Despite extensive attention to peer review in composition studies literature, the activity remains challenging to design, in part because there are multiple potential goals for peer review. This article draws on existing literature to describe a variety of peer review goals and then presents interview data to illustrate the perceptions of first-year composition instructors (n=3) and students (n=8) about the goals of peer review. The three instructor interviewees each described a specific and distinct goal for peer review: constructing quality feedback, identifying effective writing, and developing peer trust. However, when asked about the purpose of peer review, all eight of the students focused on one goal: improving draft quality. This article recommends increased attention to naming and differentiating among specific goals of peer review, as well as more discussion of ways to deliberately articulate those goals to students.

Metacognition is a typical learning outcome in composition courses, but providing feedback on low-stakes reflective writing and assessing highstakes reflective writing are complex tasks that warrant more attention in the literature. Consequently, this article explores how the assignment of and response to low-stakes reflective writing can provide effective scaffolding to higher-stakes reflective writing tasks. We present an example of our strategy for response through one instructor’s experience with responding to her first-year composition student’s low-stakes reflective writing. Ultimately, we call for more research on responding to reflective writing that will ensure the valid and reliable assessment of metacognition in composition courses.