Students’ Responses to Teachers’ Comments
Spadiel and Stiggins’s study (1990) revealed how students misread and reacted to teachers’ comments (pp. 85-87).
“Needs to be more concise”
- Confusing. I need to know what the teacher means specifically.
- This is an obvious comment.
- I’m not Einstein. I can’t get everything right.
- I thought you wanted details and support.
- Define “concise.”
- Vague, vague.
“Be more specific”
- I tried and it didn’t pay off.
- It’s going to be too long then.
- I try, but I don’t know every fact.
- You be more specific.
“You haven’t really thought this through”
- That is a mean reply.
- I guess I blew it.
- How do you know what I thought.
“Try harder”
- I did try!
- Maybe I am trying as hard as I can.
- Baloney! You don’t know how hard I tried.
- This kind of comment makes me feel really bad and I’m frustrated!
Source: John C. Bean, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers, 1996.
Writing-to-learn activities and strategies differ substantially in means and ends from traditional, formal writing. The following comparison highlights a few of these differences.
| Traditional Assignments (Displaying Knowlege) | Writing to Learn (Processing Knowlege) |
| Conveys already “known” concepts or knowledge | Conveys thinking in process or discovery |
| Writing to test (is the student’s thinking right or wrong) | Writing to think (Intellectual engagement is goal; error is a natural part of learning) |
| Asks students to be sure about what they write (what’s your thesis?) | Allows students to voice and explore questions |
| Assigned as homework (often a relatively lengthy paper, report, or exam) | Process More Process (writing=thinking=more thought) |
| Students see writing assignments as penalty situations (writing is a burden and test of knowledge) | Assignments impromptu, often completed in class, may also be homework, often short (less than a page) |
| Graded on A/B/C/D/F basis by teacher (usually means heavy investment of teacher’s and student’s time) | Students see writing as a means or helpful to support thinking about new material |
| Focus on the grades, and what has already been learned, not the current process of learning | Usually ungraded, but credit given or not given based on clear criteria (i.e., less formal grading by teachers, and students focus on learning not grades) |
If writing IS thinking then constructing writing-to-learn activities serves our students’ learning by asking them to push beyond a surface understanding, by asking them to engage in a process of knowledge making, by asking them to think through a variety of perspectives, theories, or ideas, and by taking at least some responsibility for their own learning.