Time-Saving Strategies for
Responding to Student Writing
Bryan Kopp, Ph.D.
Writing Programs Coordinator
Center for Advancing Teaching & Learning
Two Challenges
Huh?
Nancy Sommers, “Responding to Student Writing”
(1982)
Big Questions
1. What kinds of student learning would I like to
support with writing assignments?
2. What writing abilities are most important in
my discipline or field?
3. How do students respond to my responses?
What are they actually learning?
4. How can I live a normal life and finish this
stack of papers?
Q1: Why Writing Assignments?
• Why not a computer-graded quiz or test?
• Why do you use writing assignments?
Some Reasons for Writing
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engage with the subject matter
understand key concepts, ideas, and relationships
communicate with different audiences/communities
use the language of the discipline
process and retain information
construct knowledge in discipline-appropriate ways
practice inquiry, research, and creative activity
reflect on personal growth and experience
collaborate with peers
think critically
take new perspectives
develop expertise/professional identity
articulate prior knowledge and/or misconceptions
publish or document work
NSSE 2008
“Results affirmed that when institutions provided
students with extensive, intellectually challenging
writing activities, the students engaged in more deep
learning activities such as analysis, synthesis,
integration of ideas from various sources, and grappled
more with course ideas both in and out of the
classroom. In turn, students whose faculty assigned
projects with these same characteristics reported greater
personal, social, practical, and academic learning and
development. Taken together, these findings provide
further support for the movement to infuse quality
writing experiences throughout the curriculum.”
National Survey of Student Engagement, “Promoting
Engagement for All Students,” Link
The Time Investment
X = time it takes to respond to one paper
Y = number of students
Z = number of writing assignments
XxYxZ=?
Writing Fatigue Syndrome (WFS)
Symptoms:
• Overly general or vague comments*
• Repetitive wording (rubber-stamping)*
• Jumbled or contradictory comments*
• Illegible handwriting
• Increased sensitivity to errors
• Awk!
* Nancy Sommers, “Responding to Student Writing”
(1982)
Recovery Plan
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Limit amount of formal writing
Create authentic assignments
Determine best moments to respond
Prioritize teaching and learning goals
Train and delegate
Consider response options
A Healthy Mix
Higher-Stakes
Lower-Stakes
Formal Writing Assignments
Elements:
• Task—often focused on a specific problem,
question, idea or goal
• Context—audience, purpose, role (authentic)
• Format—genre, structure, style, length, etc.
• Composing Process
• Evaluation Criteria
John Bean, Engaging Ideas
(1996)
The Composing Process (Simplified)
Developing Evaluation Criteria
• Align with your teaching & learning goals and
course objectives
• As a general rule, emphasize higher-order,
global concerns rather than lower-order, local
concerns
Setting Priorities
Higher-order Concerns
• Audience
• Purpose
• Genre
• Focus
• Organization
• Development
Lower-order Concerns
• Wording
• Sentence Structure
• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Mechanics
Q2
Think of a specific formal writing assignment in
one of your courses.
• What do you want students to be learning as
they complete it?
• What are your “higher order” concerns?
Samples of Student Writing
• Read the provided passages with your higherorder concerns in mind. What is the single
most important thing you could say to each
author?
Passage #1
At State University, the school has a set of certain hours that one is able to go to the
cafeteria. However, those hours only comply with the workers and the students no matter
what. To many of the students, and others as well, those hours are not compliable to their
schedule. Students are left with hunger, having no choice than to be late to class to go
buy a snack or go off campus to buy fast food, when not necessary. Not all the students
have the same class schedule which should be able to allow different cafeteria hours to
comply to everyone's needs, not only certain people.
On campus, this problem does result in leaving students hungry. They are seen scarfing
down their food after arriving 10 minutes late to class, because the cafeteria was going to
close for the rest of the day. Student's stomachs are heard growling, which disturbs the
class when in full concentration. Hungry students then do not pay attention in class and
causes a domino affect in others stomachs growling, leaving and going between classes,
and other disturbances.
Passage #2
Movement of an organism from one place to another is called locomotion. Plants and
other organism, which are fixed in one place, cannot show locomotion, but they can only
move parts of their body. The process by which an animal regulates its temperature is
called thermoregulation. Animals, which can maintain a stable body temperature, are
warm blooded but technically, they are called homiotherms. Animals with a body
temperature, which is more or less the same as the environment, are called poikilotherms
or cold blooded. These creatures are also named ectotherms and endotherms when
describing thermoregulation in animals. Ectotherms have a body temperature, which
changes with the environmental temperature. They tend to use mainly behavioural
methods. Mammals and birds are endotherms, which means they control their body
temperature independently using methods of physiology as well as behavioral methods.
Passage #3
As a teacher, I would strive for a classroom that would be conducive to learning. I feel
that linear seating allows for more structure in the classroom. However, interest should
be stimulated by the display of attractive bulletin boards that are pertinent to the material
being taught. The use of supplemental materials such as videos and computers are a must
in educational programs. In today`s society everything moves rather quickly and the
future generations must be able to keep pace. The world is at our fingertips through these
devices. I would also assign projects to reinforce learning. This, of course, would depend
on the ability of the groups being taught.
