are first year college students, also. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t like giving my comments knowing that they are incorrect and do my peers more harm than help.”

“The things that were hard about this essay was finding time to get the interview in and doing the peer response on the Internet. The reason I say that is that I hardly ever used the net to do any type of talking, mainly I used the net to do research on different things for myself. My experience with the whole peer group on the net thing was that I did not know what to expect from my peers. I did not know if they would tell me things that would be helpful or not. Collaborating with the peers from Columbia State Community College and Bryan College taught me that my writing was not bad but just need [sic] a few little adjustments. In addition, another thing that I learned is that their papers were just as good as mine and not expertly written. The members of my peer group [were] all helpful in equal ways I think. One told that I needed to spice up the into to my first paragraph, another told me that I had a good paper and that it just needed to reword a couple of things. Overall I had good experience with the peer group on the net.”

“The peer groups via email was a little different. I thought it would be fun, but found out that since they did not have access as much as we did it made it a little more complicated. I could have all of my things in on time, and one or two of them might be late. This was not a problem for me, just a thought for next time this is done. All of my peers were very helpful and courteous and I enjoyed getting to find out what other students found interesting around their community. All of my peers gave great responses that helped a lot with my essay. I appreciated all of their time and effort they put into helping me. I was surprised at how well my group did with responding through email. I thought that it was different, but would not have any interest in doing it again. I did not think it was horrible, but I do like being able to see my peers. However, not being able to see them made it easier to respond to the paper and give more feedback whether positive or negative. I felt like I could say more through email. Overall, I enjoyed this, but would not want to do it again. The students at the other schools showed me the difference in writing styles and that my style and interests are different from theirs. I felt like our papers, as a class was stronger than what the students at the other schools wrote. (maybe I am partial!)”

“A few thorny things about the process [of completing the assignment] were communicating with my electronic peer group. In these computer age we now live in, often there are problems with them. The dependency of people is another factor in this case, however, my peer group responded promptly. Writing essays in general is difficult for me, so the assignment was automatically a challenge. Several things surprised me about this assignment. I have never before communicated with another learning institute about an assignment. At first, I didn’t think that my peer group would carry out the assignment, but they proved faithful in the end. I like the thought of others from another school reading and critiquing my paper. There are so many more ideas when more people work on a project than just when one person tries to tackle it. I was taught a few things by corresponding with others from a different atmosphere and learning environment. I learned not to be so hard on myself, I’m not such a bad writer after all! When an essay is written, it’s not supposed to be written like the audience knows what the writer is talking about. He has to be specific because the audience, supposedly, is ignorant to his topic. I like communicating with different people from a sundry background. This experience as an astounding way to improve my writing and swell my desire to communicate my point better when writing compositions."

“The essay that was done with the electronic peer group was interesting. [. . .] the idea of sending it to other colleges brought on a little pressure. I had no problem writing my essay, but I was surprised at the responses that I received. I did not expect the students from Middle town [sic] Tennessee State University and Columbia State Community College to evaluate my essay so intensely. When I began revising my essay, the comments they made showed me a lot of mistakes I would have otherwise overlooked. The peer evaluations did help me a lot. I believe that the electronic peer group idea is a good one. The whole experience has taught me much that I did not see before about my writing. It should [sic] me that I need to put more thought into my essay before I actually write it. I did not expect students from secular colleges to actually do this assignment well. I thought they would blow it off after I did not receive any responses, but when the responses came I was shocked. I would not mind doing something like this again. I believe this is a good way to see just how good our [sic] bad my writing is wile [sic] at the same time interacting with different people that I would otherwise not meet. It was an excellent learning experience for me.”

“It was quite an experience to get together with Freshman English students in Middle Tennessee State University and Columbia State Community college. Compared to some others in my class, I had no problem with my peers. I think [it] is a good thing to have other people especially anonymous ones to critique one’s write up. I really appreciate my peers’ responses. They were very straightforward and factual. They were also able [to] see some mistakes and how to correct. I felt proud when both of my peers commented on the quality of my essay."

“I think that corresponding with peers from other universities gives the writer a different view of the paper that he or she has written, which helps the writer to learn how to present his composition more effectively. I was extremely surprised at how some of the members of my peer group took the initiative to respond so thoroughly and quickly! It was nice to see that some students took their work rather seriously and truly wanted to help me make my paper, as well as theirs, a well-written paper. Collaborating with students from Middle Tennessee State University proved to be immensely helpful to me. I think that it is difficult for a writer to know whether he or she has presented his composition in an understandable form without getting feedback from another person, preferably from peers. I found the positive criticism from my professor and peer group made the writing process run more smoothly. In the future, I hope to be a more effective writer who will take suggestions from others and learn something from my mistakes.”

“Collaborating with other students from other colleges made me expand my descriptive nature and talent. One of my colleagues was very good at critiquing and giving me good ideas. The others’ critiques were very general and not very helpful. I came away from the whole experience as seeing a lot of potential as a writer and if I continue to learn, I will reach that potential. I think that if all of my colleagues use the suggestions given to them, that they will also reach a great writer’s status which will be different for each writer.”

