DE Oracle @ UMUC

Responding Effectively to Student Papers Across the Disciplines: An Interactive Approach

Linda Di Desidero

Acting Director, Communication Studies & Professional Writing

School of Undergraduate Studies

Published: September-October 2008

Category: » Online-pedagogy » Teaching-strategies

How can professors in all disciplines respond more effectively to student papers in the courses that they teach? In this article, I briefly explore some of the challenges associated with responding to student papers while suggesting that instructors adopt a new perspective on this endeavor. If comments are viewed as integral to the dialogue about student learning in a particular discipline, then instructors can change the way they comment on student writing. In particular, professors might ask students to be more reflective about their writing decisions and to communicate these decisions and strategies to instructors, thus forming the basis for effective and responsive instructor comments.

1. Ineffective Commentary

Instructors across disciplines approach the task of commenting on student papers in many different ways, ranging from a single grade to a plethora of detailed commentary. 

Instructors have a vast array of commenting tools available to them today. In addition to the old-fashioned red-ink comments, these new tools include the use of word-processing aids such as "track changes" and "insert comment." They include the use of simple or complex grading rubrics as well as the use of audio files. But these tools are effective only if they are used well; that is, both instructor and student need to have a clear idea of why an instructor is writing a comment and how a student is expected to act on that comment. Even a well-designed grading rubric is ineffective if the student does not understand or know how to use the information it contains.

The vast literature on instructor responses to student papers (see References) indicates that instructor comments are frequently ineffective because they may be 1) difficult for students to read or understand; 2) overly focused on word-level and sentence-level grammar; 3) unconnected to standards and expectations that students clearly understand; 4) unclear in their purpose; 5) unclear with respect to their connection to the course or discipline; and 6) overly pedantic or condescending in tone. For these reasons (among others), instructor comments on student papers may even remain unread!

Furthermore, the comments of even well-intentioned instructors may serve to diminish the student's agency over the writing itself. For example, instructors who actually re-write passages for students or who cross out a student's own writing are essentially removing a degree of ownership over the paper from the students. When instructors substitute their own language for the language of student writers, the purpose of the paper may become a bit more of an effort to please the instructor and a bit less of an exercise in discipline-based thinking.

Ironically, I find that—both in my own experience as a faculty supervisor and from the literature on instructor comments—it is often the poorer writers who receive more comments on their ideas, while the better writers often receive numerous comments on minor issues of language usage and mechanics. With poorer writers, there are so many language needs that instructors tend to make a few general comments about the language—perhaps accompanied by a recommendation to the Effective Writing Center—and they tend to focus on the larger issues of the essential argument of a paper and the evidence that it presents. Better writers are often the recipients of less effective comments from instructors. Because the better writers might have well-developed arguments with appropriate evidence, instructors may respond with praise (nice, but not useful) as well as a disproportionate number of comments about language structure. Such commenting can create for students an inaccurate perception of the evaluation of their work and ideas.

2. All Instructors are Writing Instructors

Instructors in different disciplines are ‘writing' instructors in that they teach the language, values, style, and expression inherent in their specific disciplines. What counts as evidence in a sociology paper may differ from what counts as evidence in a computer science paper or a literature paper. The nature and structure of argument in a scientific paper can be vastly different from that in a humanities paper.

While one goal of instructor comments on student papers is to justify grades, the primary and long-term goal is to help students both to reach an understanding of content and to improve their writing and thinking in that discipline (including their reasoning, use of evidence, command over language and ideas, etc.). Not only do instructor comments need to be connected both to the discipline and to class materials, but these comments also need to help students assess the effectiveness of the expression of their own ideas. Students need to know how to apply comments on one paper to their future writing and thinking in the discipline. When instructor comments help students develop their understanding of how to express discipline-based knowledge and how to use evidence to create academic arguments in the discipline, the comments actually help students develop and retain agency over their own ideas and the ways in which they express these ideas.

3. Effective Comments are Usable

Instructors can write more effective comments on student papers if they adopt an idea from technical communication: usability. 

Usability is a feature of effective (technical) communication that measures the degree to which a text can help users accomplish their goals. For example, instructions for how to install a firewall must be driven by the needs of the user. If these instructions are not usable, the user will not be able to understand the instructions and the firewall will likely not get installed properly. In organizational communication, supervisors often communicate usable directions to employees in memos, for example. If the supervisor cannot clearly communicate what the employee should do, in what manner and to what extent, then the communication fails—it is not usable. When we read instructions from software companies or memos from our supervisors, we expect that we will know how to act on the basis of these texts. Comments on student papers should be no different.

