READER RESPONSE: A SAMPLER
Here is a sampling of the rich array of kinds of response available:
Silence (no response)
Just listen to a draft or excerpt read aloud without comment. Peter Elbow suggests the value of this response in letting writers hear their own voices (and often their own ideas) in the simple act of reading aloud. Students can listen to each other read aloud their works in progress without apology or response, except a simple “thank you.”
Paraphrase and Perception-Checking
Read/listen to a draft and restate what you hear. “You seem to be saying that….” can be enormously helpful to writers struggling to find a key idea. Note the value of using “that” in the response frame rather than “about” as it pushes an explicit statement of a main claim or idea. Inviting students to respond to a reader’s paraphrase (“Is that the idea you want this paper to make?”) can provide an additional way of having them claim ownership of their own ideas. One simple way to invite a number of reader paraphrases is to do a Read-Around with post-its: each reader reads draft for main idea, writes it on a medium-sized post-it, places it on the back of the draft, and passes it on for another reader’s paraphrase. The more post-its, the more information the writers receive about what their draft is saying to real readers.
Questions
Identify the questions that remain for you as a reader and explaining why answering them would be helpful to you as a reader can also be fairly painless for responders and extremely helpful to writers challenged by figuring out “what else to say.” As a writer, if I have a question to answer – I can keep writing! Can do a read-around for questions by simply attaching a question sheet to each draft, and readers note their questions. The more times a question appears on the list, the more likely the writer will want to address it in revising.
Successes
Identify a specific place in a text/draft that seems to be working and saying why it works for you as a reader can give writers a reason to live – and to write more. It’s easier to build and expand on parts that are already working than it is to “fix” really bad parts. Giving the rationale is very important, though, as generic praise in and of itself is not as helpful. Again, successes can be identified in a Read-Around with post-its. It’s such a hit to get back bunches of post-it successes – provides the energy to keep on revising.
End Notes
Provide an overall comment at the end that sums up priorities. Much of the composition literature (see Richard Straub, for example) suggests that end comments (rather than interlinear comments) tend to promote more and deeper revising. Rather than simply “fixing” what seems to be wrong in a particular line of the text, end notes provide a way to address patterns of need. Or provide a detailed end note that refers to specific places in the text indicated sparingly in the margins with some kind of code can also work. But be sure to tell students what your code means! Providing end notes on a large post-it or on separate piece of paper helps preserve writers’ ownership of their own texts.
Audio/Video-taped Commentary
Try dictating your responses. Some students say they appreciate hearing their teacher’s actual voice because it brings an immediacy and presence to the response that written commentary doesn’t have. Also addresses the problem of written commentary sometimes being illegible. However, this response mode does require that students buy a tape(s). Or try using Jing, software that allows to do voice-overs so you can give both oral and visual response simultaneously.
Cover Memos/Self-Assessment Reflections
Ask students to assess their own writing in progress or in final form can cultivate the kind of meta-cognition needed to write effectively. Asking them to use the same criteria you (and their classmates) use will also reinforce the criteria for a particular product. Having students’ self-assessments also provides a good platform on which to build your own responses.
Individual/Group Conferences
Meet individually or collectively with students on their works in progress can be handled a range of ways: cold readings (read and say aloud what responses you’re having as a reader), returning written feedback and discussing comments with students at time of conference, asking student to read aloud draft/excerpt of draft and providing oral feedback while student writer records revision notes – to name a few.
Meeting with small groups of students on their work in progress can address the time demands required by individual conferences. Groups of three students is usually an optimal number, and it often helps if the students already have a working relationship as readers for each other. Modes of response can include those listed above for individual conferencing. One value of required individual/group conferences includes getting students to use office hour time.
WritingCenter Responses
Invite students to use writing center assistants as readers and help minimize the sense of the Center as a remedial resource. Students can send drafts online or visit the WWUWritingCenter in person for expert reader response at any stage of the composing process, including brainstorming topics to write about.
Criteria-based Responses
Provide rubrics or generate them with students (based on a sampling of final products) can give students a better sense of evaluation criteria. A simple check sheet can be provided with continuum of response for each criterion. See “Expectations for Student Writing at Western” document (May 2006) for examples of criteria categories that might be used from one assignment to the next.
Performance
Give students opportunities to share aloud whole or excerpts of final pieces gives them a chance to “perform” their writing and affirm a sense of authenticity. Audiences might include their classmates as well as external audiences. Scheduling these readings in a space such as the Library Presentation Room and offering simple refreshments lends an air of performance/celebration and gives a chance for some of the best kind of response: applause.
Grades
Give final grades without commentary or with very brief comment. I have found it helpful to separate written commentary from final grades (I put the grades on Blackboard and attach a brief end note to the paper itself). Separating grades from commentary can help writers hear your responses and make it more likely that they will take the information to the next paper. But know that the composition studies literature is strong in suggesting that unless students are going to revise that particular product, written commentary is for naught. A simple two-sentence end note (that acknowledges a main pattern of success and a main pattern of need) is likely sufficient. Don’t spend hours writing elaborate commentary on final (graded) products unless you’re doing it for some motive other than advancing writing proficiency.
Compiled by Carmen Werder from various sources April 2009