The Writing Corner
David Klooster
March 3, 2011
Thank you!
 Provost Ray, for providing lunch
 Van Wylen Library Staff, for welcoming the Writing
Corner and supporting our work
 Sarah Baar, the fabulous English Department Head
Boss, for all the arrangements
 David Cunningham, for taking over the Center for
Writing and Research next year
 You, for your time. I’ll try to use it well.
Works Cited
 John Bean, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to
Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active
Learning in the Classroom. Jossey Bass, 1996. John
Wiley, 2001.
 Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson,
Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment
in College, 2nd ed. Jossey Bass, 2010.
A two-minute review of our
workshop on assignment design
Elements of Effective Assignments
• The assignment itself should be well written!
• Task—a clear, brief statement of what the student is to
write about. Often stated as a problem to solve or a
question to answer.
• Role and Audience—try to avoid always asking the
writer to assume the role of student writing to a
professor—impossible! Instead, assign a role of
authority, and an audience of lesser knowledge—or at
least a peer audience.
Elements of effective assignments
• Format—length, mss form, documentation style,
organization, etc
• Expectations about process to be followed—proposal,
research dates, first draft, peer review, conferences,
revisions, etc.
• Criteria for evaluation—tell students right from the
start how their paper will eventually be judged. Refer
to criteria repeatedly during the writing process to
guide success.
“The writing teacher’s ministry is
not just to the words but to the
person who wrote the words.”
--William Zinsser, Writing to Learn
And yet,
 Writing comments on student papers may be the least
examined part of many teachers’ pedagogical practice.
 Many of us “do unto others as was done unto us.”
 Someone wrote “awk” or “sp” or “agr” or “good point”
on our papers once, and now we do the same.
 So what do students hear in our comments?
Spandel and Stiggins, “Creating
Writers” 1990
When a teacher writes “Needs to be
more concise,” students react this
way:






Confusing. I need to know what you mean.
This is an obvious comment.
I thought you wanted details and support!
This frustrates me!
Define “concise.”
Vague, vague
When a teacher wrote “Be more
specific,” the students heard
 You be more specific.
 I’m frustrated.
 I tried, and it didn’t pay off.
 If I do, my paper will be too long.
 I feel mad—I wrote what I could and you don’t seem to
like it.
 I don’t know what else to say.
When a teacher wrote “You haven’t
really thought this through,” students
reacted this way:
 That is a mean reply.
 I guess I blew it.
 I’m upset.
 That makes me madder than you can imagine.
 How do you know what I thought?
When a teacher wrote “Try
Harder!” students reacted this
way:
 I did try!
 You’re a stupid jerk.
 Maybe I am trying as hard as I can.
 You don’t know how hard I tried!
 This kind of comment makes me feel really bad and
frustrated!
Coach vs. Judge
 The purpose of commenting on student writing is to
coach revision. We should try to spend our time at a
teachable moment in the student’s process.
 We judge student writing by comparing performance
with established criteria. (The judge doesn’t make up
the law along the way, but rather applies established
law to a particular case.) We don’t always need to write
many words to do so, but instead can rely on rubrics.
This approach is supported by
research now underway with Hope
students:
 What kinds of professor feedback are most useful to
you?
 I find that if you get the paper back with comments
and it’s the final grade, I might read it but I don’t
process the comments. I’ll be like, oh I should have
caught that error or something.
 When I have had specific feedback, it’s been really
helpful. I get confused with vague comments, but if
the professor is willing to work with us and she would
give the exact ways with how to provide more detail,
it’s definitely more helpful than comments after the
final grade.
 In my analytical chem lab, I had to write a big formal
report and the professor went through it and marked it
up, and once I fixed it up, it was done. I felt as though
my finished product was what the professor was
looking for because he marked up the draft and I
understood what he wanted.
 I think it helps the critical thinking of our papers when
the professor doesn’t give vague comments but leaves
room to add more or look back over your sources
instead of just correcting little errors. Maybe more
critical engagement with the paper, really thinking
through it again.
