1 Introduction

Explored the role of peer feedback in English writing, pointed out its importance as a formative assessment tool, and analyzed the internal and external factors that affect the effectiveness of peer feedback. The study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the characteristics of peer feedback in English argumentative writing and its impact on learner engagement, in order to enrich related research.

2 Literature Review

The role of peer feedback in English writing was discussed, emphasizing the dual role of learners in the feedback process. Research has shown that peer feedback can promote learners' critical thinking, application of evaluation criteria, and personal writing reflection on writing tasks, thereby improving writing skills and facilitating essay revision. Current research mainly focuses on learners as feedback recipients, finding that peer feedback can increase writing time and engagement, as well as promote the correction of language form and meaning errors in essays. However, research has not yet delved into the impact of writing genre differences on peer feedback and essay editing. Learner engagement is a multidimensional concept that includes emotional, behavioral, and cognitive aspects, providing a new perspective for studying the effectiveness of peer feedback. Emotional engagement involves learners' emotional responses to peer feedback and their judgment and emotional changes during the subsequent modification process; Behavioral engagement refers to the modification strategies and self modifying behaviors adopted by learners; Cognitive engagement involves the depth of cognitive processing and changes in metacognitive abilities of learners during the process of essay revision. Existing research has paid little attention to learners' engagement with peer feedback, or only explored a certain aspect of engagement. Learners' emotional investment in peer feedback does not directly lead to behavioral and cognitive investment, and they show varying degrees of investment in feedback opinions with different levels of difficulty in modification. This study aims to explore the characteristics and focus of peer feedback in English argumentative writing tasks, as well as how learners' emotional, behavioral, and cognitive inputs interact and affect the quality of essay revision.

3 Research Design

This chapter introduces a study conducted in the "British Parliamentary Debate" course at a university in Tianjin, aimed at exploring the input of peer feedback in English argumentative writing among non English major undergraduate second year students. The research subjects are 43 students, all of whom have some experience in English writing and peer feedback. The research materials include 8 teaching cases, and students complete an argumentative essay writing task related to the topic of the "National College English Debate Competition" every two weeks. The research is based on a specific writing process, and the topic involves the criminalization of academic plagiarism. Data collection includes students' initial drafts, peer feedback, revised drafts, and interview data. The two authors conducted coding analysis on the data, removing praise feedback and retaining 219 critical feedback. The consistency of the encoding was ensured through kappa consistency testing. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 students to explore their feelings, problems, and strategies during peer feedback and essay revision processes. The interview data has been coded and analyzed, and the coding consistency between the two authors is high. The research findings contribute to understanding students' peer feedback engagement in English argumentative writing.

4 Results and Discussion

In English argumentative writing, the characteristics and focus of peer feedback are mainly divided into error correcting feedback and non error correcting feedback. Error correction feedback focuses more on language form, such as singular and plural nouns, verb tenses, word spelling, etc., while non error correction feedback focuses on the content, genre structure, quality of reasoning, and good words and sentences of the article. Peer feedback tends to focus on language form, especially direct error correction feedback, while feedback on the quality of reasoning is related to the difficulty of reasoning.

5 Conclusion

This study analyzed the peer feedback characteristics and learner engagement of 30 students in English argumentative writing from the perspectives of feedback providers and receivers. Research has found that the genre structure of argumentative essays affects the characteristics and focus of peer feedback; Peer feedback can improve the quality of critical thinking, but it is difficult to diagnose underlying problems; The three dimensions of learner engagement are interrelated and have diverse modification effects. Suggestions for second language writing teaching: Curriculum design should strengthen genre awareness, teachers should guide students to understand the relationship between genre structure and writing purpose, pay attention to the influence of genre characteristics on peer feedback, and provide guidance during the revision process. Future research could focus on the changes in peer feedback engagement among students in multiple writing tasks.