Responding Effectively to Student Writing
Carolyn
Haynes
Director of Windate Writing Center
Miami University (Ohio)
Modes of Response
Instructors can respond
to student writers in a variety of ways:
- Written comments (handwritten or word-processed)—Written
comments provide an ineradicable record
of the instructor’s feedback which
both the instructor and student can refer
to any time. But the instructor has no
way to know whether the student understands
the feedback.
- Taped comments—When the student
submits a paper, he or she also provides
a cassette tape on which to record his/her
comments. This mode offers the student
a more personal approach, but it takes
more of an effort on the part of the student
to listen to it.
- Individual or small group conferences—Conferences offer the most personal and effective way to respond to students because they enable the instructor and student to converse and collaborate on the paper together. However, conferences are time-consuming.
General Guidelines
Remember that
the purpose of responding to a piece of
writing should be to help the student write
well, not to correct the paper.
As you write your comments,
consider the total effect your comments
will have, their usefulness to the student,
and the message that they convey about what
writing is and about your concerns when
you read student writing. Ask yourself:
Are my comments conveying what I want to
convey? Are they going to help the student
to improve?
Make your end comments an appropriate length.
One phrase is generally
too short, and two pages is probably too
long. Generally, begin with a sentence or
two that describes the paper’s successes.
Then offer a few sentences that detail its
main area(s) needing improvement, and finally
offer a brief suggestion or challenge for
what to do next.
Shape your comments
to fit the assignment's purpose, form and
length.
Major assignments that
students revise should be given careful
and lengthier comments. But short in-class
writing (that are primarily responses to
reading or communications to the instructor)
may only need a check/minus system or a
few comments; and you may not want to focus
on mechanics or grammar at all on those
assignments.
Make your comments speak to your evaluation
criteria.
Always make sure that
your comments speak to the evaluation criteria
that you created for the assignment. You
need not comment on every aspect of the
paper--focus on those areas that you have
designated as most important for that assignment.
Be a “transparent”
reader.
That is, help the student
to understand as clearly as possible your
perception of their paper as one reader.
Remember: writing is not “wrong”
in the same way that “2 + 2 = 5”
is wrong. Instead, writing can more accurately
be said to fail when it does not effectively
communicate to its intended reader. Thus,
it is important to explain as clearly as
possible at what point you failed to understand
or be persuaded by the writing. Rather than
say, “This paragraph is not coherent,”
try, “I lost the train of your thought
here.”
Write comments
in the margin and at the end of the paper.
In general marginal comments
should illustrate a point that is stated
more generally at the end. To make only
marginal comments may leave the student
with no overall picture of what you think
about the paper and no way of distinguishing
which problems are most important. To make
only terminal comments may leave the student
wondering where the specific examples of
the major problems are located in the text.
It is also important to make the student
aware that your marginal comments or questions
illustrate what you mean in the terminal
comment.
Make sure that your marginal comments and
terminal comment reinforce one another.
For example, be careful
not to make marginal comments that imply
that the text merely needs cleaning up for
punctuation or diction, when your terminal
comment urges the student to make major
changes. In those cases, move your comments
on mechanics or style to the terminal comment,
and place them within the context of the
total writing process: “When you’ve
reorganized your paper, spend time editing
for verb forms.”
Address “higher”
order concerns before “lower”
order concerns.
Studies indicate that
if you comment on both the lower order concerns
(e.g., mechanics, diction) and the higher
order concerns (thesis, organization, logic),
students will only focus on the “lower
order” concerns when they revise their
paper.
Make sure that
you comment on what is working in the paper
as well as what needs improvement.
By describing the paper’s
successes, the student can repeat them more
consciously the next time.
If possible, connect
comments you make a student’s writing
from one paper to the next.
For example, if you encouraged
a student to create a more logical organization
on one paper, and she improves the organization
on the next, offer her praise for the progress
made. Conversely, if a student neglected
to work on a problem addressed in previous
comments, you should point that out.
Don’t overload
the student with too many comments.
Rather than point out
every problem in the paper, set priorities;
and focus only on one or two areas needing
improvement. If there are still problem
areas beyond the one or two you stress,
you can note briefly in the terminal comment,
“Once we have finished working on
organization, we will focus on supporting
your claims more fully.”
Resist the temptation
to correct every error or edit the paper
for the student.
Instead, focus on the
most salient problem, and allow the student
to remedy the problems for himself. One
way to do this is to put a check mark next
to the sentences or paragraphs where the
problem occurs. Invite the student to look
over the places, and correct the problem
for your review later.
Be specific in
your comments.
Rather than offer general
and vague comments such as “This paragraph
is awkward,” try figuring out exactly
what is awkward about it. Then offer a brief
explanation, such as “This paragraph
contains two passive sentences.”
If you use hieroglyphs
such as “frag” or “ref,”
make sure that your students can readily
find out what they mean.
Provide a comprehensible
key for the abbreviations and symbols.
Provide concrete suggestions for how to
improve the paper.
Instead of merely saying, “This paper
needs better organization,” try, “Why
don’t you create an outline before
sitting down to draft your paper?”
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