P ROVIDING E FFECTIVE F EEDBACK FOR ESL W RITERS Dorothy Worden Lindsey Kurtz Department of Applied Linguistics Michelle Kaczmarek Department of English

I NTRODUCTIONS Share your name, department, and one question you have about responding to multilingual student writing.

A GENDA Issues in responding to multilingual student writing Activity - responding to a sample essay Three-stage model for responding Activity - responding to grammar Grammar feedback Questions and answers

A CTIVITY 1.Pretend that you received the following assignment from a student. Ignore the fact that it’s perhaps not in your discipline, but go through it and mark it as though you were actually giving feedback to your student. [10 min] 2.Next, step back and take a look at how you marked. What problems did you notice? Did you react to certain writing problems more readily than others? Are there patterns you can see in your own responses? Are you focusing on sentence-level issues or larger content-oriented issues? What do you think motivates you to mark certain things and not others? [Discuss]

T HREE STAGES OF RESPONDING 1.Approach 2.Response 3.Follow up

A PPROACH : BEFORE YOU COMMENT

1.Let your purpose for the assignment guide your comments 2.Do whatever you can to get better papers 3.Explain to your students what you comment on, how you comment, and why you comment the way you do. -Tell your students whether you will or will not mark and/or grade grammar

A PPROACH : BEFORE YOU COMMENT In your own disciplines and courses ❏ What is your purpose in assigning various writings? How might your purpose influence how you comment? ❏ What factors might influence how you comment? ❏ How can you get better first drafts?

A PPROACH : BEFORE YOU COMMENT Explain to your students how you comment and why you comment that way  Be clear about whether you will or will not mark and/or grade grammar

R ESPONSE : WHILE YOU COMMENT

1.Address both strengths and weaknesses in the paper 2.Avoid jargon-filled and vague comments 3.Avoid appropriating the student’s paper 4.Focus on fewer, high-quality comments Rule of three

V AGUE COMMENT In contrast, in the article of ‘’The World is Getting Warmer’’, it declares that Yale University understands Importance of this issue and tries to change itself by hiring more people for making their university greener. (last sentence, ¶2) How? Good, but give me more. Discuss. !!!

A PPROPRIATING

P OSITIVE C OMMENT Dear student, In this draft you’ve done a good job of organizing your ideas into clearly identifiable paragraphs with one topic each (e.g., how each article addresses the “role of universities in making the environment greener”). Now that you’ve identified these topics as important, what more can you add to your discussion (with further examples and synthesis) to point out for your reader what you think these similarities and differences in the articles mean?

H IGH QUALITY COMMENTS In “Green, greener, greenest” Kate Zernike says that some of the universities just make some superficial changes in their campuses to try to make their campuses seem as green campuses. In contrast, in the article of ‘’The World is Getting Warmer’’, it declares that Yale University understands Importance of this issue and tries to change itself by hiring more people for making their university greener. This is an interesting point of comparison between the two articles, but I am not sure what you see as significant about this difference. Remember that the purpose of the synthesis essay is to explain what the similarities and differences between two articles mean. Can you add some commentary about this?

H IGH Q UALITY COMMENTS This is an interesting point of comparison between the two articles, but I am not sure what you see as significant about this difference. Remember that the purpose of the synthesis essay is to explain what the similarities and differences between two articles mean. Can you add some commentary about this? Specific positive feedback

H IGH Q UALITY COMMENTS This is an interesting point of comparison between the two articles, but I am not sure what you see as significant about this difference. Remember that the purpose of the synthesis essay is to explain what the similarities and differences between two articles mean. Can you add some commentary about this? Responds as a reader. Is specific about what is missing. Specific positive feedback

H IGH Q UALITY COMMENTS This is an interesting point of comparison between the two articles, but I am not sure what you see as significant about this difference. Remember that the purpose of the synthesis essay is to explain what the similarities and differences between two articles mean. Can you add some commentary about this? Responds as a reader. Is specific about what is missing. Explains why this is an issue in terms of the purpose of the assignment. Specific positive feedback

