van Vlack
Sookmyung Women`s University
Graduate School of TESOL
Teaching Writing
Spring 2007
Week 15 - Responding
Responding to Students` Writing
Setting Goals
The first thing we need to do as teachers is to set realistic goals for our students and not just regarding writing. For example, do you expect your students to be able to write completely free from all errors, or do you just want them to be able to organize their thoughts effectively? The goals we set for our students will play a large role not only in how we check their writing but also in what we will teach them in the course. It is important to have goals and benchmarks set up prior to starting a course. And just like planning a piece of writing the more detailed the plan the easier the execution of the plan.
Positive
One thing that all writing teachers agree on is that positive comments are much better than negative ones. At least positive comments seem to get students to write better. In order to get the students to feel comfortable with their writing we need to make them feel good. Negative words and comments raise inhibitions and lower motivation. Students who feel a high level of anxiety when writing may not write as well. Anxiety has a varying and often detrimental effect on language processing. For this reason alone it is better to avoid such negative comments. Learning writing is a difficult and time consuming task. It is too easy to feel lost. The students, no matter what their level, need constant encouragement.
The Role of the Teacher
According to Leki (1990) there are three different roles that the teacher must play in a writing class: teacher as reader, teacher as coach, and teacher as evaluator. These roles have been said (Cowan 1977) to be incompatible, but I`m not sure that`s really true. They might just be incompatible at any one time but in different stages of the writing process, the teacher will obviously have to play different roles. The role the teacher is playing will also determine exactly what kind of response the teacher will give to the students` writing. For example, the teacher will most likely play the role of coach during the different stages of prewriting. In the first draft stage the teacher will temporarily revert to the role of reader. It is only after the final draft has been handed in that the teacher needs to play the role of evaluator.
Different Types of Response
Written comments
We need to be honest with ourselves, writing down all that was wrong with our students` writing would take much more time than any of us has available. We can limit these comments, but then this means that we are only able to mention a few of the major mistakes. Certain researchers, Knoblauch and Brannon (1981) and Hillocks (1986), have concluded that such comments, despite the time they take the teacher to write, have little effect on the students performance. While in theory written comments should work actually they do not help much at all because students simply ignore them and quite often do not know what they refer to. If we are to make our written comments work, we need to make sure student actually look at them and use them to make changes. In order for this to happen we need to make sure as well that the students understand what happened in the first draft. The student needs to understand why something was less than acceptable and what can be done to fix it.
Spoken comments
These can be more effective than written comments depending on when in the writing process they are given. It is also much easier for the teacher to explain verbally as the students are working on a writing project what some of the major problems are. It takes less time and the effects are immediate. In given spoken comments, the explanations can be more complete and the students have the work right in front of them, so they can spot the mistakes readily. The main problem with this when giving the comments in class as the students are writing is that the words go in one ear and out the other. As soon as the teacher has moved onto the next student her words have already been forgotten. The student has fixed the mistake and already moved on without fully realizing or remembering what was wrong or why.
Another way of giving spoken comments is to simply have a meeting or counselling session with each student or group (in a group writing project) after the completion of the rough draft or at other strategic points along the writing process. The teacher can handle this in different ways. S/He can have things marked as questionable and then guide the students to what might be the actual problem and how it might be fixed. Alternatively she can just go over some of the problems. In any case, this is a time consuming process and while it works well there might not be time to do this.
Checklists
These are a good idea, but can be boring. The best time to do them is right after the students have written their first draft, or at other strategic points in the writing process. Checklists are good because they can force the students to move outside their own writing a bit and think objectively about their mistakes. They are not so good because the teacher has little control over what actually gets done in response to te checklist. The students could just look at the list and do nothing with it. This is the danger so it is important that a follow up is necessary.
Peer review
Using peer review, the students can take on the role of reader and evaluator, and maybe even as coach. Peer review can be an effective way to motivate students and also make them much more critical writers. It also saves the teacher`s time and energy. Peer reviews, however, are somewhat problematic for the same reason as checklists: the teacher has little control. If the peer knows less than the writer their comments might be of no help at all, or could even be damaging. This is often a problem when we have non-experts trying to often expert advice. In addition, the peer has to be willing to engage in the process of helping someone else with their writing. In Korea this is often a problem. For peer review to work we need to instill in the class in general a sense of community and cooperation. Students should not necessarily be competing which one another and need to feel both willing and able to help their peers.
Self-correction
This is great because it allows or forces the students to view their writing objectively and lets them be critical of themselves. There is no ego-destruction going on here. The students can feel comfortable and safe in the knowledge that no one except for the teacher sees their work. As with other types of feedback schemes given above, the key here is making sure the students understand what it is they need to do. This type of thing needs to be tied in closely with the different stages of the writing process as doing so heightens understanding not only of the writing process but also their won mistakes in writing by constraining possible causes and effects..
So What Can We Do?
According to Freedman (1987) the most effective way of getting students to write better is to intervene throughout the writing process. This corresponds to what was already said about the different roles a teacher must play. In each role we want to give different type of comments. If this is the case it also seems to make sense to do this in different stages of the writing process as the comments given in each stage will need to also be different. By doing so we are also highlighting the importance of the different stages of the writing process. Have the students correct as they move through the stages. It makes the most sense. It also saves them from getting a paper back filled with tons of discouraging comments about problems with the paper. Such diverse comment are not only demotivating but they are also so diverse it will be very hard fo the student(s) to know where to start in their revision.
One danger to this is that students tend to want the teacher to do all the correcting work. They want you to correct all their grammar mistakes and want exact comments on the content and structure. No surprise. It is easier for them to do it that way. For many reasons, however, we should not correct everything all the time. To correct everything all at once, say after the first draft has been handed in, is overwhelming for the students. There is simply too much to correct. The will simply rewrite and not know why they are doing so. The nature of the corrections will elude them.
As teachers, one of our goals is to make our students self-sufficient writers. In order to reach this goal we need to slowly retract from giving our students exact corrections. They must learn how to correct and assess their own writing. Start out by correcting everything overtly and each time correct less and less overtly.
References
Cowan, G. (1977). The rhetorician`s personae, College Composition and Communication, 28, 259-262.
Freeman, S. W. (1987). Response to student writing. National Council of Teachers of English.
Hillocks (1986). Research on written composition: New directions for teaching. ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and communications Skills and the National Conference on Research in English.
Knoblauch and Brannon (1981) Teacher commentary on student writing: The state of the art. Freshman English News, 10, 1-4
Leki, I. (1990). Coaching from the margins: issues in written response, in Kroll (ed.), Second language writing. Cambridge: CUP, pp. 57-68.