As I was reading the chapter in Bean this week, it occurred to me that, during the course of my time at the writing lab, I have seen every single one of the teacher comments that were singled out as being counterproductive. From "Be more specific," to "Be more concise," to "Try harder," all of these cryptic marginalia look quite familiar. And, for the most parts, students tend to react to these types of comments in a manner similar to that described in Bean. In fact, I would venture to say that I have frequently spent large chunks of writing lab time trying to decipher and explain instructor-generated hieroglyphics to confused and frustrated students. Only in rare cases does a comment like "Be more concise" actually convey what is intended. More often, the student will shrug his or her shoulders and say something like, "I guess I'll just take that paragraph out."
I plan to apply what I've learned in the lab to my own method of drafting paper comments. As Spandel and Stiggins assert, "there's a trick to writing good positive comments. They must be truthful, and they must be very specific" (Bean 241). Truth is usually not the problem; specificity is what I most often find lacking in teacher comments. Today, for instance, I saw the comment "Be more specific" drifting without clear referent in the right hand margin. The student was justifiably perplexed. The comment more than likely referred to a single, overly general claim within the paragraph that was not supported by textual evidence. Instead of an ambiguous, "Be more specific," the instructor could have provided more detailed instructions. For instance, "Your claim regarding X is overly general. Find specific textual evidence to support the claim. This will bolster your argument."
Because I plan to assign 2 mandatory revisions that will require students to respond directly to my textual comments, I recognize that those comments need to be utterly clear and specific. A paper can sometimes benefit more from a few keen and clearly phrased questions than ten pages of scrawled abstractions. I hope to avoid the latter whenever possible.
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3 comments:
It seems ironic that while instructors emphasize the need for development and detail in students’ writing, they are quite general and unspecific in their textual comments to students. Instructors need to set a good example for students. They do not need to ask students to do something they are not willing to do themselves.
I agree, Tim, about the need for specificity, and that holds for both positive and negative comments. (What does "good" mean, for instance?) Another option for the actual writing of the comment is to take a readerly rather than teacherly approach. For example, I often find myself underlining a passage and asking a question to elicit more information rather than directing them to add more information. We can talk, if you want, about the pros and cons of the two approaches.
I agree that specificity in comments is necessary, though it's a great challenge for us as readers/graders of the work- especially when we are encouraged to spend minimal time on grading! I guess the key is to focus- spending less time writing "be specific" means more time for actual specific comments. But this is a fine line to tread.
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