“I think that [the assignment] was difficult in that we had to send them [drafts] to other people and had to apply their input to our paper. [. . .] It really did not teach me anything about my writing. They were very positive and open it seemed to my writing. Their writing, as well was very good. It did maybe teach me the way that other people think about certain things. This was a very good thing to do because it caused everyone involved to think and open their minds to what others think and believe. Also, it showed what the different schools have to offer and how the students are working in these different programs. The students that were involved were very receptive also and that was a very god [sic] thing. If the students were not receptive, I think that this project would have burnt out.”

“I think that electronic peer groups are a good idea. They allow you to be totally honest. A lot of times if you are evaluating an essay of someone sitting across from you, you worry about their feelings and the way that they will react. With electronic peer groups this concern is eliminated. [The easier part about electronic peer groups is] that you don’t have to worry about the other person’s feelings as much, and you can sit down and read and reread the persons’ essay. The bad part [. . .] is that it is sometimes hard to make contact with the other person due to technological problems. Also you cannot ask the person questions face-to-face while they are reading your essay. There were a few surprising things about having an electronic peer group. These included the fact that I got along with my electronic peer group really well. It was like we were already friends. Adrian and I would e-mail each other just to ask how things were going or how the weekend was. I think that working with students from Middle Tennessee State University and Columbia State Community College taught me that people have many different writing styles. It taught me that I need to concentrate more on my audience and what their needs are in reading my essay. It showed me that I have a lot of work to do before I become the best writer that I can be. Overall I think that having electronic peer groups is a good idea. It teaches students that there is a larger audience out there than just their teacher and their peers. It also shows that event though there maybe difficulties along the way you can overcome them and make friends out there that you never knew you could have. I think that the electronic peer groups should be used because it gives you someone to turn to who has no bias to help you out on your essay.”

“I ran into some complications while trying to stay in touch with my peer group that was somewhat frustrating and confusing. [. . .] I became really frustrated while communicating with the other schools, because of the glitches that occurred. I sent a copy of my essay to each member of my peer group several times before they actually received it; moreover, I still haven’t received feedback pertaining to my essay. [. . . ] It was surprising that I had so many difficulties corresponding with my peer group via email, because I have never had problems with emailing people before. I had fun working together with Middle Tennessee State University and Columbia State Community College because it allowed us to broaden our horizons beyond the walls of Bryan College. I thought it was easier to edit my peer group’s essays from the other schools, than when we edit each other’s essays within our own class. We don’t know our peer group from the other schools personally, which gives us the opportunity to be more open and honest with our true opinions of their work, which t to me was very helpful. Despite the communication setback, this essay was enjoyable for me because of the newness it offered. I liked the challenge that was involved in writing Essay 3 because it stretched my mind and patience. I think that with more practice and refinement, this project will be very helpful to each student involved because [it] gives us the opportunity to look beyond the confinement of our own schools.”

“I was not looking forward to doing this essay in the beginning; however, it was a project that I really enjoyed. I was intimidated about the fact that I had to send my writing to three other people who I didn’t know and couldn’t see. When I received their reactions for my essay, I was encouraged about the way that I write and was also relieved. I was not as intimidated after making first contact with them. I learned from their writing in the fact [sic] that I need to work on making my opening to an essay more exciting and more of an attention-grabber. I also need to proofread very carefully. The suggestions that I was given were more than helpful. The only thing I found difficult about this essay was transferring it over the Internet. There is an easy explanation for that; I am not the brightest person when it comes to computers and the Internet. By the end of the project, I had mastered the use of the ‘CC’ button! I enjoyed this essay and think it was a worthwhile investment of my time. I enjoyed interacting with people from other colleges and receiving their reactions to my paper. Overall, I found this essay to be fun to write and it actually ended up being a lot less stressful than I originally envisioned it to be.”

“I was surprised at the amount of details that I received from the other students outside of Bryan College. I expected a general analysis on my paper but I received many more details than I thought I would get. These details helped in editing my paper. As details and thoughts about my writing cam [sic] through the email I did learn more about my writing. To be more specific I learned that I have a tendency to like to write description but not specific details. The description in my writing tends to be a little abstract and I learned that I need to be more concrete. [. . .] The project altogether, in my opinion, ran smoothly. I think that if I were given the chance to do it again that I would. I have done many projects for writing classes but I do have to say that this was the most unique one that I have done. I hope that I will get another chance to take part in similar exercises in the future.”

“The hardest part of this project was responding to my peer group. Sending the emails back and forth was not hard but trying to tell them what I thought needed to be changed in their essay was the hardest part. It is definitely easier to write corrections with a pen that it is to try and tell in sentences corrections that I thought should be made. No one in my group was exceptionally helpful. The girl had some good comments but a lot of the things that she changed I really did not agree with. The guy never did respond so I am not sure what he thought of my paper. I was a little surprised at the writing from the guy. He had a lot of elementary mistakes so I am not sure if he sent me one of his better copies or just one that would be on item. I really expected him to be a better writer but I am not sure why I expected that. The girls [sic] essay, I felt, was basically the same as mine. We even wrote on similar topics. The girl’s topic seemed to be geared more to every one but the guys [sic] topic was just to people who enjoyed playing sports. I did not really learn anything about my own writing from this experience except that I am not as bad as I always thought I was. I am pretty close to the same level as other people my age. My favorite part of the whole project was learning about other places and programs that my peer group wrote about. Even though the project was frustrating at points because computers do not always act right, this project was an enjoyable experience.”

“Collaborating with students from MTSU and CSCC was a different, yet insightful experience. The two students I conversed with gave a [sic] outside opinion to my paper, and helped me realize that when writing papers questions like ‘Who,’ ‘What,’ and ‘Why’ need to asked often. Often in writing a person forgets that the people reading the essay may have not had the same life experiences as you. You must constantly be questioning your own work, looking for small errors on description and content. Read your paper as if you were a person from another country, having no prior knowledge of your topic. If it doesn’t make sense then editing is in order.”

“The members of my electronic peer group were somewhat helpful. They gave me little ideas about how I could better what I wrote. It seemed as if they were almost in the dark as much as I was when writing this though. Something that was surprising about this was how extremely tedious it was when e-mailing the members of my group back and forth. I think what surprised me the most was the electronic aspect of the assignment. Having the knowledge of using the e-mail functions and being able to attach files to and from it. Having students from other schools look over my paper gave me little help. Like I said before they gave few ideas. I think having students from Middle Tennessee State University and Columbia State Community College taught me that I’m not as bad of a writer as I though [sic] I was. Some of the members in my group could not spell and others had problems with grammar. I thought I was a horrible writer but it turns out that everybody is in the same boat.”

“I recieved [sic] e-mails from 2 out of 3 people in my peer group. One girl was very helpful, and advised me to reorganize my paper. It wound up being a much better paper after I took her advice. I tried to send out peer response paper, but since I was so computer illiterate, noone [sic] in my group got them. The thing that surprised me the most about this experience was that computers were so stupid. I never thought you had to go through so much stuff just to get a piece of mail online, and then half the time you can’t get, or when you try toto send it out, you wind up looking like a big fat lair because nobody got your stuff.”

“Matthew Ellis was very helpful. He offered a lot of constructive criticism about my essay. He seemed like a real English buff. I never got in tough with Denicca Jones. The thing that suprised [sic] me the most was my computer illeteracy [sic]. I could not get it to work right. After I read matts [sic] paper, and saw how it was formed and connected, it gave me some ideas.”

“I think that both of members in my peer group were helpful. Both spotted the same problems within my essay. They gave me some examples of how to solve the problems. My main problem was using transitions. I have a great deal of difficulty with it. They suggested combining sentences to make the paper flow smoother. One of them also told me the paper did not sound right in a few places. He suggested that I read it aloud and I would find these areas. I was surprised to see the ideas of the other members. They had very interesting ideas. Their papers were very different from what I had seen before. I had never really realized how different these people would be. I learned some new things about my writing. One of my peers was not shy about telling the non-interesting parts or undeveloped parts. I [sic] did not bother me much, but I was very surprised. I thought I was clear about everything, but some things may have been unclear.”

“One of my peer group members from Bryan college helped me on my paper by telling me how much she liked it and also telling me that after she read the paper she immediately wanted to visit Milky Way Farms, the topic of my paper. This helped me arrive to the decision of leaving my paper as is. [. . .] Collaborating with other students over the internet taught me that my writing style is ok for my age, although it would have been a little better if there was a way for them to actually make marks on my paper for me to observe and carefully study. From speaking with a member of my peer group I have decided to visit the Chattanooga aquarium due to the information I obtained while reading her paper.”

“Both members of my peer groups ending [sic] up being helpful because they made me see where my paper was confusing in some of the parts. They made me write it a lot better than it would have been written because I clarified some of my points because of them. [. . .] The students from the two schools help me in clarifying my points and that’s about it. [. . .] I feel that Katie the student from Bryan will visit my topic it seemed that she was very interested. The students from the other schools just wrote about programs on campus. I thought this was boring because I will never join any of their clubs and have no interest in visiting to see what they do. While one student wrote on an apartment building another lame topic. I think the teacher should maybe limit them to place instead of campus activities. I think that you should write to encourage them to visit some place new not a campus activity or an apartment.”

“The difficult part of it [the assignment] was not being able to talk directly to the peer group. I feel like they were not as helpful as they could have been if we had direct contract. They did help some, though. One of them showed me how to better develop an idea and that helped my paper. I was suprised [sic] with how smoothly it all went. [. . .] The on-line peer groups went fairly well. [. . .] I think I learned a lot about my writing style with this essay. I also learned that collaborating with people you do not know can be pretty helpful. They did not worry about if telling me something was wrong would hurt my feelings or not. They just told me how to fix it. This collaboration with other first year students at different colleges was a good experience. It was good to see my paper from a totally different view.”

