Exploring the Effect of Writing Mini-lessons on Peer Response in Elementary Classroom

Abstract

Previously, the research team designed a game-based writing environment to support students’ writing development. However, students are not good at peer response. It decreased the effect of talking for revising strategy. Therefore, the purpose of this study designed writing mini-lesson and enhanced students’ skill of giving peer response and revising their draft based on the received response. A quasi-experiment was conducted and 108 three-grade students from 4 classes participated in. The experimental group received the three writing mini-lessons during the semester and the control group received general instruction. Both of these two group students wrote three writing article on game-based writing environment. The writing minilesson was implemented in the beginning of every writing course and cost around 5-8 minutes. The results showed that there is no significant different on the number of peer response between control and experimental group. In contrast, the type of peer response was different between these two groups. It implied that writing mini-lesson could provide students how to give concrete response and proved the effect of writing mini-lesson for elementary school students.