Responding to Student Writing

I happen to be writing a paper over this topic this semester, and I'll be writing a thesis over it in the fall. I've done quite a bit of research for my paper and my thesis proposal, which I decided to share on this blog since the topic came up in 603 today. Below is a summary of the more important articles on responding to student papers (the paper I'm currently working on is in APA style, so forgive the formatting).

In “Responding to Student Writing,” (1982) Nancy Sommers discovered that “teachers’ comments can take students’ attention away from their own purposes in writing a particular text and focus that attention on the teachers’ purposes in commenting” (Sommers, p. 149) (original emphasis). In other words, teachers appropriate their students’ texts by directing students to focus on areas that the teacher — rather than the student — deems important. Sommers says this appropriation occurs most frequently when teachers comment extensively on grammar, word choice, and style in the first draft, which gives students an exaggerated idea of theses elements’ importance. She advocates a “scale of concerns” that weights comments on organization and logic more than comments on spelling and grammar (p. 151).

Most disastrously, teachers’ comments often give contradictory messages. Sommers provides a facsimile of a student paragraph in which the instructor has written “wordy” above multiple sentences and “This paragraph needs to be expanded” in the margin (p. 150). Such unclear contradiction could be a cause or a symptom of Sommers’s next finding, “that most teachers’ comments are not text-specific and could be interchanged, rubber-stamped, from text to text” (p. 152)(original emphasis). The students Sommers, Brannon, and Knoblauch interviewed all admitted great difficulty with interpreting their teachers’ vague directives. Rather than helping the students, comments such as “choose precise language” or “think more about your audience” transformed revising into “a guessing game” (Sommers, p. 153).

Vivian Zamel’s 1985 study of 15 ESL teachers' comments, “Responding to Student Writing,” asserts that “teachers respond to most writing as if it were a final draft, thus reinforcing an extremely constricted notion of composing” and “teachers’ marks and comments usually take the form of abstract and vague prescriptions and directives that students find difficult to interpret.” She adds, “Rarely was a question asked or a suggestion made that gave students real direction” (p. 92). When such comments did appear, however, it indicated that the instructor expected substantial revision rather than mere surface-level correctness.

Zamel concludes that vague commentary and abstractions should be replaced with “text-specific strategies, directions, guidelines, and recommendations” (p. 95). Second, there needs to be a scale of concerns or priorities in instructor comments and students’ revisions, with meaning-level issues coming first and foremost (p. 96). Finally, Zamel argues that instructors should respond to student writers (people) rather than student writing (product) (p. 97).

In “Across the Drafts” (2006), [not to be confused with "Between the Drafts"] Nancy Sommers reports and discusses the findings of a four-year longitudinal study of 400 Harvard students. Sommers claims that “most comments, unfortunately, do not move students forward as writers because they underwhelm or overwhelm them, going unread and unused. As one student suggested, ‘Too often comments are written to the paper, not to the student’” (p. 250). Furthermore, nearly 90% of the students in the study “urge faculty to give more specific comments” (p. 251). She concludes from the study that “feedback plays a leading role in undergraduate writing development when, but only when, students and teachers create a partnership through feedback—a transaction in which teachers engage with their students by treating them as apprentice scholars, offering honest critique paired with instruction” (p. 250). In addition, Sommers examines the role of the student, a topic that has been neglected in most professional literature. Even if instructors engage their students as “apprentice scholars,” the student must be willing “to accept and benefit from feedback, to see it as instruction, not merely judgment” (p. 253).

In “Recovering the Conversation: A Reponse to 'Responding to Student Writing' via 'Across the Drafts'” (2006), Carol Rutz agrees with Sommers’s assessment that virtually all scholarship on responding to student writing has neglected the student’s role, as well as the classroom or social context of instructor feedback. The problem, Rutz argues, is that previous studies have focused on textual analysis, which cannot answer questions about students’ reaction to comments, how classroom instruction influences students’ decisions about revising, why instructors comment on particular things, and so forth (p. 258). Rutz finds in her own study that “clear messages between teachers and students about how drafts will be read promote meaningful communication” (p. 261)(emphasis in original).

If anyone's curious: For my thesis, I plan to look at the length of comments, their directiveness, and the concomitant (un)helpfulness of said comments. I'm also going to consider students' personality types and language proficiency to determine which comments help which students the most or least. I plan to examine three sections each of Eng 100, 110, and graduate-level classes. So if anyone's intrigued and would like to have their students participate, please let me know.

Finally, if anyone is interested in more information on this topic, I can post the citations to several more good articles.

Rutz, C. (2006). Recovering the Conversation: A Reponse to 'Responding to Student Writing' via 'Across the Drafts'. College Composition and Communication , 257-62.

Sommers, N. (2006). Across the Drafts. College Composition and Communication , 248-57.

Sommers, N. (1982). Responding to Student Writing. College Composition and Communication , 148-156.

Zamel, V. (1985). Responding to Student Writing. TESOL Quarterly , 79-101.

Writing What We Teach and the Danger of Modeling

After reading several posts about the Writing What We Teach assignment, I've noticed that almost everyone plans on using the assignment as a model for the textual/critical analysis. Some seem very open to doing so, while others seem a bit more hesitant to present his/her writing as a model to be emulated or imitated. I think it is important to ask ourselves about the purposes, benefits, and dangers of modeling.

