SUCCES AND/OR FAILURE OF WRITTEN FEEDBACK

Innovative Methods and Practises of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction

SUCCES AND/OR FAILURE OF WRITTEN FEEDBACK

Maren Emde¹, Katharina Hock²

¹Goethe­University, Frankfurt, Germany ²Goethe­University, Frankfurt, Germany

How can we give precise and helpful feedback on students’ writing? How can students benefit from it when revising a text? As writing fellows at Frankfurt’s Goethe University, we are constantly faced with these questions when accompanying a writing intensive courses in various disciplines. Writing fellows are trained peer tutors who give students written feedback on two smaller writing assignments during one semester (Hall & Hughes 2011). The students then revise their first drafts according to the suggestions in our feedback. At the end of the semester, the teacher receives both versions plus our written feedback. When we analyzed the revised texts after the last winter term, we noticed that there were differences in how the students understood our feedback and in the changes they had made (or not) for the second version. From relevant research one can safely assume that there are different ​ types of ​ writers ​ (Crème & Lea 1997). We would like to argue that there are also different types of ​ revisors​ . Furthermore, we want to trace how certain phrases or comments in our feedback triggered or prevented specific steps in the revising process of the students. In our outline, we will present our method of giving written feedback. First we will describe how we normally proceed, and then we will demonstrate through specific examples how the first version of a text has ­ or has not ­ been revised.

Afterwards we would like to discuss our observations and hear about the audience’s experiences with written (peer) feedback.

References

Creme, Phyllis and Lea, