Commenting

In digital writing, the most complete method of providing feedback involves three and sometimes four concentric circles of responses to the writing:

• the writer reading his or her own work,
• the writer’s peers reading his or her work,
• the teacher reading his or her work, and
• the outside world reading his or her work. 

In class, talk about these audiences as you work through a writing project, reflecting as you go, deciding when the authors need eyes other than their own to reflect back to them what seems to be written on their pages.

Feedback Circle One:   Responding to One’s Own Writing
It is crucial to keep the reins firmly in the hands of the writer. We each need to take responsibility for own learning, our own writing.  And so we develop an ongoing reflective practice as we write:

• Sometimes we write letters to ourselves and/or to our writing about our own sense of how our ideas are moving from fuzzy shapes to clear articulations.
• Sometimes we write in another genre about what we are working out; for example, we could write a poem version of an essay, or a poem to our essay;
• Sometimes we tell someone else in a conference about our piece of writing, the other person asking questions and acting as scribe without offering opinions. 
• Sometimes we record ourselves reflecting aloud on the process, the content, the writing, using our entire creative and critical selves.
• Sometimes we can write about what we intended -- and where we think we went wrong -- as an exercise to look at our own work more critically and to focus our own ideas.

These are all ways for writers to respond to ther own work and thus deepen their understanding of the tender shoots of ideas that need sun and water and tending, sometimes pruning or training, if they are to flower.

And we should keep in mind that the process of reflection and reviewing our own work never stops (and make sure we keep the judging gremlin at bay). The author Toni Morrison says that sometimes when she is publicly reading a passage of her work -- even from 25 years previously -- she will suddenly realize the word she had been searching for when she first wrote the piece.

And teachers can help this self-reflection process by revealing their own early drafts, or finding drafts of famous authors' early work to slowly take away the great "mystery" of writing that so inhibits many young writers.

Feedback Circle Two: Peers Responding
Many teachers we have worked with say that a key to good peer feedback is trust. So from the first day of a class, help build a classroom community in which students value and respect each other. It is important that the students feel they have voice; this can be nurtured through a series of exercises. It can also be assisted by regular sessions in which students are asked to provide constructive feedback on each other's writing.

In surveys and interviews with hundreds of young writers, YWP has found out that students value peer feedback almost as highly as they value getting outside recognition for or publication of their writing. That is a remarkable finding. As adults, we tend to dismiss the power of peer feedback as a learning tool and look at "peer pressure" as a negative force.

But moving the students' writing out into the group, no matter how early on in the process, can be of real benefit. They can hear back what their writing means to readers who have only the words -- none of the thoughts or context or background that lie in the mind of the author.

There are several ways to do this feedback process:

• Discuss with the class beforehand the rules for feedback. We suggest the 1+1 method, or ONE thing the peer liked about the author's work and ONE thing the peer thinks the author could improve. Another suggestion: Make sure students go to the pieces that do not already have comments, that they choose students who they know least well and that they must accomplish 3 or 5 or 7 or whatever number within a certain time period. Make these comments part of their overall performance assessment.
• In larger classes, set up feedback loops, groups of five students (rotating these groups every few weeks or so to keep the feedback unexpectedly fresh) per group, who, on the blog site, comment on each others' work.

Have each writer indicate what kind of feedback he or she is ready for and hopes to receive; the student could do this at the end of his or her piece, say in italics, or as a comment below the piece.

The readers should then, in the 1+1 model, provide the author:

• what they think the piece is about;
• what they have learned through reading the piece;
• when it moved them, when it confused them and when it left them wanting more. 

Students begin by writing comments on the blogs. Students should be reminded that EVERYTHING they write will be seen as being more harsh or more negative than they intended; they should watch the tone of their comments and ask themselves, "Would I want to receive this?" But students should be truthful.

Then have the readers/authors get together in one-on-one sessions and even within small groups (or the groups of five) to talk as a group. This type of discussion and give-and-take is vital; ideas, body language and details come out that don't come out in written feedback.

One other caution: Responders should be using phrases like "I wonder if..." rather than "You should do this..." This is all about honesty and respect.

From time to time, when you see comments that either really seem to do very little for the writer: “Hey, good job—I liked it a lot.  Keep everything just as you have it” or "that's amaaaazing" try to show the students that this is not what you -- or the student authors are looking for. Show this kind of response in class and talk about ways to work towards better responding. Some talking points:

• How will responding well to other people’s writing serve our own writing?
• How are reading well and writing well inextricably intertwined skills?
• What is involved for us to read as writers and to write as readers?
• How do we determine the intended audience of a piece? What are the expectations of different kinds of audiences? How can audience affect our choices in terms of content and expression? 
• What are the essential elements to a story? A poem? An essay?
• What is voice? 

Feedback Circle Three:  The Teacher Responding
Why not talk with the class about your role in the feedback circle? You have tremendous impact on your students. YWP has gleaned these interesting observations from students about their teachers:

• They often put you in the same category as parents: "They had to tell me that it was good (or bad); he's my teacher."
• They don't hear you clearly and often someone from the outside can say exactly the same thing and students will respond much more enthusiastically.
• They see your primary purpose is to give a grade, to pass judgment.

Don't take it personally. Keep in mind how much help you can provide, but also understand that peers -- and even outside readers -- can help as much or more. A good rule of thumb in the feedback circle is to avoid full, teacherly responses for as long as possible, because no matter what you say, as soon as you do, the writer tends to not listen as much to his or her self or to peers. You then become the only audience that matters; you are the authority. 

Yet, particularly early in a semester, students crave your feedback; they want to hand things in the way they always have and get from the teacher what they need to do to make it an “A” level paper if it isn’t already. And, at the same time, you have much to offer -- you are experienced, you are a writer and you have opinions.

So think about not writing detailed responses until the project is very near completion. And when you do respond, choose just a couple of issues most ripe for tackling and write about those.  Make sure you write about what works for you as a reader —where in the piece you find yourself thinking, engaged, enlightened.  She writes questions.

And make sure you can meet with students one-on-one in short (10-minute) conferences during which they are invited to bring something they feel is ready for your feedback. They must prepare for the conference by being ready to talk about their own response to the writing and about that of their peers. This is also a good opportunity to go into more detail about your written suggestions.

Here is another observation/siggestion that comes from YWP's experience of students doing digital writing: Teachers do not need to read everything students write. This is a hard concept with which to grapple. But students tend to write more online and you simply can't keep up. It's OK. In fact, a better use of your time is to provide honest, timely feedback on what you have read and on what is most important to the students.

The Fourth Circle:  Readers from the World
YWP has worked with several teachers who have brought outsiders into their sites or onto their students' blogs to comment. YWP, for instance, will assign a college mentor to a school using one of our sites.

Parents can do this as well. For instance, one teacher had students write a Family Story; parents were invited to come in and comment. The feedback was rather remarkable, including some very deep response about details and relationships that might not otherwise have been revealed to the student author.

Think, too, about bringing other classrooms into the process or, even, pairing up with other schools in the state, country or across the globe. Wouldn't it be remarkable, for instance, to pair with a school in New Orleans to write about Hurricane Katrina?

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