“My peer group didn’t really help me out much. All of the responses to my essay just said that it was good and not to change a thing instead of telling me how I could have made it better. I thought that working through email with students from other colleges would be easy and would help me out with my paper. My peers didn’t take the time to tell me what was wrong with my paper. They all just told me that it was good. I know that my paper needed more work and I wish I would have gotten more feedback. I think that this writting [sic] experiance [sic] was a good thing. It let me see how other people from diffrent [sic] colleges wrote. It gave me a chance to see what other students thought about my paper. I would definatly [sic] do this assignment again if I had to it was a good experiance [sic].”

“Problems with peer groups and not recieving [sic] information puts a bad spin on a good idea. Difficuties [sic] ranged from not receiving papers to not hearing from members of the peer group. The one person I did interact with gave excellent critisisim [sic] on my paper. He was able to point out specific problems and even suggested solutions. The surprising thing was how serious the interaction was between myself and my peer partner. I was expecting smart remarks and little help but recieved [sic] just the oppisite [sic]. This experience taught me that sometimes things you can’t [sic] control can interrupt your process but you cant [sic] let it stop you. You have to rack up get it done. The collaborating was a good experice [sic] (the people I did work with).”

“The most difficult process [of the assignment] was emailing my peer groups and recieving [sic] emails from them. One of my peer group members sent her material in attachments and I could not get them opened until after I sent them to another email address of mine. One of my peer group members helped me understand my problems and pointed them out to me. [. . .] What surprised me about this experience was how you can meet different people through emailing. I enjoyed getting to know both of my peer group members and telling them about myself. [. . .] Collaborating with other students taught me that even though someone is critical about your writing, they are just trying to help you do better in writing a paper.”

“What was difficult [about the assignment] was that I was confused about what was suppose [sic] to be sent and when it was suppose [sic] to be sent. Also I had trouble at first about being able to open two of the papers. One member was helpful to me she pointed out the good points as well has [sic] some improvements that I needed to make. She tried to tell me what I needed to improve and what I should keep in the essay. I was confused on what she said needed improving but she did her best. What surprised me about this experience was that I had a good group who would email me before the date of the deadline and everyone of them were helpful. It just surprised me that all three members of my grouped [sic] never missed a deadline. I learned from this internet peer group was to be patience if something did not go right. Yes, the students helped out the best that they could, I realized now that it was hard to email something wrong about my paper and that they were not trying to be harsh towards me, just to be helpful.”

“I felt like the difficult part [of the Essay 3 assignment] was trying to communicate with my peers threw [sic] a computer I like to talk and ask questions if I [am] unclear about something. I thought that Jennifer Meadows and Carlton Ryan were helpful. They gave me some good suggestions about my paper. I was surprised that one of my peers from MTSU didn’t follow the directions that we were given. I learned that the students from other colleges have different points of view but they were helpful. Yes collaborating with the other students did teach me something or moreless [sic] confirm what I already thought about the organization of my paper.”

“Yes, my peers were most helpful. Since I missed that week, I didn’t get my coversheet things. So, I used the student from MTSU’s coversheet as my ‘go by.’ I was surprised to find out how easy it is to actually do a paper over e-mail. I wasn’t sure how everything was going to go. I got to meet 2 new people from this expierence [sic]. It also showed me that my writings are not as bad as I thought them to be. I never consider myself a fabulous writer but at least now I have a little more confidence in what I write. I also learned about two new places. Both seem worth visiting. All in all, I really enjoyed this expierence [sic].”

“The easy part about the essay was that everything was done on the computer. The difficult part was the time limit. It took a while to get everything from every peer group member. I thought that both members of my peer group were very helpful. I received very good critism [sic] from both members. I really liked seeing what others wrote and how well they wrote. The ideas the people gave me in my peer group really helped me to revise my paper. I was very surprised in how well everything went. Everyone in my group turned in everything and on time and responded to my paper quickly. I learned about places in the college the students attended. One member of my group wrote about the Sidelines paper. This was about the process of publishing the paper. Also the other student wrote about the basketball team at their school. [. . .] I really learned a lot from the peer group response."

“I found essay 3 to be difficult because my peer group is not a great group. Only one person in my group gave me feedback. He answered each peer group response questions honestly and I need some like that to read my paper. [. . ] This experience surprised me because I thought that this assignment would be fun because we would get to meet other people. When everyone in your group except one person does not respond, it not easy [sic] trying to write your essay. Also, I thought a majority of the people doing this essay would have been more into the essay. [. . .] The students from Columbia State Community College and Bryan College did not respond to me. I tried three times to talk to them but only Blake Gowan responded. I had to ask other people to read my paper to see what I should change. I think this essay and peer group would have been a good idea if everyone would have worked together.”