If we view instructor comments as usable text, then we can more readily understand how we each might want to change the way in which we write comments on student papers: Our purpose for the comments and our view of how they should be written will change. 

4. Implications for Teaching: Goals and Strategies for Comments on Papers

For comments on student papers to be effective from the student's point of view, the instructor should keep several goals in mind. Instructor comments should:

• help the student build a deeper understanding of the content
• strengthen student awareness of discipline-based style, language, and audience
• help students develop criteria for self-assessment when writing in this discipline
• increase agency of student writers
• function as conversation or discussion, not only judgment

There are several types of strategies instructors may use to achieve the goals listed above. I briefly describe a few suggestions here:

Student Planning Memo (Proposal):

Before they write a major paper, ask students to write a planning memo or a proposal addressed to the instructor. In this memo, the students will interpret the assignment and plan how they will accomplish it. Students may be asked to describe their writing goals, analyze the audience they imagine for this assignment, and describe the strategies they plan to use in writing the paper. They may even describe some of their sources or include a working bibliography. Instructors can respond to the students' thoughts in the planning memos by encouraging their ideas, helping them to more clearly articulate these ideas, suggesting research sources or writing strategies, commenting on the audience, etc.

Student Planning Memo with Request for Commentary: 

This assignment is similar to the planning memo above, except that it is turned in along with the student paper (or paper draft). In this memo, students describe their writing goals, their audience and their needs, and the strategies that they used to write the paper. In addition, this memo would also have a section that directly asks the instructor to comment on specific aspects of the paper (e.g., a specific section or idea, the research, the way in which the research is integrated, the use of a specific term, etc.). In this way, the instructor comments will directly address the concerns of the student.

Student Response to Instructor Feedback: 

Students write a response memo to their instructor in which they summarize the instructor's comments on their work thus far in the course and in which they respond to these comments (in terms of their usefulness, accuracy, potential effect on their writing, etc.). When this memo becomes part of the dialog about writing with students, instructors are ‘testing' the usability of their own comments. I have done this activity at the mid-term.

Student Self-Assessment of Draft: 

Students are asked to submit an analytical self-assessment of a paper draft, answering the question: How well does the draft meet a specific purpose for a specific audience (as determined by the class assignment)? The self-assessment might also include a list of questions or points for further development. This assignment also opens the dialog with the instructor as it develops and asserts student agency over the writing.

Student Writing Process Letter:

Students write a letter to their instructor and turn it in along with a paper.  The letter describes the student's process in writing the paper (including the interpretation of the assignment, the topic idea, the research and note-taking process, drafting process, etc.). Assignments such as this help raise the students' awareness of what they actually do when they write, thus helping them see how they might approach things more effectively. Such letters also help instructors see how their assignments are interpreted by students. They can also help instructors comment more specifically and more effectively on the work of specific students.

Selected References:

Anson, C. (2000). Response and the social construction of error. Assessing Writing, 7(1), 5-21.

Anson, C. (1999) Reflective reading: Developing thoughtful ways to respond to students' writing. In C. Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.), Evaluating writing: The role of teachers' knowledge about test, learning, and culture (pp. 302-324). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Anson, C. (Ed.). (1989). Writing and response: Theory, practice, research. Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Brannon, L., & Knoblauch, C.H. (1982). On students' rights to their own texts: A model of teacher response. College Composition and Communication, 33(2), 157-166.

Connors, R., & Lunsford, A. (1993). Teachers' Rhetorical Comments on Student Papers. College Composition and Communication, 44(2), 200-223.

Dubinsky, J. (Ed.). (2004). Teaching technical communication: Critical issues for the classroom. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Elbow, P. (1993). Ranking, evaluating, and liking: Sorting out three forms of judgment. College English, (55) 2, 187-206.

Fife, J.M., & O'Neill, P. (2001). Moving beyond the written comment: Narrowing the gap between response practice and research. College Composition and Communication, 53(2), 300-321.

Haswell, R. (1983). Minimal marking. College English, (48)2, 249-268.

Kimball, M., & Hawkins, A. (2008). Document design. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

Lazar, J. (Ed.). (2007). Universal usability. West Sussex, England: John Wiley.

Smith, S. (1997). The genre of end comment: Conventions in teacher responses to student writing. College Composition and Communication, 53(2), 300-321.

Sommers, N. (1982). Responding to student writing. College Composition and Communication, 33(2), 148-156.

White, E. (2007). Assigning, responding, evaluating (4th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Young, A (1999). Teaching writing across the curriculum (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.