Nancie Atwell, Peter Elbow, and many other teachers of writing point out the dangers of over evaluating student writing. Student writers are empowered when they maintain authorial ownership and autonomy over their writing endeavors. Marking a student’s paper with the dreaded red pen or even using digital tools to heavily comment in the margins of a student’s writing diminishes the control that the student has over his or her own piece. As Elbow points out in “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment,” we condition our students out of reflecting on their rhetorical choices when we over comment. Elbow writes, “constant evaluation by someone in authority makes students reluctant to take the risks that are needed for good learning -- to try out hunches and trust their own judgement.”
Yet, I know that I am guilty of spending hours, weeks even, reading and responding to my high school students' written work. And, given what I have been researching, I don't think that I am alone. There has to be a better way, right?
So, I am asking for your help. I am a tenth grade English teacher interested in how digital tools might be used to more effectively provide feedback to student writers. You can read more about how this research got its start on my blog at
http://bit.ly/writefeedback. I am interested in surveying other writing teachers on their approaches to providing feedback to student writers as well as collect stories about how we engage in that act. How might digital tools help us provide better, more timely feedback to our students? How do you encourage student ownership of their writing process? I'll be collecting your responses and publish the findings on my blog in a few short weeks. Hopefully we can start a conversation about how digital tools might be leveraged to encourage engagement, reflection, and revision in our students' writing practices.
I appreciate your time and responses! Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments that you may have.
Jennifer Ward
http://about.me/jenniferward@jenniferward