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Student writing demands reaction — from both teachers and other members of the writing community. But what kind of interaction is most powerful and rewarding? The teachers, researchers, and authors tackle this issue in this session, talking about and demonstrating effective ways to conference and comment on student work and direct other members of the writing community to do the same. While offering great tips on structuring peer review, Judith Ortiz Cofer directs the teachers as they comment on each others’ work during this session.
These are the key points the teachers, educators, authors, and students consider:
Hone your skills in evaluating student writing with Arbiter, an interactive activity featuring student essays.
Use Build a Rubric to construct an analytical evaluation of student writing.
“In student conferences, I share my observations of their work. It becomes a dialogue.”
— Charles Ellenbogen
Praise comments (Comments such as “Good word choice” or “Nice transition.”) |
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Question comments Comments such as “Did you mean to add more supporting information here?” or “Could you clarify this point?”) |
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Instructional comments (Comments such as “Please check the meaning of this word” or “Try varying the length of your sentences here,” offered as suggestions.) |
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Directional comments (Comments such as “Change the order of these two sentences,” given as a command.) |
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Answer comments (Comments that provide only the answer, such as circling a misspelled word and writing in the correct spelling.) |
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Attention comments (Comments that use symbols such as “awk” or “!,” or circling a word.) |
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Find out how your commenting style impacts students in this article.
“The best student feedback, for me, is not correcting something, but questioning and probing.”
— Susie Lebryk-Chao
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