H IGH Q UALITY COMMENTS This is an interesting point of comparison between the two articles, but I am not sure what you see as significant about this difference. Remember that the purpose of the synthesis essay is to explain what the similarities and differences between two articles mean. Can you add some commentary about this? Responds as a reader. Is specific about what is missing. Explains why this is an issue in terms of the purpose of the assignment. Provides suggestion, but gives student a choice about how to revise. Specific positive feedback

F OLLOW - UP

1.Give students opportunities to ask follow-up questions 2.Address common mistakes in class 3.Make students accountable through revisions

D EALING WITH GRAMMAR

1.Decide whether or not to mark grammar 2.Focus on problems that are frequent, serious, and treatable  Frequent – What errors are most common?  Serious – What errors make impede your understanding?  Treatable – What errors can the student reasonably be expected to improve on?

A CTIVITY 1.Re-read the first two paragraphs of the sample essay and mark grammar and vocabulary problems you see. [7 min.] 2.Which problems seem to you to be the most serious? Which seem to be the most frequent? [Discuss]

D EALING WITH GRAMMAR 3.When possible, distinguish between errors and mistakes  Error = consistent problem, lack of understanding of grammatical principle  Mistake = relatively inconsistent problem, lack of ability noticing and self-correcting

A CTIVITY 1.Re-read the first two paragraphs of the sample essay and mark grammar and vocabulary problems you see. 2.Which problems seem to you to be the most serious? Which seem to be the most frequent? 3.Which problems seem to be errors? Which seem to be mistakes? [Discuss]

A DDRESSING ERRORS IN THE MARGINS It gives us two small solutions to help with the issue one of them is making universities create programs about global warming and helping students to understand the issue and the second solution is making campuses emission free and more green. I had to read this sentence several times. It confused me because it has so many ideas packed in it. Check out this resource about run on sentences and see if you can figure out how to fix this sentence.this resource

A DDRESSING ERRORS IN PERSON It gives us two small solutions to help with the issue one of them is making universities create programs about global warming and helping students to understand the issue and the second solution is making campuses emission free and more green. Ummm. Maybe it’s a little long? I’m having a hard time understanding this sentence. Do you see any problems? Yeah, I agree. So, how would you figure out where to break that up?

A DDRESSING M ISTAKES : D EVELOPING S ELF -E DITORS

A DDRESSING MISTAKES 1.Do not edit the paper for the student 2.Teach self-editing strategies 3.Encourage students to have someone else (roommate, classmate, tutor, etc....) read the paper out loud with them. 4.Implicit feedback reducing support

I MPLICIT FEEDBACK EXAMPLE In the second article ‘’Green, Greener, Greenest’’ by Kate Zernike we can clearly see that universities uses this issues to get more students for their schools because many researches show that a very big part of the students (%63) say that green campuses will affect their choice for college. Round 1: Mark and label all selected types of mistakes. Student edits. Agreement Noncount noun

I MPLICIT FEEDBACK EXAMPLE In the second article ‘’Green, Greener, Greenest’’ by Kate Zernike we can clearly see that universities uses this issues to get more students for their schools because many researches show that a very big part of the students (%63) say that green campuses will affect their choice for college. Round 2: Mark but do not label selected types of mistakes. Student edits.

I MPLICIT FEEDBACK EXAMPLE In the second article ‘’Green, Greener, Greenest’’ by Kate Zernike we can clearly see that universities uses this issues to get more students for their schools because many researches show that a very big part of the students (%63) say that green campuses will affect their choice for college. Round 3: Mark lines containing selected types of mistakes. Student identifies and edits.

Better writers, not just better papers!

H ELPFUL REFERENCES Ferris, Dana, and John Hedgcock. Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, Print. Ferris, Dana. Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Print. Hyland, Ken, and Fiona Hyland. Feedback in Second Language Writing: Contexts and Issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Print.

Thank you! Dorothy Worden: Lindsey Kurtz: Michelle Kaczmarek: