Post 265: How To Respond To Student Writing

Post 265:How To Respond to Student Writing

Is it sufficient for teachers to only give feedback when a teacher deducts points from a student grade? What else can a teacher do to ensure the student is more successful on the next assignment?
Is it sufficient for teachers to only give feedback when we deduct points from a student grade? What else can you do to ensure the student is more successful on the next assignment?
*Go over common student mistakes when you teach class. For instance, if many students failed to come up with a good thesis statement, then in class, I would go over how to create a good thesis statement.

*I would put up an announcement that goes over common errors all students made and name it "Essay 1 Common errors" and then just list the errors and explanations on how to avoid those mistakes.

*I would play grammar games with them to reinforce grammar rules. I would deliberately post an incorrect sentence and then have students correct that sentence. Example: What is wrong with this sentence? I is a good teacher.  Then the student posts, "I am a good teacher". Next, I have the student post an incorrect sentence and have the next student guess how to correct that sentence and so on.

*I would provide outside sources, links, interactive exercises students can do to reinforce common errors. Towson Grammar website is a good website with excellent interactive grammar quizzes.

*Create a forum where I have students tell me and other students what grammar or essay structure mistakes they made in their paper and what take-away lessons based on teacher feedback they learned from the last assignment. Then, all students can share in each other's mistakes and learn from each other.

*Peer editing--I have students post their rough drafts to the forum  and then students would peer review and correct each other's rough draft. I give students a checklist of what to look for. Peer reviewing reinforces the writing process for students. Peer editing also gives me a chance to look at student rough drafts and make quick comments on essay structure.

*Talk about the assignment rubric and how I grade--I tell students the expectations of the assignment from the rubric and let students know how I grade that assignment. Typically, I grade for essay structure first and then grammar.

*After Action Assessment--In this assignment, students hand in their corrected rough draft based on the teacher feedback the teacher gives them.

*Personalize your comments to just that student's paper. I focus more on grading essay overall meaning and not as much on grammar. I try to relate my comments just to that student's paper. When I say I grade for essay structure, I mean I look at the overall argumentation structure and logic of that student's paper. Do the supporting paragraphs relate to the thesis?  Does the paper have a main idea? Does he have an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion? etc...

*Rather than just grade for grammar errors, teacher should correct for meaning and logic in a student essay. Once a paper is logical, then in subeseque

Irene Clark in her book, Concepts in Composition says, "Comments need to be text-based specific to that student. Avoid rubber stamped not personalized comments." Students can always tell when you have used the same comment over and over again to different students.

Irene Clark in her book, "Concepts in Composition" states, "Written comments need to be an extension of the teacher's voice--an extension of the teacher as a reader--an extension of the teacher in her class." Clark also states that students learn best if we can integrate our feedback statements into our curriculum in many ways so as to reinforce the core concepts of what we are teaching in the class.

These are some of the ways that I give feedback so students can do better on their next assignment.