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- I'd like to talk to you
about giving writing feedback in your class.
Let's say you collected 10 paragraphs from your students
and you think to yourself,
how am I going to approach giving my students feedback
on this writing?
Research about the effectiveness of getting,
giving feedback is controversial,
but I can show you some general practices
in this video today.
We're going to talk
about two main types of writing feedback.
Feedback on content,
which would be things like ideas and organization
and feedback on form, which would be things like grammar,
spelling, punctuation,
and capitalization.
There might be times when you only want
to give feedback on content.
This would be something like maybe some creative writing,
or journal writing assignments.
There may also be times
where you only want to give feedback on form.
Maybe you want your students to write individual sentences
to practice some grammar,
or they're writing a recipe
and you're just looking at their form.
There are also times where you want to look at
both content and form in the same writing assignment.
Different things like essays and paragraphs
and writing letters.
There are many different types of assignments
where you would look at both content and form.
So let's look more closely at giving feedback
on content and form,
in student writing.
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We get feedback on content in a few different ways.
You can give comments throughout the text,
in order to really focus in on the areas
where students need to make improvements,
or where you think they're doing things particularly well.
We also see comments at the very end of the text.
Sometimes it's a short paragraph,
or sometimes instructors choose to add comments
to a rubric that they're using.
This is a great way to give students an idea
of how they're doing overall
on their ideas and organization.
Some instructors choose to use more of a Socratic
or questioning technique,
where they ask questions in the text,
in order to guide students into making improvements.
This may not work well with lower level learners
because it's not direct enough,
and they may not understand what you're getting out
with the questions.
With many English language learners,
a more direct technique,
works better with comments throughout the text.
You can give them a comment
to tell them exactly what they need to work on.
Just like with feedback on content,
instructors approach feedback on form in different ways.
Especially with lower level learners,
some instructors choose to give direct correction
on errors with form.
Some instructors choose a more indirect approach.
This might include things like underlining errors,
using correction symbols,
indicating the number of errors in the line of a text,
or pointing out the number and type of errors
at the end of a text.
Here's an example of correction symbols used within a text,
in order to show the types of errors,
that a student is making.
If you choose to use correction symbols with your class,
you need to make them available to your students,
and you need to show them exactly how you use them.
And last,
some instructors choose not to make correction on form.
They think that students might not be ready
for some of the correction.
And also,
research is controversial in this area.
Some researchers say
that correction on form isn't effective.
Now that we've looked more closely
at giving feedback on content and form in writing,
I want to leave you with a couple of considerations.
Think about feedback in the process approach to writing.
Many times we give feedback on ideas and organization
before we give feedback on form.
So you might give content feedback in the first draft
and wait until the second or third draft
to get feedback on things like grammar or spelling.
I'd also like you to think about cultural considerations.
There are some cultures where students,
always expect feedback on form.
So you may have to have a conversation with them,
to let them know why you choose not to give feedback on form
in a certain assignment.
Whatever you choose to do,
concerning writing feedback
will depend on the type of assignment you give,
the time constraints you have for giving feedback
and the expectations of your students
and the program where you work.
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