 My roommate turned in 3 lab reports but didn’t get any
back and didn’t know if he was doing well, had no
idea. He didn’t get lab reports back til the last week of
school.
 I had a [humanities division] class where he graded the
first two papers but didn’t give any feedback and then
he didn’t grade the rest of the papers because he said
he was too busy, and then had us take the final
together as a group. We had no idea how we were
doing or how we could do better. Getting the papers
back in a timely manner would be nice.
 It doesn’t help if it’s given back to you the day before
the next paper. Timely feedback prepares you well
because you feel more confident in your writing style
and the teacher’s expectations and the content of the
class.
The best feedback is feedback
that makes me want to write
more, like if there was a
question the teacher asked or
affirmation that made me feel
like I could really do this. I
think the point is to make the
student want to do more.
Higher Order Concerns: ideas,
organization, development, clarity
 Does the paper follow the assignment?
 Does the writer have a thesis that addresses a problem?
 What is the quality of the argument itself?
 Is the draft well organized at the macro level?
 Is the draft well organized at the micro level?
Lower Order Concerns:
grammar errors, misspellings, punctuation, awkward
sentence structure
 Richard Haswell, “Minimal Marking” (College English,
1983).
 Instead of circling and labeling errors, place an X in
the margin next to a line that contains an error.
 Don’t record a grade until the errors have been fixed.
 You save a lot of time if you relinquish your role as
copy editor, and students learn more if they assume
this role of finding, indentifying, and correcting errors.
Lower Order Concerns
 Identify your pet peeves before students submit their
papers, outlaw them, and establish stiff penalties.
 For example, “I will reduce your grade by one full letter
grade if I find a comma splice in your paper. I’m
serious.”
Don’t waste your time on papers
that haven’t been carefully written
 Check sheet for literary critical essay
__I read the assigned story at least twice.
__I revised the essay at least once.
__I spent at least five hours on this essay.
__I started the essay at least three days ago.
__I have referred to the grading criteria often.
__I proofread twice for grammar and punctuation.
__I had another person read and respond .
Focus on two or at most three
issues
 Writers, especially inexperienced ones, are
overwhelmed by too much feedback. Confine yourself
to two or three categories of response.
Writing End Comments:
Seeing the caterpillar, imagining the butterfly
 Strengths
 Major problems
 Recommendations
Your goal is to challenge the writer to deepen and
complicate their thinking, and to motivate the writer
to keep writing.
examples
 Pete—you seem to be on the right track with quite a
few very promising sections, but your ideas are thin,
lacking both focus and development. Please make an
appointment with me (or the Writing Center) to work
on finding a better focus and thesis for this paper.
 Excellent draft, Sarah. Although I had trouble at first
seeing your problem and thesis, along the way you
present very interesting ideas. I especially liked your
section on the actual photographs. But in many places
I was lost. For the next draft:
 Rewrite the intro to clearly identify your research
question and thesis.
 Work on organization—especially paragraphs and topic
sentences. Make it easier for the reader to follow
 Rethink what you say about Sontag, p. 4. I think you
misread her argument.
Six Principles
1. Comment first on ideas and organization; encourage
students to solve higher order concerns before turning
to lower order concerns.
2. Whenever possible, start with positive comments.
Praise what is good.
3. Write an end comment that reveals your interest in
the student’s ideas.
4. Avoid overcommenting.
5. As you read, indicate your interest in specific
passages. Comment on ideas, raise questions, make
suggestions. Be specific.
6. Resist the urge to circle and identify errors. Students
will improve more quickly if they find and fix their
own errors.
Next opportunity…
 Text Mark-up. March 8 (Tuesday) 3:00-4:30 PM
Granberg Room
 Using technology to monitor, shape, grade, and
enhance your students' writing, including but not
limited to Google docs, pdf markup, and wiki.
 Sponsored by ACAT and Library, and conducted by
Barry and Kelly.