To give effective feedback on students' writing, set a clear goal before they write, start with what they did well, show them how to improve one weakness at a time, give them a chance to apply your feedback soon, and teach them to check their own work. This article explains the 5 steps.
Feedback is essential for learning. Children learn to walk, talk, read, and write with feedback from the people around them, so it is only natural that people still need feedback to learn later in life. In English writing, teachers need to give effective feedback so that students can learn from everything they did right or wrong.
Commenting on students' writing takes a good amount of time, but it will certainly do your students good in the long run.
5 steps to effective feedback on students' writing
1. Set a clear goal
It is almost impossible to give meaningful feedback without a clear goal. Students need to know which areas to focus on. A vague instruction such as "Write a good descriptive essay" means very little. List what "good" means, so that students understand what to include in their work.
Here is an example of clear instructions for a task in which students write a descriptive paragraph about a place:
- State the main idea in one or two sentences.
- Name the place you are about to describe.
- Describe how you feel about being in this place.
- Give five specific details about the place, using as many senses as you can (sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste).
- Sum up the whole place in one or two sentences.
- Use short and simple sentences.
2. Mention at least one thing the students did well
Praise is an excellent way to start constructive feedback. It makes students more open to criticism later on. Go back to the instructions for the task and point out which parts the students did well. Let them know what their strengths are, so that they can build on them.
3. Mention what the students did not do well, and show them how to improve
Say a student focuses too much on what they see when they describe a place. Show them how to describe it with their other senses. In a restaurant, for example, you can hear people ordering food and talking. You can smell the food being cooked in the kitchen and the dish the waiter is bringing to the next table.
Remember that students may not be able to fix all their weaknesses right away. That is nothing to worry about. It is good enough if they fix one thing at a time. And that leads to the next step.
4. Give the students the opportunity to apply your feedback
Your feedback should not end up in a far corner of the students' minds, gathering dust. Ask them to use it in their next writing task. And when should you ask them to write again? As soon as possible.
It is worth planning weekly writing assignments, so that students have plenty of chances to improve their writing skills. If weekly assignments are too much work, you can make it every other week.
5. Help them become their own critics
Your feedback focuses on the criteria you set for the task, so you may not have enough time to correct every grammar and spelling mistake. Let your students know that apps can help them find these mistakes. The Spell Checker, for example, marks spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes and explains each one. Teach students to make a habit of checking their writing before they hand it in to you.
Students can also learn a lot from giving each other feedback. See how peer correction improves students' writing skills.