Blog #5 Feedback

While reading the article, Giving Feedback: Preparing Students for Peer Review and Self-Evaluation” by Philippakos, and reading Tompkins, they both speak about the importance of providing feedback and self-evaluation. I gained insight in knowing how to give constructive feedback to students in a timely manner. Also, I believe teachers should implement students on how to give feedback to their classmates. For example, I think teachers should model on how to give constructive feedback to their students in a positive way. I believe feedback should be specific and well-detailed, therefore the student understands what she needs to adjust or work on to become an effective writer. If students do not write positive feedback or does not know how to give specific feedback to their peers, there could be many conflicts between other classmates in the classroom. Furthermore, if a teacher decides to write a negative comment on a student’s paper, it could hurt them emotionally and they will be distraught. This might cause them to not want to continue writing if they are not supported by the teacher. When I create a rubric I believe that my criteria will not include numbers for the grading, I feel like I would use descriptive words like proficient, somewhat accurate and not proficient some terms like this. I do not think numbers support students writing, especially if they receive a zero or one on their rubric. I believe that the writing needs to be detailed by the teacher of what the students have performed well and which areas need to be developed still.

Giving feedback helps students achieve success and helps students notice their own strengths and weaknesses. It is important to model and use a students sample as a demonstration, therefore students can get a sense of what they are expected to complete for peer review during writing workshop. I believe that teachers should “think aloud” while they show students on how to give feedback towards their peers. Giving feedback to other students also foster’s students’ critical thinking as well as to support teachers to reflect on their own learning. Also, it gives students a great opportunity to collaborate with each other in the classroom. In addition, when students are peer reviewing with others during writing workshop, students may find that they could add to their writing or determine which sentences need to be fixed to capture the audience’s attention.

The benefits of giving feedback in preparation to peer review is supporting students in developing a sense of audience. Also, I believe feedback should be done in a systematic way and help students comprehend what the writer is implying (Philippakos, 15). I do agree that when students are paired up randomly, the students are more honest and are willing to help students become better writers. When they are editing their friends papers, they usually say “Nice work!” but in reality their writing might not be consistent and does not make sense for the readers. However, if they criticize their work, it could affect their friendship in the classroom. 

As a teacher, I will consider to use a rubric when evaluating my student’s writing pieces. I will implement my students to focus on organization, word choice, sentence fluency, and other conventions that the article explains in great depth. I believe that the writing process is significant when teaching many students on how to write effectively. When students write different pieces, they should attempt to focus on story grammar identifying main characters, setting, problem, solution, and goal attempt. Story grammar assists students to understand the meaning of the text or a writing piece. This is why teaching students on how to give feedback to their peers is important in the classroom. 

                                               References

Philippakos, Z.A. (2017).  Giving feedback:  Preparing students for peer review and self-evaluation.  The Reading Teacher, 71(1), 13-22.  DOI: 10.1102/trtr.1568

Tompkins, G. E.  (2019).  Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (7^th ed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.