Entry #7: On Responding to Student Writing (CG)

 As I read these essays, I thought back to my undergraduate years at OCC. I had some great professors who wrote constructive feedback, even when I felt that my work was complete trash. On the other hand, I also received some intense and slightly condescending topics that made me think, "Dude... this is not that serious..." Whether I remember the comments verbatim or not, I remember knowing when I felt the professor took genuine time to read and respond to my essay and when the professor was either rushed, lazy, or too generic. I can't say I blame them, but I do remember how they made me feel.

That said, these readings all made me think about the way I respond to students, whether in the margins of an essay, in conferences, through self-assessments, or by email. Lindemann articulates the purpose of commenting on students' essays: "to offer feedback and guide learning" (230). At the same time, Tobin initiates a re-examination of the teacher authority and the supposed objective reading teachers do, arguing that we are not as objective as we think we are because we are prone to let our internalized, subconscious motives guide our responses. I can't help but say that I agree with Tobin. As much as I hate to admit it, yes, I have had to stop myself from favoring a work over another because of personal biases and relationships with students. Sometimes a teacher can be a true cheerleader for a student that is working so hard and not necessarily doing well while also harshly grading the work of a student who has previously plagiarized and shown a lack of effort. It is necessary to identify these "unconscious responses" by rerouting the authority back to the student, such as allowing them to create collaborative rubrics and expectations (Inoue 57). The more a teacher can de-centralize his or her traditional authority as critic, the more liberating and expressive students can be. Finally, along the lines of being conscious of feedback, Rechhio reminds me of the multiple discourses students can unconsciously use and how my role as the teacher is to help them identify these discourses in order to strengthen them and support each other in the student's writing. In this analysis of voice, a student can be trying to articulate thoughts in response to a prompt, but without knowing which discourse tends to dominate the writing, the student cannot know how to write a more logical and reasonable claim. Certainly, these essays provided great insights, but I am also pleased that the role of the teacher was challenged her as more and more research support leading a student-centered classroom for maximal engagement.

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