Abstract
Peer response has become a significant part of many college-level writing courses. Research has shown that training students in how to respond to their peers helps them give more effective feedback. One factor that is noted in the research is the population of current composition courses; many mainstream composition courses have multilingual students enrolled in them, making them more diverse. Using a teacher research/case study approach, I interviewed 16 students from my Fall 2013 first-year composition course at California State University, Sacramento about their perceptions of peer response. While initially students indicated a lack of interest in getting feedback from their peers, later on in interviews students indicated that they felt that peer response was helpful. Specifically focusing on the mixed population of the course, when students were asked about their perceptions of their peers based on their language background, the results varied from language background not being a factor to it having a slight effect on their trust level with that peer.