“My peers from Bryan and Columbia were nice. They made me feel so good when I read their responses. The only thing was, they did not give me anything to help me make the essay better. I really liked the comments they gave, but I knew the paper was not flawless. It was hard trying to work on my next draft, because I did not have any advice. Nathan kind of told me to work on my thesis, but he did not really give me any suggestions. Melody found a mistake I had made. I had forgotten to erase one of them when I moved it to a different part of the essay. The suggestions helped; I just wanted a little more help. However, I did like working with them. [. . .] It is . . . hard working with people only through e-mail. Getting in touch can be tricky. I am just glad we are past the peer draft.”

“I had some difficulty with my peer group. The students often forgot to send their materials on time. I think that being able to see your peers is a lot easier than consulting over the Internet. [. . .] The people in my peer group were more hurtful than helpful at times. The feedback that I got was short and not very in-depth. The students often seemed to not care about the project. I was surprised with this project, because I have never been in an English class that had peer groups over the Internet. Talking to someone over the Internet allowed me more freedom in what I could say about the papers. I have learned that being able to see your peers is easier, but this was a good challenge. The students from the different colleges taught me that my writing has improved from the first essay I wrote and MTSU has very high expectations for writing.”

“No one helped me out at all, probably because they didn’t send me any kind of feedback or did not receive my essay, although I know I sent the paper several times. I feel like, even though we students had dead lines [sic], that we should of made a solid connection with each other before we started sending drafts of our essays back and forth. Because we did not do this, some of the students missed out on the whole process of peer group feedback. Nothing surprised me about this whole experience although I really enjoyed doing this essay and found this one to be a real leaning experience for me. Although I never got any kind of feedback from my peers from the other colleges, I really enjoyed and felt highly involved with this essay and like how we collaborated with the other students.”

“I believe that the only difficult part of the process [of writing Essay 3] was a lack of communication/will on the part of my fellow peer members. It took some time for me to receive a response from the students of Bryan and Columbia State Community College. When I did, the only response worth paying attention to was from Bryan; the Columbia State students had trouble with sending the essay in on time and did not comment on my paper well. When I did my peer reviews, I sat down and really did a peer review (1 page in length). I must realize that not all students desire to put as much work into something as I do. I would have to say that Priscilla Pearson of Bryan College was the most helpful. I used many of her suggestions when revising my paper for the teacher draft. Again, what surprised me the most was a lack of effort on the part of some of the peer group members. This is college, not HIGH SCHOOL! Though the process of collaborating, I found that I write at a higher level. Not to say that I am a pedantic savant, I have just had more experience. While it is wrong to stereotype, in this situation it is quite difficult not to. The student from CSCC appeared to be less motivated and not at the level seen by students from Bryan and MTSU. Overall, the experience was an enjoyable one. I learned to not count on others to do as they are supposed to do.”

“After writing several essays this semester, I have noticed that the writing process is not an extremely difficult process, but when affected by the e-mail peer groups, it becomes harder. There are several hassles that are involved, unless you are a huge fan of the internet and e-mail, which I am not. First of all, I have no earthly idea how to attach my essay to an e-mail and send it to someone. I have enough problems sending an e-mail in the first place. Second, if I wrote the whole essay in e-mail format, it would be the wrong format for the paper. Third, it was hard for me, as well as others in the class, to edit my peers’ papers without writing on them. It is difficult for me to edit peer papers at all, because most of the time I cannot find anything wrong with them. I know they are not perfect, but I can’t see anything to mark for them to edit. As for m peers, I feel bad that I didn’t e-mail them back. They were good about writing em when we first started the project, but they tailed [sic] off understandably when I did not reply. I wish we could have gone over the steps of e-mailing attachments more in class than we did. It would have been a big help. The process with peer groups can be a very good thing. I feels as the years go by and teachers and students stick to the project, it could greatly help the writing of those in class. But in my case, I am too computer illiterate at the present moment to know what I am doing, and therefore need to work at my computer skills more before trying this again.”

“The writing process of Essay #3 was an interesting experience. I was able to learn about other people’s writing and at the same time learn about the Tennessee Aquarium. Both of the essays that were sent to me from my peer group members were very interesting and I learned something from them. When I wrote a profile about myself it was like I had wrote so much and then when my peer group wrote me back they had hardly wrote anything. That was expected, especially from the guy in my group, no offense though. [. . .] The difficult part of the essay was having to answer all the questions about the essays that my peer group had sent me. It was aggravating and time consuming. It was aggravating because I didn’t think that it was fair that they only had to answer four or five questions and I had to answer twenty that were at least a sentence long. That tested my patience. Neither of my peer group members were especially helpful to me. It seemed as if they were just answering the questions to answer them and get it over with. They said that I did a good job and that was about it, although when I sent my paper to you it came back with tons of writing on it. How ironic! The thing that surprised me about this experience though, was that I had a stereotype in my mind that my peer group members’ papers were going to be awful. Instead they were very well written and informative. But, they did seem to not care about the project at all. It took forever to hear from some of them and they seemed very dismissive about answering the questions for my essay. That surprised me because I figured that since their papers were so well written that they would take as much effort reading mine as I did theirs. I was wrong though, or at least I feel as if I am. Collaborating with the students from MTSU and Columbia State taught me to take my essays from the standpoint that the reader knows nothing at all about the topic I am writing. It make me use my essay as an informative one instead of just assuming that whoever read it would know what I was talking about.”