Obviously, the purpose is to give our students some idea of how to do the assignment. They benefit by having a model on which to base their efforts. The danger is inherent. If students base their writing on the model, are they really learning to write? Furthermore, if the model is the teacher who has power over their grades, then aren't students forced to model or imitate their teacher's process/writing in order to get a good grade? Of course, "forced" may be too strong of a word. They may choose not to imitate the teacher's writing, but wouldn't a shrewd student quickly realize the advantages of doing so?

Because of the above dangers, I think we need to be careful with how we present models to our students, especially when we are the models. The authors of the readings we assign are not in control of students' grades, are not in the classroom, or even in the same century sometimes. Hence, they may provide inspiration or ideas, but most students (I don't think) are going to say, "Wow, I should try to write exactly like So-and-So." Thus, assigned readings are benign but helpful models. The teacher's model, however, implies that this is how it is done. For that reason, I think we should try to present our model as one of many alternatives and then grade accordingly instead of expecting (consciously or unconsciously) to see our writing mirrored back to us.

When I presented my Writing What We Teach drafts to my students, I emphasized the structure in order to give them a rough outline of what they could do, adding extra emphasis on the could. I also emphasized the choices I had made, telling them that writers make choices that have advantages and disadvantages. Fortunately, some of my students were quick to point out the disadvantages. I told them I had a problem with being very wordy, especially with long introductory phrases, and showed where I had cut a couple very long introductory phrases, improving the writing in my opinion. Multiple students disagreed, arguing that the shorter sentence lacked the original's style, detail, and substance. Not only did it boost my ego, but it illustrated that I'm just a fallible writer whose choices sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, just like them.

The Failing Class

The scenario: 0ut of twenty-two students, two submitted all required materials while twelve did not submit rough drafts and twelve did not submit reflective writings. The syllabus policy allows but does not dictate that twenty students receive F grades for not submitting everything required. This occurrs approximately midway through the semester.

Since this is not the first paper the students have turned in, I can assume that they knew what was required and how to fulfill said requirements. Therefore, the only logical explanations are 1) the students somehow thought that the rough drafts and reflection essays were not due for this particular paper, 2)the students did not care enough to remember to turn in their rough drafts and/or write the reflection essays, 3) the students decided that requiring these materials was stupid and refused to submit the rough draft or write the reflection essay, or 4) the students did not have time to write reflective essays because of other coursework, jobs, personal crises, etc.

I am not a good mind-reader, so I would ask my students as a class why they did not turn in all of the materials. If the students were resistant, I would find out the reasons why they resisted the policy and consider whether it should be revised to better serve my students. If it was a misunderstanding, then I would make sure to clear it up. If they were apathetic, I would try to impress upon them the importance of the rough drafts and the reflective essays to them as writers and me as a grader. If they were overwhelmed by coursework, I would give them another chance to turn in the required materials without penalty and implore them to let their instructors know ahead of time when they needed extra time on particular assignments, like reflection essays. In all cases, I would not assign grades until I received the required materials. For the next paper, I would explicitly state what they needed to turn in with the final draft.

My First Conference

I went to my first academic conference this weekend, the Mid-Atlantice Writing Center Association conference at Temple University in Philadelphia. It was a wonderful experience. My paper presentation went really well. Every time I glanced up from my reading, my listeners seemed to be alert and engaged, a stark contrast to the dead-eyed stares I often see from my 110 students. As I finished, I noticed several people smiling with apparent appreciation. Then a couple people asked questions about my paper, including requests for bibliographic information about my subject. When I offered my entire paper (I came prepared to give -- and to take back with me -- copies of my paper), they seemed very happy to receive them. I also met several nice people and asked for some of their papers. All in all, it was great to go from room to room of intelligent people who were passionately discussing topics of common interest. It was like one Socratic Symposium after another, minus the drunkeness and togas.

Among the many things I learned about this weekend, a couple are worth briefly mentioning here. First, one presenter analyzed Academic Discourse in terms of personality types, concluding that Academic Discourse has a INTJ or perhaps a INFJ personality type. Rather than teach students to become INTJs, however, we should teach students to "method act," becoming the persona of the academic personality. Second, some writing center directors and tutors are beginning to dialogue with professors about their expectations for and instruction of students. For example, one tutor sent about twenty-five e-mails to the same instructor in the same day (they were required to bring their paper in), all explaining the same exact difficulties understanding the assignment. Finally, the tutor sent an e-mail telling the instructor to consider re-teaching this area. The instructor was all too happy to take this suggestion. As a T.A., this anecdote makes me want writing center tutors to provide me with this kind of valuable information, both for individual students and my classes as a whole. Although I have never wanted to require Writing Center visits, I think having tutors' feedback on an entire class would be invaluable.

I also was able to see a lot of Philly in a short amount of time. My hotel was in the middle of downtown. I walked to City Hall, down to Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Carpenter's Hall, a couple other sights, a couple war memorials, and the nightlife scene of South Street. Jim's Steaks truly are the best Philly Cheese Steaks in the world!

The highlight of the entire trip, however, was seeing Stephen Colbert walk out of Independence Hall and film a segment for his show! Amazing! Pictures will be posted to Facebook soon.