Professors should remember their priorities when
commenting on drafts, advises Christopher
Thaiss, writing-across-the curriculum
consultant and author from George Mason University. By responding
to papers about a week before the final draft is due, the professor
can be a coach, guiding the student toward the possibilities of
an improved paper. Thaiss recommends reserving the role of judge
for the final draft.
Professor and author John
Bean, whose book Engaging Ideas
is highly recommended for faculty workshops on helping students
with writing, suggests restricting comments on first drafts to
two or three higher order concerns, for example, ideas, organization,
development, or overall clarity:
* Does the draft follow the assignment?
* Does the writer have a thesis?
* What is the quality of the argument?
* Is the draft effectively organized at the macro level?
* Is the draft organized effectively at the micro level? (Bean
243-245)
End comments should leave the student with
a summary of the strengths of the paper and the major problems.
The response should prompt revision, not just point out errors.
This advice is particularly helpful for inexperienced writers,
such as freshmen, who may assume that revising means only correcting
sentence-level errors. Drafts with teacher comments help Writing
Center tutors work with students on revision. When a writer demonstrates
effective higher order concerns, the professor can then proceed
to lower order concerns such as sentence correctness, style, mechanics,
and spelling.
"'Responding'
to writing does not mean 'correcting' it"Thaiss
Thaiss cautions professors not to respond by "marking (even correcting) spelling and grammar errors" on an early draft (47). "'Responding' to writing does not mean 'correcting' it," he says. Nevertheless, the instructor should let a student know that the paper has errors and will either receive a lower grade or remain ungraded until most errors are found and corrected. The professor could jot an X in the margin beside a line with an error and tell the student to edit or revise that line or section of the text. This method ensures that the student, not the teacher, spends time editing the paper. If students have to work to find and correct their own errors, "feedback can work as a teaching/learning tool" (Thaiss 49). Writing Center tutors can help the student find the patterns of error in the paper and suggest options for correcting them.
If students
have to work to find and correct their own errors, "feedback
can work as a teaching/learning tool." Thaiss
Slogging through a pile of papers, even
PC professors may become tired and find it hard to keep the irritation
out of their comments. Remember the person who may be hurt by
insensitive comments, says Bean (239). A teacher is a coach
at the drafting stage, giving "useful instruction, good advice,
warm encouragement" (Bean 241).When the final drafts are
due, the professor can then be the judge who applies the standards
of the discipline.
Jill Frey
Works Cited
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.
Thaiss, Christopher. The Harcourt Brace
Guide to Writing Across the Curriculum.
Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt
Brace, 1998.
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