Dan Risinger

Conan Kmiecik
ENG 361
December 5th, 2014
Responding to Student Writing: Escaping the Student Discourse Echo chamber

Responding to writing is more than pointing out errors; feedback is for instructional
use. Sometimes teachers forget the instructional nature of feedback and use it only to
prove that they have looked over a paper. A writing instructor accomplishes very little
with this methodology. There are three things I want to accomplish when responding to
my students as a writing instructor: encourage students to participate in the re-writing
process by offering constructive feedback based on a diagnostic assessment, further
student understanding of the writing process by facilitating peer assessment, and, through
use of holistic evaluative techniques, build students confidence in their own writing
abilities.
Before any instruction can take place, a teacher has to figure out where their
students writing abilities lie. Whats the best way to figure this out? Diagnostic
Assessment. Erika Lindemann describes Diagnostic assessment in Responding to
Student Writing, chapter fourteen of her book, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers. When
we examine a paper diagnostically, were concerned primarily with describing rather than
judging or grading it we want to know how the students write, what theyre having
trouble with, and why (Lindemann 226). By creating a general, diagnostic description of
a students work, a teacher will find greater clarity as as they determine how to help the

student develop. My evaluation of students work will occur early in the semester, and
perhaps again at the midway point. I will create a file for each student with my
assessment of their strengths and weaknesses as writers. These writerly check-ins will
shape how I provide feedback.
Teachers must be engaging with their feedback to have students take it into
consideration. In Teaching Rewriting, another chapter from A Rhetoric for Writing
Teachers, Lindemann advises that teachers Correct students perceptions of rewriting-aspunishment (Lindemann 190). Instead of providing prescriptive comments that only tell
students how to correct the surface errors of their essays, I will ask questions of student
writing so that they might shape their composition for themselves. The application of this
type of methodology is suggested in Talking Back to Students, an essay by high school
teacher, Margaret Treece Metzger. What you should do on student papers is just chat
with the kids. Pretend you're in a conversation and just write down what you would say to
them if they were reading their papers aloud. And tell them how you react to their
writing (Metzger 39). When it comes to high schoolers, a good portion of them put
formality in the same camp as a wet towel after a nice shower. Feedback will be more
digestible when presented in a conversational style. Additionally, if feedback is too rigid
the paper may lose its authenticity, becoming at best a collaborative effort, and at worst, a
mechanical transfer of marks from one word document to another. In contrast to simply
writing awk or sp next to a word on the page, Lindemann suggests that teachers
explain why [there is] a problem and how to solve it (Lindemann 207). Re-writing is a
process of exploration with the aim of unearthing the fully realized thoughts of the final
draft. For students to arrive at the final draft, teachers must move beyond simple feedback

by asking students to go beyond their paper to improve things.

Simple feedback has students writing only to fulfill the teachers assignment.
Metzger presented a list of 12 types of complex feedback that she gave to a student
lacking information for his essay, here is the second idea from Metzgers list of
suggestions to the student: 2. You still need more information before you write. Make a
list of 50 (count 'em-50) details about this topic and then rewrite. Choose appropriate
details from the list(Metzger 42). This type of feedback assures authentic writing
because it has students thinking outside the context of the paper. With this type of
feedback, students who are interested enough will see their composition improve. In
order to increase students interest in writing, I will have them present their compositions
to their class.
When I am teaching I would like to have students read their papers out loud to
incorporate peer assessment. The reason for this choice is three fold: first, by reading
aloud students will have a larger incentive to thoroughly proof read their paper; no one
wants to appear foolish in front of their peers. Second, it creates an open forum to talk
about elements of writing. And, third, by critiquing each other verbally, students will have
to think about their own writing in relation to their suggestions during critique, in this
way, students are also critiquing themselves. Educator, Sharon Jansen Jaech advocates for
verbal student reading in her essay Going Public: A case for Reading Aloud in the
Classroom. By reading aloud, Ideas like audience and voice become much easier to
present (Jansen 62). Exposure to these writing concepts is a perk of this learning
strategy. Aside from voice and audience, students are also exposed to far more writing
than if their work were created in the standard student-teacher discourse vacuum. Jansen

