Responding to Student Drafts: The Four Elements
Grading criteria
Whenever possible, you should try to provide your students with grading criteria. The best criteria build on
previous work and show progression in the writing skills students are developing from assignment to
assignment. Vague criteria such as “clarity” or “creativity” do not guide writers. Reflect about what annoys
and inspires you when you read a paper. Capture that in your criteria.
Resist the urge to copy/paste a grading rubric from the Internet! These can be vague and will ultimately
confuse students more than help them. We have provided some LFC rubric samples to guide you but,
remember, think about the specific goals of the assignment and what you are working on in the class.
Comments on the draft
Basically, comments on the draft should be divided into marginal comments and end comments. We will
discuss these in detail later, but the core idea here is to give your students advice that will help them
improve that particular draft and achieve their long-term writing goals.
Reader’s outline of the essay
When you are concerned about a student’s argumentation or flow, take them through their paper as a
reader. What parts were successful? Where did the writer start “losing” you? At what points did you feel
more support or information was necessary? What paragraph made you feel you were reading another
paper entirely?
In the outline, make note of these kinds of sections and why you were confused/mislead/adrift etc. Then,
guide your students to an effective way of dealing with those problem areas by providing them with guiding
questions for their revision (see Facilitative Comments below).
Individual conference
Whenever a student has significant problems with her draft, it might be a good idea to schedule a one-toone meeting to discuss specific writing issues. Take the student through your comments and develop a list
of goals the student should have accomplished by the end of the semester. You might also want to
recommend the student for a standing appointment at the Writing Center.
For more advice on responding to writing and helping students meet your expectations, please go to our
resources under the heading “Suggestions for Commenting on Student Writing.”
Facilitative vs. Directive Comments
o Directive comment: gives a straightforward correction for the student to apply. For example:
 Omit.
 Move this ¶ here.
 Wrong term. Use x instead.
o Facilitative comment: asks questions or provides various suggestions to lead the student towards
re-thinking an idea or their wording of that idea. For example:
 You seem to be arguing x, and yet in this section you say that x. Is this coherent with your
overall argument?
 Are you sure that “x” is the best way to describe “x”?
 You introduce x idea here, and it seems important to your argument. Should it be a little
earlier in the draft?
One of the main issues you will face when responding to freshman writing is how to balance directive and
facilitative commentary. On the one hand, students in FIYS and CWR courses will need specific directions
on how to improve their writing at the global and local level. On the other hand, you’ll want to make sure
that students are still in control of their writing so that you do not become their personal editing machine.
The goal of these courses is to teach students to write successfully, but this cannot be achieved unless they
learn to do so independently.
Tip: when reading a student’s draft, try to distance yourself from your role as The Evaluator. Instead, read
the text and make note of your response (I was confused here, I don’t follow this, I would like to know
more about x). Then, look at all the notes and identify the patterns of error at the source (tangled
constructions, vagueness, etc.)—these are the places where directive comments might be necessary.
For an example of facilitative and directive comments, please go to our resources under the heading
“Suggestions for Commenting on Student Writing.”
Marginal vs. End Comments
Marginal Comments
o Use marginal comments for sentence-level and short directive or facilitative remarks.
o Don’t fix student errors throughout the draft. Instead, mark the first error, provide rules for
correction, and have the student fix them independently. For drafts with a lot of sentence-level
corrections, you might want to suggest that the student go to the Writing Center to talk over the
rules with a tutor.
o Develop your own list of editing symbols to minimize time and space spent on marginal comments.
Make sure your students have the key.
End Comments
o Use end comments for longer facilitative remarks.
o In the end comments, you should be asking: what are the student’s writing goals for the next
paper/draft? Make sure to communicate their “next step”.
o The end comments should stimulate further thought, even if the draft is final.
o Your end comments should contain at least three things:

A summary of the overall positive and negative aspects of the paper. Focus on the parts that
you, as a reader, felt were most successful (no matter how small) and mention how fixing
the less successful areas might improve the draft.

No more than three global issues that the student should revise.

No more than three local issues that the student should revise.
Reader’s outline of the essay
Basically, the reader’s outline of the essay is a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the strengths and
weaknesses of the paper. Although time-consuming, it can be a great strategy for commenting on a
student’s first paper so they can become familiar with your evaluation style and preferences. Here are some
basic questions to guide your response:
Introductory Paragraph(s)
 Is the opening strong? How so?
 Does the title reflect the needs of the assignment and the chosen topic?
 Does the paragraph show a clear structure?
 Do the sentences transition logically?
 Does the thesis reflect the overall argument? Does it need development?
Body Paragraphs
 Does the paragraph transition logically from previous writing?
 Does the paragraph move the argument/analysis forward?
 Is the paragraph framed effectively (i.e. with a topic and concluding/transition sentence)?
 If applicable, does the paragraph show good use of evidence?
Concluding Paragraph(s)
 Does the first sentence tie the paper back to the original thesis statement?
 Does the conclusion appropriately “sum up” the key points of the argument?
 Does the conclusion address the “so what” question?
 Does the conclusion contain information worth being mentioned within the body paragraphs?