Giving Feedback on Written Work

Secondary adult
Robert Buckmaster and Triinu Soomere, Estonia

In this short article Robert Buckmaster first outlines a concept for giving feedback on written work and then Triinu Soomere gives a classroom report on using the idea.

In the mid-1990's I grew increasingly dissatisfied with my marking and giving feedback on written homework. At the time I was doing a lot of exam preparation courses and I was using standard strategies of using a marking code on the scripts with the errors indicated or with higher levels just an indication of where a problem lay. I also gave them an overall letter grade.

I felt that these methods were unsatisfactory because the students' first focus was always on whether they had passed or not. Most, but not all students then looked at the errors individually and corrected them or (rather too often) asked me. Also I felt that my writing on their completed script was in some way intrusive and in a way even disrespectful. Students didn't want to rewrite their work after I had looked and commented on it so I wasn't in any way acting as a proof-reader in a longer process. No, they finished their work, I highlighted problems and then we corrected it. I wanted a way of giving feedback which would treat their finished work with the proper respect it deserved and also encourage a more deeper reflection on their writing.

After some consideration I settled on a separate feedback sheet which I completed for each piece of writing.

The simple feedback sheet is an A4 sheet of white paper divided into three rows. The topmost row is for the 'Overall Comment' which I used to focus the student's attention of the overall success of the writing and the positive things I could say about it. The idea was to always to find something positive to say here.

The middle row was for 'Good Points' where I highlighted good language use or task completion eg mentioning all the necessary points, using an appropriate style etc.

The final (and biggest) row was for 'Points to Consider' which is where I highlighted problem areas which I wanted to focus on. The limitations of space meant that I might not be able to focus on all errors but would have to choose which were more important to deal with at that time.

I could choose to write a broad comment about a language point or just write in the problem word or phrase or sentence with a comment like 'wrong preposition' or 'rephrase'. At no stage did I write actually write on the script and students had to re-read their scripts to find out where the problem was.

With the feedback sheet I hoped to focus more on the overall success of the student's attempt by highlighting positive things first on the sheet (and forcing myself to find something positive to say) and then isolating the problems away from the script and by doing so getting the students to re-read their script in detail.

I also felt that I showed respect for their script as a piece of work by writing what was in fact a detailed commentary-response to their work rather than quickly underlining errors.

My students responded positively to this way of marking their written work though one did tell me that she always read the 'Points to Consider' first rather that the positive sections.

The main disadvantage for me was time as it took much more time to complete the feedback sheet than to quickly read through a script, underline the errors and give it a grade. As I had a heavy teaching load then it became a burden and so I reserved it for exam classes only and tried not to have a lot of written work due on the same date.

I haven't had an exam class for some years and so I haven't used the feedback sheet recently but I did show the concept in a seminar I gave here in Estonia as part of my work for the Peacekeeping English Project and Triinu Soomere, an English teacher with the Estonian Defence Forces, was enthusiastic enough to try it with her students and her report follows.

A Classroom report by Triinu Soomere

The first time I used the assessment sheet with my students, I actually added another category besides the good points and points to consider - the category was called "tasks to enhance your language skills". The tasks I chose were connected to the part of "points to consider".

I had 12 students and going through all their work in detail, search for tasks that could help them overcome their individual problems in writing, took me half of Friday and most of my weekend.

When I went back to my classroom and returned their homework with the correction sheet, some of them looked at me with amazement and asked "You did THAT over the weekend?!" What I found frustrating was that some of the students did not take the correction sheet seriously, lost their sheets or thought the tasks listed were optional. It seemed to me that they thought that after they had written the essay, their part was done. Any additional work on it was in their opinion a waste of time or the hobby of the wilful teacher.

The second time I used it I was teaching a group of officers. The hardest task for me was sometimes to find the appropriate words to say negative things mildly, not to intimidate students or discourage them, but at the same time to be straightforward and open about the mistake. And students often came to me and asked what did I mean by "needs considerable restructuring" etc.

Sometimes the hardest task was to write something positive. I doubt that the only problem is that teachers generally (and I of course among them) seldom praise our students.

When my students got their work back without any trace of red pen and only an assessment sheet as their guide to their world of mistakes, they seemed somehow disappointed. I asked them to come to me to talk about their work and I wanted to see what mistakes they had found themselves. They found some of their mistakes, not many and by far from all. Even pointers such as "You seem to have a problem with the third person singular" did not give any results as finally I pointed out the verbs missing -s.

The students appreciated all the hard work I had done but the question still remained - why not the old way? Have you run out of red ink? They liked the part that actually said anything positive about their work, but they concentrated on the negative, as there usually was an imbalance between those two categories. They complained that they do not actually know what to look for in their work.

"I wrote it, so how could I correct myself? If I knew better, I would have written it correctly in the first place!" said one of my students.

I tried to encourage them to work in pairs and the stronger students found the mistakes and helped the weaker students to correct them, but in fact they were doing exactly the same thing as I was - correcting the mistakes of the ones who should have done it themselves.

I haven't used the correction sheet for 12 months now. Mainly because of the time factor. It is incredibly time consuming if you really want to have an individual approach. For motivated students it is great, they feel the special treatment and there is improvement, as for the less motivated students, the correction sheet is no different than the usual red pen marks and comments on their written work. So no big payoff in seeing happy students' faces, grateful to you for sacrificing your weekend.

The improvement is not rapid. But just as an afterthought - while teaching writing, what does go fast?

The Original Form

[Editorial comment: while I love the honesty and opernness of the Way Triinu and Robert have invited us into their classroom, I wonder why they decided to share with a world wide readership a technique they have both dropped as being too heavily time-comsuming? I wonder why I have decided to publish it? Maybe in the hope that It may stimulate others to come in on the correction debate. ]

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