Admittedly, in grade school I was a very good student. I caused very little trouble and always did well on my assignments. I have always loved reading-it's been one of my passions ever since I can remember. I love stories and over the years, I have come to appreciate the craft and skill behind a well-written piece. With this love and my student skills you would naturally think that English was one of my favorite subjects, but I never considered it so because of the writing aspect that Language Arts obviously involves. I wasn't a terrible writer and never had a horror story like Ali's where the teacher ripped off a page and threw it in the trash (or even worse, like our teacher's story-even thinking about that makes me shudder). The worst feedback I experienced was no feedback at all. I would get minimal comments on the top of my page, nothing for me to correct and revise throughout, and was simply awarded an A. I always wondered what my teacher really thought-did they read my work, decide it was relatively good, and just give me an A? Did they think it could have been reworked, but it wasn't worth their time to really grade it since I was in the top 10 percent of the class? Or worse, did they read it at all, or did they just think, "Becca is a great student, does quality work, I'm going to skim this and give her an A"? None of these scenarios makes me feel really valued as a student.
In fact, when deciding on a major in college, I was very interested in doing English, but was scared of writing. I never knew what kind of writing skills I possessed. I was never encouraged in high school to improve my writing in any way, never given any pointers, never told what was good. It wasn't until I was unhappily pursuing a major in Nursing (after a career counselor told me I didn't have the 'personnality' to be a teacher, which is what I wanted to do in the first place, and that I had better do something that better matched my aptitude personality test) that I decided I needed to change to something I actually enjoyed. Having toyed with the idea in the past, I thought of teaching, and if there was one thing I loved, it was literature. But that pesky aspect of writing just seemed to ruin all my plans. Needless to say, I decided to just go for it and have been (mostly) happily trudging along since.
The thing that I have loved about college is the feedback I receive. I actually had teachers who would comment on my writing! My first 'real' English class was taught by an instructor who was in her first semester of teaching. She took each one of our papers and wrote a full, single-spaced page in response. While this was sometimes intimidating, she actually took the time to comment on our writing, letting us know what went well and what didn't. I realized that though criticism can be tough to receive, it's better than getting no feedback at all. From this experience, I feel like when teachers didn't take the time to help me improve my writing, they didn't care about my progression as a student. When they did take time to make applicable comments, it made me feel much more validated.
As a future English teacher, my goal is always to help students improve, no matter what level they are on. While core standards, state and national testing, and other outside factors will always be breathing down my neck, I hope to be able to reach students on an individual basis. One way I can do this is through honestly responding to their writing. I don't need to be mean, hypercritical, or even write a one page response to everything they compose, but I can give them positive feedback and suggestions on ways they can improve and let them know the areas where they excel.
I liked your idea that silence in response to a student's paper can be worse than criticism, just because you don't know what you did well or need to do better. I think the real reason why many teachers don't respond to students' writing is simply because of the time that it takes. I had one professor who always commented on our papers verbally, and then he sent those verbal MP3 files to our email accounts. I liked this approach because I think he was able to say more through speech than he would have been through writing (it's a quicker medium). I also think writing online has sped up this process a lot too. I could never write this kind of response (that I'm writing now) to one of your papers if you submitted a handwritten paper and if I wrote my comments by hand. It would just take way too much time, but typing goes by much more quickly.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe what that career counselor told you, Becca! I hadn't realized that an optimal teaching personality exists... ha.
ReplyDeleteI had similar experiences with writing in high school, and like you was very nervous about how I was going to manage being an English major with the fact that I really didn't have any clue what my strengths and weaknesses as a writer were. Therefore, I'm definitely with ya on the importance of giving students feedback on their writing. Your post was great to read, thanks!