Writing publicly and for an actual audience introduces a risk factor that is not there when writing privately or for someone you know very well. The potential audience is always a factor as you decide what words to put on that paper. And the risk factor is also very real. The risk of judgment, criticism, or just being misunderstood. So, as our students begin to put themselves at risk by making their thoughts public through their writing, our comments can have a significant impact on how they feel about that experience. We try to give them enough critique to help them be better writers without discouraging them by nitpicking every little thing. Yet, as others have expressed, sometimes it is hard to know where to draw that line. Perhaps, one of the benefits of the RaiderWriter system is that the students get reviewed by at least two graders on their first major writing project. Since each of us comes to grading with a bit of a different perspective, the students are more likely to get a well rounded grading experience. Of course, this can work against the students if between the two graders their writing is just ripped apart. But that's not what I saw as I was doing second and third reads of the drafts. I saw (most) graders making a sincere effort to provide constructive criticism without taking it too far, and then the second grader usually backed up what the first grader said while making a few points of their own.
By ourselves we may experience concern over whether or not we are doing enough or even going too far with our comments. But, with the variety of feedback the students receive during the course of the semester, maybe we balance each other out. Individually we may feel that we flounder a bit, but perhaps as a whole we do a good job that ultimately benefits the students and, in the process, we become better commenters.
Linda, you've put your finger on one of the aspirations of a system like RaiderWriter, to spread commentary out over a number of people and not just rely on the attitudes and predilections of a single teacher throughout a semester. If you, as a student, get a sensitive and sophisticated reader as teacher, then hallelujah. Otherwise, ho boy. Same for the single-paper evaluation. Individual excellent commentary is definitely mitigated, but so in individual NOT so excellent commentary. As I said in class: gain something, lose something. The task of the writing program director is to gain more than you lose. Total gain and no loss is impossible in any system or program.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Each solution brings with it a new set of problems. That's why there's no such thing as perfect commentary.
ReplyDeleteI try to say at least one nice thing about each student's paper. This is often very difficult, and I wonder if it's worth the effort. I feel like many students think their writing is excellent; writing in general is simply a matter of sitting down and spewing out whatever comes to mind. I'm sure many of these freshmen think whatever they write is pure gold, and I believe it's largely because they have not read enough.
So I struggle with helping freshmen break that attitude. I also used to think that I was an amazing writer, but when I stopped thinking it, I became a much better writer. I hypothesize that grades might help freshmen learn they're mostly terrible writers. I think with grades and honest feedback, we need not be too harsh with our comments.
But I believe that realizing you don't know everything is a vital step in a college education. I hope our collective commentary helps students realize this.