Beyond Group Therapy: Crafting Peer Evaluation to Reduce Anxiety in the Legal Writing Classroom

Abstract

Can a student whose editing eye is driven by anxious self-checking, overwhelmed by the concern for whether another student treated an identical issue the same or differently than he has, really provide valid feedback on whether the student author has met the intended audience’s needs? This working paper suggests that, despite its pitfalls, peer evaluation in the legal writing classroom can be designed to achieve the best goals of the peer-editing exercise while at the same time reduce the anxiety and free students to more fully discover audience. One design that has the potential to create a safer, more authentic environment for peer evaluation is one in which students work on different problems. This would remove some of the competitive social comparison inherent in a peer editing exercise where students are all working to reach the same “answer.”

Keywords: peer editing, peer evaluation, student anxiety