Peer Review assignments in Packback have three parts: submitting your own writing, reviewing the required number of your peers' submissions, and reading the feedback you receive. On the Peer Review assignment page, each step has a corresponding table that will help you keep track of your progress. This article walks you through each step.
Step 1: Submit Your Writing
Every Peer Review assignment is connected to a Deep Dive assignment — you'll see the name of the connected assignment on the Peer Review tile (from the community homepage or Writing Assignments page) and on the Peer Review assignment page itself.
Under the "Submit Your Writing" section, you'll see a link to your submission for the connected Deep Dive. If you haven't submitted yet, you'll see a prompt to go complete it first.
You must submit to the connected Deep Dive before you can begin reviewing peers.
Step 2: Complete Your Peer Reviews
Once your Deep Dive is submitted, you're ready to review. To begin, click "Start New Peer Review." You'll be automatically matched to a peer's submission.
When you open a new Peer Review, a “How to complete this review” pop-up walks you through the basics: whose writing you're reviewing, how many points the review is worth, how many tasks (short answer prompts) you need to complete, and whether your responses have a minimum required length. You can reopen this message anytime by clicking “How to complete this review” in the sidebar.
As you draft your peer review, you will have access to your peer’s writing in addition to a sidebar which will help you complete the review. You have two ways to leave feedback:
- Sidebar tasks (Required): Complete the short-answer prompts your instructor has set up in the sidebar
- Inline comments (Optional): Highlight any text in the submission and click "Add Comment" to leave a note directly on that passage.
When you’ve completed all your review tasks and you're ready to share your feedback, click Submit. Once submitted, you won't be able to edit your review and your peer will be able to read it immediately. Repeat this process until you've completed all required reviews.
Under the "Complete Your Peer Reviews" section on the Peer Review assignment page, you can track your assignment progress and access published and in progress peer reviews.
Tips for strong feedback: As you complete review tasks in the sidebar, remember that the most useful peer feedback points to a specific moment in the text, explains why that section works well or needs improvement, and gives the author clear next steps. Try to provide at least 2–3 sentences per task response.
Step 3: Read Your Received Reviews
As peers submit feedback on your work, you'll receive email and in-platform notifications. Your reviews will also appear under the "Read Your Peer Reviews" section of the Peer Review assignment page. Take time to explore this feedback. It's there to help you strengthen your writing.
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