Unburdening Yourself About Feedback

Though study after study has found that students can only absorb a limited amount of teacher feedback on their writing, many of us have trouble changing a habit of commenting in detail and at length on our students’ papers. I’m finding in my own practice that curbing my urge to comment excessively on my students’ writing has led to better and more thoughtful reading practices on my end, and better writing—and even, better learning about writing—on the part of my students.

What we know from research on writing is that, when it comes to feedback, less can mean more student learning. Reading student work carefully and then—before marking up the paper— identifying an issue or two for them to work on as they revise or as they think toward the next assignment.  When we step back even briefly from the page to think about the assignment as a whole, and especially about the assignment in the context of the course, certain patterns often emerge as the most important work for the student to attend to in a revision or in a subsequent assignment. Identifying and explaining just one of these technical issues resonates better with the student than too much feedback can.  If they can work on the issue and fix it, they’re going to remember it, possibly forever.  I can still remember being taken to task for using too many commas in my writing and think about this every time I write. I truly know the difference between when to use “which” and “that.”  I believe in the power of the topic sentence to power an argument.  Silly examples, maybe—but attending to issues like these has helped me become a far better reader of my own writing even as the experience has convinced me that focused comments are the way to go with my own students.

The best thing about this practice for me as a teacher is that it frees up my mind to ask better questions of the authors and to respond more positively to their ideas as they develop. I talk openly to students about my commenting style and why I do it; I want them to understand that careful attention to them as writers doesn’t mean spilling a lot of red ink (electronic or otherwise) on every page. Instead it means focusing on their particular patterns of error, and beyond that, thinking about the ideas they are presenting. I hope that targeting my comments will help students understand that what I really care about in their writing isn’t comma splices or misplaced modifiers (though I do care about those things) but the quality of their thinking and the strength of their expression.  

The success of this practice hinges on students having the opportunity to revisit and revise their work.  By the time they reach the last assignment of the term, it’s usually too late for the student to do anything about their work unless they plan to revise it for some reason, perhaps for a conference presentation, a writing sample, or a longer research project.  If the final paper has a future, and comments can think toward whatever specific future lies ahead, great.  And they can still be brief and targeted.  Otherwise the comments that matter so much to us are likely never to be read.