1. From Straub, how do we balance conversational feedback with prescriptive feedback to student writing? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each technique? In which situations might prescriptive feedback work better than conversational feedback and vice versa?
2. From Belanoff, given the inherent subjectivity of our response to writing, how can we as teachers guard against our subjective biases when evaluating a student's work, while still maintaining a strong sense of standards? Do you think the suggestion of having multiple readers is a good and practical suggestion?
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteSafeguarding against complete subjectivity is why it is important for us to have these conversations about what we deem as "good" versus "bad" writing, but in a more meta-compositional sense rather than elements of style or grammar. As an academic institution and as a body of instructors, we need to have a clear basis of agreement on at least the most fundamental level for what we want to see in our student's writing. This is why we can't totally throw things like value based grading and observation of grammatical conventions out the window.
Hi David, in response to your first question, I think that conversational feedback is great for written feedback because nuances in tone don't communicate well via writing, and overly prescriptive feedback will feel like law to the student (since written feedback is a one-way communication). However, we have indeed been discussing that sometimes more directive, prescriptive feedback is necessary, and I think that we would see that more in a conference, where it would be clear to us that a student--possibly overwhelmed or lost--needs some heftier guidance from their instructor. In a face to face scenario, however, we have the opportunity to invite the student to ask questions and respond to us, that way we are still engaging in conversation with the student.
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