The Reinventing the Writing Conference session at NCTE 2013 was one of my favorite sessions. This session focused on how three high school teachers used different approaches to conference with their students. They all used to do the basic written comments on student papers once they were turned in, but none of the teachers were happy with the results.
They stated that 86% of written comments focus on surface errors and not the actual writing. To me, fixing or commenting on surface errors is the easiest thing to do. I could probably do it without even thinking about what I’m doing; just see an error and fix it. But I know that is not helpful to students. They knew that, too, which is why they found new methods to provide feedback.
The main focus in the their new feedback methods was based on if their comments/process was helping the writer and not the writing. Whatever feedback they gave to the student should actually help the student become a better writer and not just make the writing in the paper better. This can’t be done if the majority of comments focuses on surface errors. Also, mid-process feedback is key for students to learn and develop writing skills. Teachers can’t give feedback at the end of the writing process and expect students to learn; writing, like any skill, doesn’t work that way.
The three methods the teachers discussed were face-to-face conferences, digital oral feedback, and Google Docs conferences. The face-to-face conferences are student led, which is an aspect that I really like, Students are expected to come to each conference prepared and to actually start the discussion. The teacher does not say anything about the paper until the student explains what he/she wants to discuss.
Because some students find it hard to start the discussion, the teacher provides a conversation starter handout. The conversation starters are a script that students can follow if they don’t know what to say to start the conference. During the conference, the teacher only reads the part of the paper that the student wants feedback on. The teacher and student discuss the section and then the student writes a concrete plan for revision and what to do next. Each conference should only last for about five minutes.
The digital oral feedback is a method that I plan to use in my classroom. This method uses a program called Jing, which you can download on your computer for free. It allows you to take a screenshot or 5 minute screencast of your screen and then send the link to the student. The verbal feedback is great because students can hear the teacher’s tone of voice and are less likely to misinterpret the meaning. Also, it takes us about six minutes to write what it takes us one minute to say, so using verbal feedback can shorten the amount of time it takes to grade papers, which is something I’m sure every teacher will appreciate.
Google Docs is another feedback method. Students write their papers on Google Docs and the teacher can read the paper as the student is writing and provide ongoing feedback. This method is best used with face-to-face conferences and not as a stand-alone method.
From this session, I really liked the idea of conversation starters for conferences and using Jing for verbal feedback. Finding time to respond to every student is difficult, but using these methods could make it easier for me as the teacher and hopefully more meaningful to the students.
Providing feedback to students has been something I’ve worried about. I don’t want to unintentionally provide hurtful feedback, but I also don’t want to critically analyze every word I write on a student’s paper. If I did, it would take me weeks to evaluate every paper! But verbal feedback, either face-to-face or through Jing, makes that less of a problem. I am glad that I was able to attend this session at NCTE. It was definitely one of the best!
livetoread08 