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“Detached critic” or “interested reader”…….?

The article The Concept of Control in teacher response: Defining the varieties of “Directive” and “Facilitative” Commentary by Richard Straub was a very insightful. All of the titles that are brought up to show the difference among readers and reading styles such as “Detached critic” and “interested reader” were very insightful and really put a meaning to the different attitudes one can have while reading essays.

Straub really lays out for the reader how teachers “should not “appropriate” student texts by overlooking their purposes for writing and emphasizing our purposes for commenting. Instead of being “directive,” we should be “facilitative” providing feedback and support but not dictating the path of revision. This really struck a chor with me because it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about while thinking about myself as an English 30 mentor.

I found it really interesting how Straub says we should get students to look at writing as a “social action” and get them to think about their writing processes. This was important to read, and one of the main ideas that have been on my mind as I try to develop my own English 130 course.

I recently after having read this article helped a student in my English 30 workshop with a reader’s response paper of an article she read for class. On the draft of the paper her professor wrote that the paper needed “clarity, depth, analysis.” The student was confused. She understood that her paper need those three things, but she didn’t know where. This would potentially cause the student to look at her paper, and figure it out. Since this was one of the final drafts I did point out some grammatical errors, but as far as content goes I posed questions, I used phrases like “consider this…” so that the student could see that it was a suggestion and not so much a demand. Along with my help, we found her main points and saw where the paper lacked Clarity.

Questions that I pose for my peers to blog about:

-What does your commentary look like when looking at students’ papers?

-What key terms or phrase do you use when giving feedback?

-Do you have any personal stories as an editor or as someone who has received helpful r poor feedback.

-What do we consider as supportive/ facilitative feedback?

-How can we incorporate this into building our syllabus? Should we have guidelines for peer-reviewing? Or is that just another way that we will be “controlling” students’ writing?

5 Responses to "“Detached critic” or “interested reader”…….?"

Yana Orlova says:

March 30, 2014 at 4:48 pm

I’ve always appreciated when professors use a collaborative approach when reviewing my papers and I try to do the same. This is especially true at the graduate and post-graduate level, where the boundary of teacher/student is more hazy. I also appreciate it because it takes more of an effort on the part of the instructor to ask the right questions to lead the student to a better paper. It can be very frustrating to have someone make very specific comments as to the content. I think this leads to a lot of revisions on the part of the student to try to make their paper “fit” the teacher’s wants. There is, of course, a difference between pointing out a serious deficiency in the student’s paper (which may require a more direct approach) and helping the student bring focus and clarity to their writing (which a collaborative or supportive approach may yield better results). Since writing is such a creative process, it is so important not to limit the students’ creativity, when attempting to improve their written work. I have received feedback on papers that were authoritative and often the comments were short and broad in scope. These are very frustrating and often led to long revisions with little or no idea if the teacher would accept them or if it would simply lead to the same again. Without some kind of insight into the context of the correction it led to many sleepless nights and long hours revising. This also causes me to feel that the teacher did not really take the time to read the paper as a whole, but instead made snap decisions with little or no thought as to how I, the student, might react or what questions I might have.
jessicajohnston says:

March 31, 2014 at 7:38 pm

It is so true that facilitative commentary is an important approach, because as teachers, our goal is to help our students become writers of their own thoughts and ideas – not puppets of the teacher’s opinions and writing preferences. As Yana pointed out, coming up with questions and comments that are facilitative and help students to expand and improve their ideas can be more difficult and time consuming than simply pointing out problems or changes to be made. We should keep in mind that although it may be a bit more of a challenge, it is certainly worth the effort. I see two major benefits of this type of feedback gained from my own experiences: development as a writer and motivation. If students are challenged to think about issues and reexamine their writing in a reflective way, they will grow as writers. The facilitative comments prompt them to reflect and decide on changes, which is what all good writers do. A simple comment which tells a student exactly how and what to change does not have the same effect. Furthermore, in my own experience, when a teacher’s comments disregarded my design for the writing and pushed his/her own ideas, my motivation went down. Once motivation has been squelched, so have learning opportunities.
ibjanette says:

