Challenges of Written Response to Student Writing: Praise, Over-Commenting and Appropriation

Teachers’ marginal and end comments are an essential part of teaching and evaluating students’ written work. However, the method can backfire when teachers resort to insincere formulaic praise, fall into the trap of over-commenting, and lose sight of the actual author of the text, appropriating it in the process. The challenges of providing effective written feedback require an examination of students’ attitudes toward it, both to reassure teachers that they are doing better than they think they are, but also to make them aware that there is much room for improvement. For one thing, the remaining weaknesses can be addressed in systematic teacher training on written feedback, which has been lacking. Second, these same teachers should then teach their students how to interpret marginal and final comments and use them to revise their work. The article reviews the research to date in this area and presents a case study that sheds more light on the topic, making it clear that more systematic and holistic research and training would be needed in this area.