Things That Work: Writing Comments

Comments That Work
Rebecca Brittenham was my small group leader during TA orientation. She gave me the best advice on grading and commenting, and I have found it extremely effective. She said you should only focus on one (at most two) things that the student should work on for the next paper--anything more and the student will be overwhelmed. I have since modified that fantastic advice. I always make sure to first point out what a student is doing well, whether that be clean writing, organization, or analysis. Then I focus on the one thing the student really needs to work on to improve for the next paper. If there's a point in the paper where they seem to start addressing this problem, I point them to that moment, perhaps even contrasting it to other moments in the paper. This strategy is especially effective when there is only one moment of connection in a student paper. I direct them to that moment and contrast it to other points in the paper. I think students always need to know what they're doing right, and they need to see that as much as seeing what they still need to work on.

I also try to emphasize revision in comments. After reading the final draft, I always skim through their rough drafts with peer comments. In my comments, I reinforce peer revision by either congratulating students on effective revision, or, even more effective, pointing out those moments when the comments I make on the final are the same as the comments a peer reviewer made on the draft. Comments are so closely connected to the grade (even in physical proximity), so students quickly learn that peer revision is serious and can help or hurt their final grade.

--Barclay Barrios

Effective Commenting & Efficient Grading
The most frequent complaint I hear from other 101 instructors is the issue of having time completely sucked away by grading, particularly if you are teaching more than one section. The problem, of course, is all those papers, each needing individualized comments. The most frequent anxiety from students, meanwhile, is that even after they write a paper and have it returned, they still don't really understand what they're supposed to aim for in the next one. Students want to know what is the most important thing for their attention or they just feel like they're starting over with a new assignment every time, and nothing they learn from the previous assignments connects to the new one. It's critical to prioritize your comments and to devise a system that balances their needs with yours. Here's what I came up with.

(1) I caution students from the beginning that this is a constructive process. The goal with each paper is to recognize strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses can then be minimized (and ultimately eliminated), and the strengths built upon.
(2) I quickly mark a paper for glaring grammatical and spelling issues. and for any other issues of superficial presentation -- margins, font, spacing, etc. Five minutes maximum. This reading is not for content, yet it reveals where to focus attention.
(3) For a substantive reading, I use a regular pen/pencil and a highlighter. With the highlighter I mark "passing moments." The idea is that wherever the paper "glows," they should pay attention carefully to the comments because this is something they want to build upon. Highlighted passages represent strength.
(4) I indicate weaknesses by drawing a box around the problem area, as if to identify a dangerous leak. They know that "boxed" areas have to be fixed.
(5) At the end of the paper, I distill a major strength and a major weakness. I call them "problems and possibilities" -- the same terms I make them use in peer review. The idea is to identify specific things, recurrent patterns that hobble or help their overall paper. I only hit them with one of each, even if they have other problems.

If you try to comment on everything that's wrong with a paper, it's bad for both of you. For students, it's overwhelming. They get discouraged and it creates added anxiety for the next paper. For you, you either come across as brutal, relentless and unhelpful, or you compensate for all the negative comments by trying to find every little positive element. Then you hemorrhage time on every paper because fairness compels you to write similarly extended comments. Remember: ALL your comments aren't going to help students. They are only helped by comments they can absorb and understand. So find the most critical, life-threatening issues in a paper and draw attention to them. And find the most promising moments and draw attention to them. This is like triage. And it's fair because all your students get the same individualized attention commentary to help them build better papers.

--Darrell A. Hamlin