continues, I no longer have to rely on a textbook for examples to illustrate our

discussion of introductions, paragraphing, or the effective use of sentence fragments. I
can refer to the students own papers and draw examples from them (Jansen 62). By
putting writing in terms of student work, students can connect their own writing with a
larger pool of work and see what writing could be. Additionally, students will be part of a
writing community with an audience that provides immediate feedback. These feedback
sessions are intended to build confident writers. The risk of this method is that if a student
is given overly-negative feedback, or worse, openly mocked in front of the class, their
confidence may be shattered.
In order to keep students from tearing each other apart, I will teach students how to
give holistic feedback. For the study Writing Evaluation: What can analytic versus
holistic essay scoring tell us? Nahla Bacha examines what comes from different forms
of evaluation. Bachas research led him to the conclusion that holistic scoring [tends to
focus] on what the writer does well rather than on the writers specific areas of weakness
(374, Bacha). Because the goal of In-class readings is to create a supportive writing
community of confident writers, hollistic assessment is a good form for public critique. In
chapter twelve of A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, Lindemann writes about holistic
scoring. She says [it] is a group activity that requires readers to agree beforehand on the
criteria that will determine the ranking of papers (246 Lindemann). Agreeing upon the
criteria for their assessments will create a stronger evaluative community because
students are building it collaboratively from the ground up.
Some teachers prefer small groups for feedback because they take less time. I tend to
agree with Dana Ferris research, revealed in her essay Responding to student writing:

Teachers Philosophies and Practices. Ferris interviewed 23 teachers for her research on
teaching practices. When commenting on the nature of small groups and small group
dynamics, one teacher said there are always three groups: one that is off task, one that
has one person who thinks she or he knows it all, and one that is quiet. Another
interviewee said, Some students take it more seriously than others(Ferris 15). By
putting all my students together for peer review I will have the ability to moderate these
issues and make for a more inclusive group experience. One strategy to facilitate
discussion is to give students the ability to call on each other. During the critique,
students will participate by raising their hands in unison, whether they have something to
say or not. I will on call a student, if they dont have a comment they will have to call on
the next student to speak. By raising their hands, each student is participating by through
physical expression. Students without answers still speak and shape the direction of the
discussion. Know-it-alls may be avoided and quiet students will have to direct the
commentary in some way.
Teaching is sure to be far more difficult than I imagine, but based on what Ive read,
my methods are flawless. Real experience is crucial, however, and mere readings cannot
truly inform the reader to the realities of teaching. Im certain my students will give me
feedback. The best feedback will have an impact long into the future. By encouraging a
mixture of written and verbal feedback, students will discover a highly interactive writing
process and see how interaction facilitates growth. Through diagnostics I can shape my
teaching style. Through feedback, students can shape their own writing. It is my hope that
my classroom will create strong, readable arguments from confident, well informed
writers.

Works Cited
Bacha, Nahla. "Writing evaluation: what can analytic versus holistic essay scoring tell
us? ." System. Lebanese American Universtiy , 29 Mar. 2001. Web. 5 Dec. 2014.
Ferris, Dana R. "Responding to student writing: Teachers' Philosophies and practices."
Science Direct, Elsevier. University of California, Davis, 9 Oct. 2013. Web. 5 Dec.
2014.
Jansen Jaech, Sharon L. "Going Public: A case for Reading Aloud in the Classroom."
JSTOR. Taylor & Francis, Ltd., Sept. 1984. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.
Lindermann, Erika. A Rhetoric For Writing Teachers. 4thth ed. New York Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001. 189-251. Print.
Metzger, Margaret T. "Talking Back to Students: Responding to Student Writing."
JSTOR. NCTE, Jan. 1982. Web. 5 Dec. 2014.