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Writing is one of the most important skills in English learning and it is tested in the college entrance examination, taking up one fifth of the total score. However, the practice of writing and the review of students’writing is no easy task during the three years’senior school study and teaching. In traditional reviewing, teachers mark their students’writing pieces one by one, underlining each mistake and even correcting them, thus taking a long time to finish reviewing a single writing task. Whereas, seeing what has been marked on their“works”, the students will usually feel discouraged by the red lines covering their writing exercise. In the long run, the students will become afraid of writing or to make matters worse, tired of it. Some scholars in China think it an effective way for the teachers to review writing traditionally, arguing this kind of review helps students to better know their problems and therefore they can improve their writing next time. Other scholars, on the other hand, are against it, saying peer review is more efficient. In peer review, not only can students cultivate their sense of a reader, their critical thinking, but also develop a spirit of cooperation. During the process, they try to equal their classmates who are better than them, seeing their advantages and progress, thus making them stimulated and striving for the better. Above is what the scholars argue about, but it is only theoretical or based on personal experience.Experimental studies about ways of reviewing writing are very few. Hence, the author carried out an experimental study about the two kinds of reviews. The hypotheses are as follows: Compared with nurse review, peer review can better cultivate the students’spirit of cooperation, help develop their critical thinking and sharpen their ability to judge, thus stimulating their writing interest and improving their writing ability. The study lasted from September, 2010 to June, 2011. The point in doing this experimental study is to collect related data to prove the hypothesis put forward above and make some practical suggestions to senior high school writing teaching and reviewing after the experiment. Besides the introduction and the ending, the thesis is made up of five chapters.In the first chapter, the author introduced the relevant research and research background in pointing out the significance. Meanwhile, he made a brief summary of the relevant research on the present study both in China and abroadIn Chapter Two, the author introduced the theoretical foundation. The theories related are Error Analysis, Cooperation Learning Theory, and Zone of Proximal Development. The hypothesis and the implementation of the treatment of the study are based on the above theories.In the third chapter, the author introduced the purposes, the subjects, the hypotheses of the experiment, and the instruments used in the experiment. The subjects were students from two classes (Class 9 and Class 10) in Grade Two in a key senior middle school where the author works. This experiment lasted for 9 months, from September, 2010 to June, 2011. The author, English teacher of the two classes, is the researcher who carried out this experiment. Class 10 was taken as the experimental/treatment class, in which peer review was conducted, while Class 9 was the control class, where the author kept the traditional reviewing method nurse review. The author stated the hypotheses that peer review is better than nurse review in helping EFL students in senior high school to cultivate a spirit of cooperation, to develop their critical thinking, and sense of a reader and finally to improve their writing ability. The instruments used in the pretest and the posttest are writing items from NMET. To get more detailed information, a questionnaire about the subjects was designed.In Chapter Four, the author concentrated on the implementation of the treatment of the study. The process of the experiment was introduced in detail including the pretest, posttest and the course of treatment as well as a questionnaire.Chapter Five dealt with the collection of data and data analysis. After analysis of the data of the experiment and the questionnaire responses, a conclusion was drawn that peer review has more advantages than nurse review as it can help students make more progress in writing, which proved the hypotheses. Meanwhile, the author analyzed the limitations of the experiment, and proposed some suggestions on the future teaching of writing. Several principles are put forward: In terms of nurse review, the encouraging principle, the timely response principle and the comprehensive review principle are suggested. And in terms of peer review, the disparity principle, the communicative principle, the brief-instruction principle, the modeling principle and the process-stressed principle are suggested.Despite the advantages of peer review, some problems remain: First, it is still a little difficult for some students to accept peer review despite its effectiveness in the experiment. How can we convince them? Second, what can we do with the mistakes made by the writer’s peers in peer review? Third, how much instruction should a teacher give the students in the reviewing process? Some problems are to be pointed out and solved.
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