How to Respond to Student
Papers
Tali Noimann
BMCC Department of English
Composition Committee
Spring 2011
Reasons for commenting on students’ papers :
✔ To show that you read the paper
✔ To indicate the strengths of the paper
✔ To suggest improvements
✔ To explain reasons for the grade
✔ To provide additional learning
Myth
:
More is better when
responding to the
Fact:
Less (of the right kind) is
more.
Try this:
• Choose two or three elements of the essay to focus on,
giving highly specific commentary, rather than try to cover all possible areas of concern.
• Make the majority of your comments at the end of the
paper rather than in the margins (students pay more attention to these).
• Suggest how the student can do better next time,
rather than merely identify what they have done well or poorly on this assignment/draft.
• Journals and informal writings can be evaluated using
Myth:
Conscientious teaching
requires marking all
Fact:
Try this:
✔ Look over a set of papers quickly and return error-laden
essays for proofreading and correction.
✔ Mark errors on the first paragraph or first page only.
✔ Write out careful endnotes to summarize your comments
and to establish a goal for the next draft.
✔ Create peer editing groups in your class. The more
readers, the merrier!
✔ Alert students to the dangers of style editors and spell
Myth
:
Fact:
All drafts are not created
equal, nor should they
Try this:
✔ Invest your time and energy responding to the first draft and make your comments truly
facilitative. Give credit for the work, but do not grade it.
✔ Ask your students to hand in both first and final
drafts. It will save you time and effort trying to recall what you had asked for and what had changed.
Richard Straub’s 8 categories of
teacher comments:
✔ Focus
✔ Specificity
✔ Mode
✔ Criticism
✔ Imperatives
✔ Praise
✔ Questions
✔ Advice &
Focus
✔ Global comments: on ideas,
development, organization
✔ Local comments: on wording, grammar,
correctness
Specificity
✔ Avoid comments that are unclear,
vague, or difficult to understand like “Awk” “needs more,” “superficial
analysis,” “source?”
✔ Be specific and elaborate. Suggest
Mode (or Tone)
✔ Comments like “Not so! See above”
are needlessly harsh and critical. They make students defensive and unmotivated.
✔ Comments should sound helpful and
Criticism
✔ Critical comments should be phrased
more like a reader offering a different point-of-view, than a teacher forcing an opinion.
✔ Respond in the first person (“I am
confused”) rather than the passive (“this is confusing”).
✔ Help the students express their own
Imperatives (or commands)
✔ Imperatives are generally ineffective
because they suggest an authoritative attempt to control the student’s writing.
✔ Use imperatives only to address basic
Praise
✔ Always welcome!
✔ Be as specific as you are when
criticizing. Simply writing “good!” in
Questions
✔ Questions allow students freedom and control
over their writing.
✔ Avoid confusion by also suggesting where to
look for the answers.
✔ Your responses to students’ writings are not a
monologue, but a conversation. As you write, think of your reader and allow for real and
Advice and Explanations
✔ Show the students they were not only
read, but heard too.
✔ Should be used sparingly in the
margins and extensively as concluding comments.
✔ Always show how to carry the idea of
Time Management
– Invest your time earlier in the process
– Have a plan for working through
the pile
– Choose your weapon: types of
Invest Your Time Earlier in the
Process
✔ Try to design the written work of the semester
as one, accumulative project
✔ Clearly explain the criteria you will use when
evaluating student papers
✔ Provide a marking key to students
✔ Discuss the assignment
✔ Provide a model paper
✔ Include informal writings about the assignment
Working Through the Pile
✔ Review your criteria before grading
✔ Read through the pile once without
commenting
✔ Locate range finders
✔ Separate problem papers
✔ Take notes
Grading Methods
✔ Holistic Grading
Holistic Grading
✔ Does not distinguish content from form
✔ Is subjective and relative, but also a more
flexible method of evaluation
✔ Works with an “A paper ideal” based on
previously discussed criteria.
✔ Paragraph descriptions adjust descriptive
Grading With Checklists or Rubrics
✔ Segments the paper into its component
parts allows consistency and efficiency in grading.
✔ The overall evaluation of the paper is the
sum of the evaluation of each of its parts.
✔ Can be used for debriefing students on an
assignment.
✔ Students may use the checklist handed out
with the assignment as a guide to edit their papers.
Feeling Adventurous?
√
Use portfolios
√
Use preemptive self-review
√
Make a list of reoccurring issues to
discuss in class
√
Ask students to respond to your
responses in writing
I cannot teach anybody
anything. I can only make
them think
Socrates Remember,
your dedicated committee
members are always there
