My guess is that at some point all teachers have made—or still make—these simple mistakes when giving feedback on students’ work. Fortunately, there are quick ways we can remedy the situation.

#1: You’re spending too much time on each student.

This may feel unkind to say it so bluntly, but it’s probably true.

Recently, I’ve begun setting a timer when grading student writing and experimenting with the Pomodoro Technique. In 25 minute chunks, I try to “beat the clock” and see how many students’ essays I can fit in to one “Pomodoro.”

No, I’m not racing through work without reading them. I am creating a sense of urgency about it.

If I can give feedback to more students in a shorter amount of time, more students are able to apply the feedback to their writing with faster turn-around. 

And that increases the likelihood they’ll retain the content or master the skill in the long-term.

For me, setting the timer pushes out other distractions—like email, social media, etc.—so I can focus on each student’s composition.

It’s neither effective nor fair to give lengthy feedback to our students many days or weeks after they’ve drafted a piece. We cannot expect them to apply the changes when such a distance has occurred.

#2: You’re writing too much on each essay.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to sit in on a number of new hire interview panels.

As a part of the interview process, in the English department, candidates are given a student essay and asked to provide feedback and confer with the student writer (played by one of the teachers on the panel).

Regardless of the pressure of this situation, most candidates overwhelm the student’s writing with feedback, marking up every error.

I’m not sure if this is an effort to show future department colleagues “Look! I understand grammar!” or they actually think this is an effective way to give students feedback.

The thing is, I know I made this mistake when I first began teaching.

It would take me weeks to return papers. I’d spend hours at Panera, marking every forgotten comma, shifting verb tenses, or urging the writer to “Elaborate.”

Fortunately, I had an unofficial mentor who saved me.

A former teaching colleague of mine Jen Van Der Heide—now an Assistant Professor in MSU’s Department of Teacher Education—shared her research about feedback.

Essentially, the impact on students isn’t any different when we 1) only write a grade or 2) mark up every possible error.

Both of these forms of feedback have an equal impact on the students. Most kids aren’t going to read every bit of ink you add to their paper, so don’t even waste your time.

It’s best to give them a few specific “nuggets” of feedback at different stages during the writing process. 

And remember you can actually do this if you spend less time on each student.

{Read more about Jen’s action research in her article “Changing Roles: Providing written feedback to student writers by moving from the ideal-text bearer to the roles of coach, reader, and editor.”}

#3: You’re taking it too personal.

Sometimes, I can give myself a real mental beating when I’m evaluating students’ writing:

“Ugh! We practiced this skill for a week. How could he keep making this mistake? I must not have explained it well enough.”

Sure, sometimes I don’t teach it quite right {Ahem. The new SAT Rhetorical Analysis}. And yes, we can gather instructional data from student work. But my guess is that most of you go-getters don’t drop the ball every essay nor do we struggle with finding data to analyze.

Instead we procrastinate grading essays because we feel bad about ourselves when we read sloppy student work.

In the end, when you’re finally grading those essays—rather than continuously shuffling the awful ones to the bottom of the pile or pouring another glass of wine—remind yourself that this is not an evaluation of you as a writing teacher.

I’ll say it again because we all need to hear it:

You cannot read each essay as an evaluation of your effort or merit as a teacher. 

Ultimately, it comes down to them choosing to follow your instruction or not. Students are choice-makers. If you’ve followed the “I go, We go, You go” gradual release model, I trust that you’ve done enough. At some point, it’s on them.

Your Turn…

What mistakes do you notice teachers making when giving feedback?

What tips do you have to make this a smoother and more effective process?

 

Extra Tips: I have my students submit essays on Google Classroom to speed up my feedback time as shown in the photo.

Also, I often write a motivational note to stick on my essay stack. Sometimes I write something simple, like “Don’t take it personal.” Other times, I take Better Than Before author Gretchen Rubin‘s advice and write out the positive argument for giving timely feedback because, in reality, do you ever procrastinate on other tasks in order to grade essays first?

 

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