“. . . it was unclear to me what time certain assignments were to be emailed. [. . .]

What surprised me about the experience of writing this essay was the fact that I got through it without forgetting to email something, or in some way mess up on sending the email, never knowing it. I learned that students at Columbia State Community College follow through with their work and put a lot into their essays. They are detailed and easy to communicate with. My impression is that they are at school to learn. I also think from reading the essay I received from a student at Columbia State Community College that they are very close to Bryan College in the standards of the English department. The long and short of it is, that I am really glad we will not have do any more of these writing experiments with other schools due to confusion."

“It was difficult [. . .] to keep up with all of the peer group members via email. Some of the members would not respond and some email addresses were mixed up, etc. It was also difficult to make corrections on the other members [sic] essay because we could not write in the corrections or accurately show our revisions of their essays. The other members in my peer group gave me a good response to my essay and showed me a few pointers. It was, again, difficult for them to critique my paper without writing in their revisions and corrections. It was interesting to see how the students at the other colleges wrote and see the differences in our writing styles. This also educated me in the areas of the other member’s [sic] profiles of their own college and community.”

“One of the members of my peer group criticized my paper a little too much. Her responses to another girl in my group were very short and simple. She just talked about how good her paper was. Her responses to me were all two or three lines long, and a lot of them didn’t even make sense. I had a little trouble with the student from Bryan College. I didn’t get his paper until a few days ago. I still responded to his paper, but he never responded to mine. This was definitely an interesting experience unlike anything I’ve ever done before. I guess it was fun in a way. It was interesting being able to read papers written by students from other schools that I’ve never met before.”

“The difficult thing about the process was making sure that everything was sent to my peer group by midnight. After I sent it, I got an e-mail from MTSU saying that she did not get my draft or coversheet, so my draft was a couple of days late. Both of my peer group members were helpful while I wrote my drafts one, two, and three. They told me what I needed to improve and what I needed to leave in the paper. They also helped me on some of my grammatical errors. If something that did not make sense; [sic] they told me. What surprised me from this experience is that the two-year community college, four-year private college, and the four-year public college really do not differ in the academics. I figured that the four-year institutions would have had a more difficult class than we do. I guess that I assumed that because they have more students, and the students would not be coached as good by the teachers. This writing experience showed me that really, I am not below the average writer. I usually think that my papers are sort of bad. I learned that I am basically doing pretty good, being that I have trouble putting my thoughts together. I really would not recommend doing this too much because it can get frustrating. It is hard communicating if you cannot get your peer members to respond.”

“The only easy thing that I found in this essay was sending e-mail to my peer group. Getting them to respond was a difficult task. I still lack a response from my peer groups about my paper. [. . .] Really there was no help provided from my peer group about my paper. I did respond to their paper and found the writing to be very interesting. I was very surprised at how 3 different schools could be together doing the same type of paper. I was very interested in begining [sic] this paper at first. The learning experience that I achieved was very minnimal [sic]. Trying to get people to respond to a paper is very difficult. I learned that doing paper like this takes time, patience, and also a little aggressivness [sic]. I would deffinatly [sic] do it again, but very different the next time around.”

“One of my peer group members sent me a critique on my essay. I went back and used her advise [sic] hopefully it helps my grade. I ‘m suprised [sic] that I actually set up an e-mail address and learned how to use it. I’ve never really used computers before I learn [sic] a lot about computers through this experience. I don’t feel that collaborating with students from Bryan College and Middle Tennessee State taught me more about my own writing than the in class peer groups did. I do feel that by sending a critique over e-mail, lets the sender say a little more than an in person peer group would. The only problem is that the student from Bryan College never sent me anything. The student from MTSU sent me her coversheet and that’s the only thing she sent me.”

[Tallies & Summary]

“I got very little help from my e-mail peer group. I had some of my peers from class read my paper and give me feedback. As usual, this helped tremendously. Their comments facilitated the writing of my paper. [. . .] collaborating with students from other colleges taught me that my writing ability is very different from others. I’m still not sure whether that is good or bad."

“Another problem I faced was my online peer group. They were not helpful at all. Although I tried continually to collaborate with the students at Columbia State Community college and Bryan College they never responded to me. Because of this I learned nothing from them about how to improve my writing. Since my peer group never responded to me I solved my problem by having another member of my class serve as my peer group. [. . .] Through this assignment I have learn [sic] that I prefer a face-to-face peer group and that interviewing a person is not the horrible experience I expected.”

“I found that the peer groups didn’t offer much help at all. The feedback I got was very little. It was like they were trying to just get points for writing me. They told me some shallow things, and didn’t offer any advice. I went to my boyfriend and asked or his help. He told me my focus was too large, why certain things were good, and what didn’t fit in. [. . .] One thing is for certain, the peer group wasn’t effective this time.”

