After reading this I wonder, what would you identify as Tannen's main point or purpose? Are you bending her text to fit your needs? Are you doing justice to the author? High Order Concerns I appreciate the fluid nature of your paragraphs and I think this is mostly due to your complex sentence structures. Yet, I wonder if eliminating some unnecessary words would help you to extract your meaning better. I see your main point as "there are positive as well as negative meta messages", but I wonder if this too simple. Can you develop a set of analytical main ideas to introduce a focused thesis. From said focused thesis, you will have the power to use your good ideas and all your detailed textual support to demonstrate to your audience what you see as Tannen's flaws. Low Order Concerns Your point of view switches causing awkward constructions and SV agreement errors.
A few general guidelines that describe how teachers should respond to student work:
- We suggest that instructors read student papers first, and then offer oral and written comments together. Rather than expecting that our comments will speak for themselves, we must question our students' understanding of what our comments represent.
- Rather than directive comments, instructors should provide more inquisitive feedback in order to allow the student to question their own writing.
- Be sure to respond with positive feedback. Even if the paper has "bombed," find a way to bring out the positive aspects of the essay as not to discourage the student's overall success and motivation.
- Instructors should be repetitive in comments (meaning repeat marginal comments in a cumulative endnote, as well as on the paper's corresponding rubric), so the student has the chance to notice patterns of error in their own writing.
- Another suggestion is for instructors to keep a running log of comments made when addressing a student. Possibly tape record or type out notes during conferencing? Or, an instructor could keep a note card of what the aspects of the overall writing process the student has mastered over the course of the semester.
- Reward revision. Instructors should make note if a student makes marked changes in development from one draft to another. It is important that the students see the value of the writing process, and could in turn be more receptive to instructor responses if they truly feel as though we have guided them through the revision process.
A rubric that would account for your goals of effective teachers response:
In any response to a student paper, teachers should provide:
- Several marginal comments
- A cumulative, one (or two) paragraph endnote
- Direct attention drawn toward the writing itself; in other words, very paper-specific feedback
- Direct reference to the student and his or her own personal writing processes while commenting
- An immediate focus on higher order concerns
- A general overview of lower order concerns
- A final grade
Speculate about how can we redesign our classes (or writing program) to better facilitate feedback of student work:
As instructors, we must aim to provide effective, practical feedback of student work. In order to improve the way which we provide feedback, the program may need to give an even stronger emphasis to conferencing. Perhaps we could require a third conference. This could, however, cause logistical issues for teachers within the curriculum. This is when we may need to address the issue of the number of projects covered over the semester or the number of students in the course. Another option would be a complete overhaul of the course curriculum in a way that would provide more balance of in-class time with individual student-teacher time.