Thursday, February 12, 2015

The Power of a Comment


No, I'm not trying to solicit comments on my posts here, I'm talking about written comments on student work. You know, the kinds of things teachers used to do in the old days. I am a huge believer in digital writing and I love the comment feature in Goggle docs, I decided to kick it old school for my last writing project.

For my student's recent argumentative writing project, I broke it up into parts. This way the students turned parts of it into me and I was able to give incremental feedback. I have been caught in the trap of having students working on a project for a few days, and then spending days myself reading through them all. The result was a grade and few words from me, like "good job."

When I handed the first part back to the students recently, I wasn't really looking for their reactions, but I overheard one student read his to the kids around him. He was smiling and was very proud. The smile on his face reminded me why I need to comment on student work more often. Sure, I could have waited until the essay was turned in and left one long comment about the whole thing, but now this kid is motivated to write. All because of one genuine and authentic comment.

If you aren't commenting on your student's work, you are doing them a disservice, and you are missing out on some rewarding experiences as a teacher. Eventually, their work will be shared with others and they will get even more comments and hopefully more smiles.