“I was pretty disapointed [sic] with my peer group. I really needed some strong suggestions for my paper. In fact, I even emailed one of my peer members, asking him to expand on his suggestion, and he never responded. This really surprised me. My group made me feel like they did their responses in a rush. It seemed as though they were responding only because they had to. I really learned a lot through this experiance [sic]. With the lack of collaboration with my peer group, it made me more dependent on myself. It also made me thankful for all my English teachers, because they taught me a lot. I feel as though my peer group’s papers were weak, thus giving me more confidence in my own writting [sic].”

“In this particular essay I thought it difficult to revise and make changes. I was asking my peer group questions about the things I felt I needed help with and I wasn’t getting any help form them. Only one of my peer group members responded and he didn’t really answer the questions I asked. He answered the questions he was required to answer but even that feedback wasn’t as critical as I had hoped for. I don’t feel like I learned much about my writing. I didn’t even recieve [sic] two of the three drafts I was supposed to read. I didn’t even get to compare my writing with students of other colleges. I was, overall, disapointed [sic] with the e-mail peer group program. I found I get better and more constructive criticism from the peers in my own class.”

“Nobody in my Peer group was especially helpful with my paper. They didn’t really have any advice. Andrea Werner [classmate] helped me out a lot. She read my essay and showed me a few things that needed some work. She knows alot [sic] about computers so she helped out with emailing process. Something that I learned from this experience is that I could be a pretty good writer. I write better when I write about something I like. My peer group made me feel better because [sic] some of the essays weren’t that good.”

“I never found any of my peer groups [sic] information helpful. [. . .] Collaborating with students seemed to be more of a hassle than anything.”

“The peer groups didn’t go to [sic] good to me. I did not get any responses from them. The only surprise was the fact that it didn’t work that well. I learned that to work well in groups, you must have an effort by each person to make it work.”

“The members in my writing group were not very helpful. I think they did not want to tell me any bad parts of my paper. I am not sure. I gave them real and honest feedback on their paper and I expected them to do the same. I had some trouble with them trying to get papers sent and recieved [sic] and sending feedback. We had communication problems. [. . .] I also learned that every student has totally different writing styles. By reading what and how the other students wrote, I learned to adapt and work with whatever style they chose. I do not think, as far as my own personal writing goes, that collaborating with other students, from the two other colleges, helped or changed my writing in any way.”

“The internet peer group was a disaster. The one partner that participated had the writing capability of a middle school child. Due to her lack of ability, she was unable to help with my essay. From talking to my classmates, I have gathered that they feel the same way. Not everyone heard from a peer group so they were on their own for this essay. My partner from Bryan has not contacted me, so he obviously has taught me nothing about my writing. The partner I had the opportunity to work with helped me none. She did not tell me any thing [sic] wrong with my paper. I don’t think working with students from other colleges is a good idea and wouldn’t suggest doing it again.”

“I was disappointed in my peers from Columbia and Bryan colleges. The student from Bryan did not profile a place; he wrote about an event that happened at his college. In his response to my essay, he wanted me to change the way I perceived the interviewee’s description of something. He said that I cited wrong but my professor assured me that I was correct. The peer from Columbia College never gave me a response to my essay. I really did not like having to e-mail my peers and having them at different colleges. The one thing that surprised me about this essay was the writing styles. The peers from the other two colleges did not stay on their topic and there were many grammatical mistakes. I could tell a big difference between their writing and the writing of my peer and me from MTSU. The one thing I learned from this experience is to have more confidence in my writing. I usually [am] hard on myself about the way I write but after reading my peer’s [sic] essay, I can see that I have made improvements.”

“My Mother was helpful in revising my essay. [. . .] However, I cannot say the same about others in peer group because they did not give sufficient feedback [. . .] only one of my peer group members gave feedback. [. . .] I also learned that I write a little better than I had previously thought. My essay looked a lot better sitting next to a couple of the ones I received. Collaborating with the students from different Universities taught me how to frequently communicate with someone via e-mail. In addition, I learned I am not the only procrastinator in the world.”

“The hardest part about the essay was getting feedback from my peers from Bryan and Columbia State College. I never did really get any good feedback. No one from my peer group was especially helpful to me. I should have gotten some feedback from someone else in my writing community to help me revise my paper. The thing that surprised me the most about this experience was the peer process. I thought I gave my peers good feedback, but they would not do the same for me. [. . .] Collaborating with students from Columbia State and Bryan College taught me so much about my own writing. I feel like the English professors at MTSU expect more from their students than the professors at the other colleges. I think the students here are more willing to do their best because of the emphasis our teachers put on that. My peer’s [sic] essays, in my opinion, did not remember their audience or completing [sic] follow the guidelines for this particular essay.”

“My peer group was not very helpful to me for several different reasons. One was that they had trouble sending me feedback--I did not receive feedback from one of my peers until the day the paper was due. The other reason was that they did not spend time on their responses. One of my peers did not say anything bad about my paper at all and the other peer only had one or two bad things to say. Now, I know that my paper is not that great! They did not take much time to respond, therefore, I had to go back without any feedback and revise the paper without any peer comments. I was surprised that the students from the other colleges were not very helpful. As college students, they should have focused on the essay and should have given me as much feedback as possible. Working with other students from Bryan college and Columbia State Community College did not really teach me anything about my writing, because they did not respond very well.”

