Commenting on Student Writing: Tips While reflecting on teacher comments, one Highline Writing Center tutor wrote in her journal: "Sometimes I think the margin comments are more for the teacher than they are for the student."

• Focus on global patterns rather than local concerns.  Treat a limited number of issues in a given paper: You can't do it all, and multiple suggestions or criticisms can overwhelm students; prioritize and suggest two or three things to work on.

• To this end, you might quickly read the paper through, and then go back and comment thematically on a few important issues.  Jumping in with margin comments as you read can drag you into too many unnecessary margin comments.

• Use a rubric or a checklist that prioritizes overall strengths and weaknesses in the draft.  Simply circle or check the strengths and weaknesses you noticed in the draft, write a few margin comments (you can use the rubric to say comments that you tend to write over and over again) and provide a grade.
   
• If you are commenting on a final (graded) draft and the students will have no opportunity to apply what they learned/did in this draft to something else in the course, consider making no margin comments.  If students can't really use them, they often don't read them. Use your rubric to justify the grades.  This means that your rubric will need to be more than just a checklist indicating good, average, poor.  See this sample.
   
• Highline writing tutors report that students are often confused by margin comments - especially when a draft is covered with too many margin comments.  Students frequently misunderstand the tone and purpose of margin comments and lack a sense of how to prioritize these comments. 

• If the draft will not be revised, focus on content issues, rather than grammar.   Make a note to the student if grammatical clarity interferes with content.

• There are several things that students can do to make your job easier.  Provide a cover sheet for students to write their self assessments and for you to write your "end comments."
   
• If time/energy allows, respond positively and personally where possible. If possible, connect this writing to other writings the student has done in the course and/or address the student's progress.

• Avoid sarcastic margin comments (even if it is late at night and you're at the bottom of the pile!) -- these confuse and sometimes anger students.  Students usually don't perceive these types of comments as the whimsical, clever insights that you intended.

• Avoid underdeveloped comments -- students don't understand them anyway! Make precise comments that refer to specific information in student texts: Generic comments--"reasoning breaks down in places," "develop analysis further"--can't be acted upon; point to particular moments in the text, pose specific questions, etc.

• Separate problem papers: Agonizing over problem paper may disrupt your reading; deal with these papers later, perhaps calling upon a second reader for help.  If a student paper is totally off base, write "see me" on the paper, rather than attempting to address the problem with extensive written comments.

• Take breaks: Learn to read your fatigue signs and schedule breaks at strategic times. Don't read an entire batch of papers in one sitting.

Specific Tips on Addressing Grammar Errors

• Shift proofreading and copy-editing responsibility to the student: Correcting errors for students will not help them learn to correct errors themselves. On the first set of papers, you may choose to identify representative errors by means of labels references, or checks in the margins, but these props should rapidly fall away as students assume responsibility themselves for finding and correcting errors. A recent study found students able to identify and correct 61.1% of all errors on their own with careful proofreading.

• Keep grammar corrections to a minimum: Studies show that students pay little attention to margin comments, especially grammatical corrections, unless they have the opportunity to revise. 

If you are going to comment on grammar errors...

• Choose one paragraph and mark several error patterns - let student know that other paragraphs contain the same patterns.

• Address only 1-2 error patterns.  Focus on patterns that significantly interfere with understanding. 

• Underline places where grammar interferes with content, let the student know this is happening, and refer students to the Writing Center for help learning to edit for themselves.

• See the tips on commenting on Nonnative speaker errors.

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