Peter Elbow's concepts of "pointing,""summarizing,""telling," and "showing" can form an effective method for training students to give reader-based feedback to peer writing. In pointing, students jot down all the words and phrases they can remember from an oral reading of a draft. These lists stimulate summarizing, which involves writing down the main idea, feeling, or "center of gravity" of a piece. In telling, students write what occurred within them as they heard the piece read. This is followed by showing, an exercise in which students describe their reading responses in metaphorical terms (e.g. as hearing voices or as visualizing a vegetable), bringing partially conscious responses to the surface. In the ensuing group discussion students read their pointing lists, summaries, and other responses aloud. Authors mark pointing words in their drafts, note sections in the draft that made no impression on the listeners, and are given the listeners' written notes. Additional guidelines limit the duration of reading aloud, the reactions of writers to their listeners' responses ("don't argue, say 'thank you'"), and the amount of revision completed before group evaluation occurs. Student attitudes to such writing groups typically change from initial apprehension to feeling that the groups are very useful. (JG)