“[. . .] my assign [sic] group was of no help at all. Matt gave little or no advice on how to correct my paper. He was very vague on the matter. Katie, on the other had, I did not here [sic] from at all. May be [sic] she really does not exist. [. . .] Also, from collaborating with students of CSCC and BC I learned that not everyone is responsible as I am. I was the only one in my group who did their job with 100 percent effort. One student did nothing at all. I did not learn anything about my writing from them just learned that I am very responsible and that a lot of people are not. I also learned not to always count on others to pull their side of the load.”

“The peer response from the other end [as opposed to interview], however, was no picnic either. I found it frustrating that two out of three of my corresponding peers didn’t respond to my essay. So, I didn’t get all the feedback that was needed to complete my essay. This was definitely a learning experience. Since no one in my peer group or someone in my community were helpful, this was something I had to learn on my own. I was surprised at the participation when it came to the peer response and submitting essays, learning that the majority of my peers didn’t care about this assignment. This was unfortunate for the rest of the group that did. I felt that collaborating with students from Bryan College and Columbia State Community College had both negative and positive lights. However, in the end I did not learn anything about my writing that I did not already know.”

“The surprising thing about the essay is that such an organized project didn’t work very well, at least in my case. Everything started out fine as I got first drafts from all of my peer group members. I wrote responses to each of the members’ essays, but this was a long and tedious experience because of the long and repetitious form that we were supposed to hold to for looking over peers’ papers. The deadline came and passed for the reception of the responses from my peers and yet my e-mail inbox remained empty. As of now, I have only gotten two replies from peers and both leave much to be desired. Neither of them proved helpful and the senders seemed to have not taken much time in writing them.”

“The only problem I had with the writing of essay 3 was that I found it of no help to email my peer group. Basically they thought my essay was fine, and gave me nothing to work on. It seemed to me that their criteria was different than ours, so when we critiqued their writings and when they critiqued ours I found it confusing as to what questions each of us were given to answer about one another’s essays. It surprised me that some of my peer group could not write a halfway, organized paper. They would repeat the same information several times in the essay. Some of the information did not make any sense nor did it pertain to the topic they were writing about. It makes me grateful for a decent grammar education. To be total honest, I do not think that having an email group helped my writing at all. I found it be more of a hassle than help. In fact, I never received a critique by one of my members. Personally I don’t think that some of us took the project as seriously as we should have."

“The only difficult part off [sic] the essay was that I did not get as much help [as] I thought I would for the peer group. It is really hard to e-mail what you think of someone’s paper and [?] if they mean what they are saying.”

“The peer group that I was involved in did not turn out to be very helpful in writing this paper. I would of liked to have had an angle from one of my peer members before turning in my final draft. I know that I can always do better. [. . . ] I believe that the collaboration with other students from different colleges would have been effective if I could of connected with them.”

“My peer group helped me out along the way. If there were something wrong in my paper, my peer group members would tell me right away to help me. I don’t know if I was to [sic] much help to them because I really didn’t say to [sic] much, I’m not a very good English and grammar guy. [. . . ] Now collaborating with students from Bryan College and Middle Tennessee State University did not do too much for me. To tell you the truth, I think it took to [sic] long and that it was a waste of time, but that is my opinion.”

“The most difficult thing was trying to get the emails through. Throughout the whole project I knew my group had computer and personal mishaps that caused some delay. The only thing that really was frustrating was not being able to communicate with someone due to the fact of email addresses. The people in my group were not helpful at all. They didn’t tell me specificly [sic] what I done wrong. They kept their thoughts general. One of my members was really harsh and mean about my mistakes. I believe that they need ‘the talk’ that you gave us at the beginning of the year. Maybe the peer person could word it a little different. It surprised me that all the students praised the school they’re going to instead of the community. The project as a whole I enjoyed very much, but I didn’t enjoy one of my peer group members. I thought my paper was very good but, evidently I was wrong in someones [sic] eyes. I’ve learned that not everyone will praise your paper. I believe also that I shouldn’t take that personal. That’s what I’ve learned.”

“I also thought the whole timing of the dates with the peers [sic] groups was confusing. I didn’t feel like it was a real paper and that the emails were organized. Since I only got one response to my paper, I had to go on that. This person only gave me one major thing I had to change, so my third draft wasn’t very hard to do. [. . .] Collaborating with the students was not really helpful. The only person I heard from only told me one thing I had to change. And I also only received one paper from my group, and I found it very confusing and hard to even tell him what was wrong with it. I don’t think I learned anything from this experience that I didn’t already know.”

“The most difficult part of this assignment was trying to relay responses between the members of my peer group. I was not able to gain much assistance from my peer group because I was not able to read any responses they had to my paper. I did receive one response, but I was unable to read it because of the format in which it was sent. [. . .] the correspondence between the other students and myself was not a successful experience.”