Response to Student Work
I try to give feedback that helps the learner stand back and see how their writing appears to a different reader. As writers, we often get so immersed in the process that we can find it surprising when others don’t interpret our work the way we intended it to be read. In addition, because writing takes a personal investment of time and energy and passion, hearing critiques can be hard – especially if we’ve just finished writing it. For these reasons, I always try and start feedback with positive statements about strengths of the work, even when there aren’t many. This is just kind – nobody likes to hear negative things about the work they’ve done. Providing genuine, positive feedback first sends a message that I care about their work, that my intentions are good, and my aim is to be helpful. In giving written feedback, there is not the advantage of facial expression and tone of voice. So it’s really important to use other strategies to convey to the student my intention to be kind, fair, and helpful.
I try and avoid critiquing work directly, but rather ask questions to help the student think about the impact of a sentence that might not be what they intended or to see that the logic of their work could be strengthened. I also try to avoid heavily editing text, as I want students to learn to critique and revise their own work. However, when if I see a student making a repeated error or struggling to convey an idea, I will provide suggested edits directly in the text so that the student has an opportunity to “see” how it might look differently.
Lastly, on the rubric score page, I provide an overall summary, so that students can see in one place the strengths and areas for improvement in a shorter “take home message” format.
Below I provide two examples of feedback on student assignments and the accompanying scoring rubric and narrative summary. Click on the example expands it to full screen. The first (KJ) is a paper OTD students write about an innovative practice in occupational therapy. The second (CC) is the specific aims page students write as part of the grantsmanship course. Thanks to both students (identities changed) for agreeing to let me present these examples.