I feel comfortable using an authoritarian type of instruction, although there will be times
to use non-authoritarian types as well. I believe that the type of students that a teacher
has in his/her classroom determines much of their teaching styles. I prefer seating
students in rows rather than a horseshoe. Again, students set the tone for the seating
arrangement.
Passage #4
With the rapidly advancing technologies that are occurring in modern business, organisations are
required to be ready, and able to adapt within their ever-changing environment. It is true across all
diverse industries that in order to stay competitive, organisations must be able to utilise the various
tools that technology has to offer. Technological factors have been of growing importance,
particularly in recent years. A major factor involved in these technology issues is the use of the
Internet as a major issue to modern organisations. The Internet has been rapidly growing since it's
inception and is now commonly used in all sectors of societies, in all corners of the globe. The
Internet has quickly become one of the most valuable assets in modern technology, and as such, is
developing as an integral part of modern commerce. As with past technologies, the Internet will
have future technological advances develop from its own growth. The task the organisations of in
the new century? Realise future opportunities and threats, and base a strategy accordingly. "Is it
cliché to say that 'the Internet changes everything': the challenge now is to say what, how and how
quickly". (When Companies Connect, 1999, p.19) The Internet has lead to the birth and evolution of
electronic commerce or E-commerce. E-commerce has now become a key component of many
organisations in the daily running of their business. Simply defined, "electronic commerce is a
system of online shopping and information retrieval accessed through networks of personal
computers". (Reedy, J. Schullo, S. Zimmerman, K. 2000, pg. 29) E-commerce challenges traditional
organisational practices, and opens ups a vast array of issues that the organisations must address. By
focusing on the varying levels of an organisation, it soon become apparent the effects that Ecommerce can have.
Reader Roles
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“Transparent reader” (Walvoord)
Member of intended audience
Devil’s advocate or “red team” reviewer
Sympathetic reader
Focused reader (attending to certain aspects of
writing)
Barbara Walvoord, Helping Students Write Well
(1982)
Clarifying Terms
“Responding” as feedback, guidance, and/or evaluation
“Feedback is information about what happened, the result or
effect of our actions. The environment or other people ‘feed
back’ to us the impact of our behavior, be that upshot intended
or unintended. Guidance, on the other hand, gives future
direction: what should I do, in light of what just happened?
And evaluation, finally, judges my overall performance against
a standard. Feedback tells me whether I am on course.
Guidance tells me the most likely ways to achieve my goal.
Evaluation tells me whether I am or have been sufficiently on
course to be deemed competent or successful.” (Wiggins,
2004)
Structuring Responses
• Aim for feedback and guidance before evaluation
• Define and adopt reader roles
• Set expectations—let your students know you will
not comment on everything
• Identify a limited number of revision priorities for
each draft (ideally 1-3)
• Develop response questions, checklists, guides, and
rubrics (holistic or analytic)
Sample Response Questions
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, Writing to
Learn in All Fields, Link
Developing Rubrics
Recommended
Resources:
Virtual Assessment Center
Rubistar
Sample Writing Rubric (pdf)
More Samples (Word)
Walvoord’s Effective
Grading (2009)
Broad’s What We Really
Value (2003)
Two-level Rubric Sample
William Pierce, “Designing Rubrics for Assessing
Higher Order Thinking,” Link
Three-Level Rubric
Dimension or
Criterion
Exemplary
Competent
Developing
Four-Level Rubric
Dimension or
Criterion
Exemplary
Accomplished
Developing
Beginning
Discipline-based Sample
Sample Scale
Strong, Acceptable, Weak, Not
Acceptable
Sample Criteria
• Content
• Reasoning
• Organization
• Rhetoric of the Discipline
• Conventions/Presentation
• Overall
Center for Instructional Innovation, Discipline-based
Writing Rubric, Link
Scoring Guide Rubric
Dimension or
Criterion
Description of
highest level of
performance
Comments
Points
Holistic Scoring Guide Sample
College Board, “SAT Essay Scoring Guide”
Link
Using Guides and Rubrics
• Apply selectively for feedback and guidance
on drafts
• Use to structure peer review and self-critique
• Use for grading quickly at end of process
Improving Students’ Abilities to
Respond
• Model feedback on selected papers (math
example)
• Structure peer review (strategies)
• Read/analyze published or professional writing
• Calibrated peer review (link)
Cultivating Responsibility in Student
Writers
• Require self-critique based on evaluation
criteria
• Refer to online resources (e.g. Purdue OWL,
Readability Calculators, etc.)
• Refer to Writing Center
• Assign revision memos and/or portfolios
Revision Memos
University of Minnesota, Teaching with Writing
Link
Delivering Responses
• Written comments on text, in margins, at end
• Hold conferences with individuals or groups
• Experiment with writing technologies
– D2L (copy and paste)
– Word Comments
– Embedded Audio/Podcasting
– Macros (Terry’s picks: Perfect Keyboard or
Workspace Macro Pro or KeyText3)
Top Ten
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Limit formal writing assignments
Reduce the length of formal papers
Give feedback and guidance on planning work, portions of
drafts, or full drafts (not final papers)
4. Develop or adapt response questions, guides, and rubrics
5. Focus feedback—course goals, HOCS, reader roles
6. Model response strategies
7. Structure peer review
8. Require self-critique, revision memos, and/or project portfolios
9. Give oral feedback to individuals or groups
10. Experiment with new technologies