April 1, 2014 at 6:30 pm

Hi Marty and Everyone,

Like you, I too found the Straub article insightful and practical. I was particularly attracted to the following statement and its long-reaching meaning: “. . . during the time the student reads a set of comments, the image of the teacher that comes off the page BECOMES the teacher for that student and has an immediate impact on how those comments come to mean” (235).
At first I wanted to argue with statement because I’ve found that the personal interaction between my students and I in-class is an essential component of our relationship. I do everything I can to keep the classroom informal and social, but, try as I may, the students are often silent, at times they’re even sullen, and I have no choice but to pull up my bootstraps and talk “at them” (i.e. lecture) rather than talk “with them” (i.e discuss). These moments are always frustrating for me and, if I’m being honest, I feel a bit betrayed by them…like they’re not holding up their end of the bargain that we’ve clearly struck. I’m confused when they’re suddenly silent and they look at me like we haven’t spent months having raucous, impassioned, exciting discussions. Straub’s article offered me a clear lens into the teacher-student relationship when he explained that for the students, our relationship happens almost entirely in the private safe place of intertextual communication via student written work and instructor feedback. This explains so much of their behavior in-class. For the students, in-class discussion or even speaking-up can be intimidating (if not terrifying), so they will sometimes assume the role of silent listener. But in their written work, or in one-on-on conversations with me, they feel safe and their work reflects this sense of security and is astoundingly well-done, personal and fun.

I offer a lot of feedback on my students work and I try to make all the feedback encouraging and helpful. One aspect of written feedback that I didn’t see in Straub’s examples, that I write on every paper, is the personal response, things like, “Wow! This is so great!” or “This is a fantastic analysis”. I also write a paragraph at the end of their paper that functions as my personal response to the content of their work. In this way we’re having a conversation in which they’re telling me something and I’m responding.

I also underline sentences and write “this sentence needs some attention” or “this is funky sentence”. My hope is that they’ll look closely at the sentence and fix it their way, in their unique language, rather than conform to my version of formal academic language.
I thought it was interesting when Straub said that teachers shouldn’t mark-up their students papers too much, thus claiming it as their own work. This stuck a chord with me because I write all over my students papers and I’ve always enjoyed when professors write all over my work. It lets me know they’ve really been there…that they’ve really spent some time with my work and this seems more like a two-sided dialogue than a monologue.
I think my students enjoy my feedback. They email me often, they usually engage in discussion and they often turn in work early in the hopes of getting some preliminary feedback. If anything, I may be too nice. I worry that I’m so encouraging that they see me as “an easy A”….which maybe I am.
josephettinger says:

April 1, 2014 at 6:55 pm

Thanks Marty for your thoughts and questions about how we comment on students’ work. Just this morning in my 30E internship my concern was to guide students with comments and suggestions which helped them understand and articulate what they wanted to say, all the while making sure my words, notes, and ideas were clear and helpful. It helps me so much to see how others comment on student writing, and often as a result I feel confident of my own styles.
I’m learning to balance my experience at the ESL Center, where the focus is on sentence-level elements, to higher-order concerns, such as argumentation and evidence. I think one should be particularly careful in comments on these, always offering guidance and suggestions, since it is the larger structure critiques which most worry the students.
As for what we might include in a syllabus, I’m sure that giving guidelines for students for their peer reviewing will be both warranted and appreciated; in the same way that I benefit by seeing examples of valuable and harmful commenting 130 students will also benefit. Perhaps examples for them to view would be the best method of driving home the point that commenting can be so helpful if done ‘humanely’.
wejdan6 says:

April 2, 2014 at 3:11 am

I totally agree with my friends, and that’s what we were talking about in our group before. It is important to hear the student’s voice in his/her writing not the teacher’s voice because that is what the teacher wants. While the point of writing papers in a classroom is to encourage the students to be writers and to build the inner sense of writing so it is true that the facilitative commentary approach is the suitable to be used with the students. I liked the idea of making a statement like (I think you mean …) or (what I understand from your paper is …) I think these will help students to rethink about what they wrote and the different ways that they can use to restate their ideas. As a student I find it helpless when the teacher mark a paragraph and write (explain), what do you want me to explain? The entire paragraph? Or extend the main idea of the paragraph? Or …? Some comments are useless for students and can’t help to develop the writing process. I also like the peer editing, it gives the students an opportunity to explore more creative ideas and feedback from their friends that help them solving some of their writing problems. As teachers we can schedule peer editing sessions to help students edit their draft before they turn in their final paper. It is a way that we encourage our students to be creative in thinking, criticizing, and writing.

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