| Summary: | Many students who come to universities and colleges find it difficult to acquire a well-functioning academic language, especially in writing. This is confirmed in several studies (Ahlm m.fl. 2009, Ask, 2005, 2007, Hoel 2010). One measure that is called for is concerted activities, which help to socialize students into the academy. The aim of this essay is to use the students’ experiences to elucidate and analyse the conditions for peer response in process-oriented writing in higher education, the difficulties it entails, and its consequences for teach-ing and learning. The students’ experiences of and attitudes to peer response in relation to academic literacy are studied and analysed critically in a course on the use of academic lan-guage. The empirical section presents the implementation and results of the selected methods – a questionnaire and interview with 30 and 5 students respectively on a professional educa-tion programme during their first year of study. The result shows a close correspondence be-tween the students’ experiences of peer response linked to their experiences of their develop-ment of academic writing, but also between their experiences of peer response and attitudes to and experiences of their knowledge of academic writing. The study also demonstrates the students’ experiences of success factors and pitfalls of peer response. The success factors concern metalanguage, working with a clear structure, reading and discussion of texts, and the need for an open, secure climate. The students’ experiences of the pitfalls of peer response concern, on the one hand, socio-emotional and psychological aspects in relation to the other students, for example the difficulty of balancing the response, and especially of daring to crit-icize a text sharply. On the other hand, it concerns the fear of not being good enough because of inadequate knowledge of academic language and academic text.
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