Teachers Who Write

Peer-to-peer feedback is an extremely important part of any digital writing classroom. Since most schools do not have a culture that supports regular, in-depth peer-to-peer commenting, this should be a major focus of your early work in the digital writing classroom. And if you are right in there modeling good commenting you will find that your own style changes and that you gravitate to comments that focus more on the idea and construction and less on the grammar and spelling.

Some broader issues for discussion are these:

Why comment?

YWP surveys have shown that students who receive regular feedeback:

• Want and appreciate it;
• Value that feedback as much as that from their teacher and family;
• Want substantive feedback, meaning they do not want "this is great" (or, conversely, "this is terrible"), and they want to know what works and how something that doesn't work can be improved;
• Feel better about themselves and their writing;
• Feel the feedback helps encourage them to revise and improve their writing; and
• Helps them understand and respect their classmates more, particularly those they had not known well.

This latter point is significant; YWP has found many examples of how regular use of the sites has broken down cliques, eliminated bullying behavior and allowed kids who felt disconnected to connect with their classmates.

Some commenting practices.

Commenting needs to be encouraged within the classroom. Students should be required to do it and do it well -- meaning comments should should provide thoughtful insight.

Best practice techniques for commenting: