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Descriptive, evaluative and substantive peer criticism progression

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Description

The paper describes Bruffee's sequence of written peer criticism: descriptive (saying something about a text without judging it), evaluative (what is good and what could improve it), and substantive (a judgment about content). Combined with reading aloud, "students in the Bruffee classroom would learn to interact dialectically", moving from low-level to more sophisticated involvement.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • Progressive practice in reading aloud and in descriptive, evaluative and substantive peer criticism.
  • Student conversations are structured by a task set by the teacher according to the conventions of academic discourse, as the paper reports Bruffee.

Constraints

Target Learners

  • College composition students

Target Learning Goals

  • Learning to interact dialectically with others to produce effective discourse

Affordances

Claims

Examples

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Key Sources

  • DeCiccio, Albert C. (1988). Social Constructionism and Collaborative Learning: Recommendations for Teaching Writing. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED294201
Page metadata
Field Value
type element
id descriptive-evaluative-substantive-peer-criticism
title Descriptive, evaluative and substantive peer criticism progression
description The paper describes Bruffee's sequence of written peer criticism: descriptive (saying something about a text without judging it), evaluative (what is good and what could improve it), and substantive (a judgment about...
status review
canonical True
generated by claude/unspecified on 2026-09-24
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — deciccio-1988

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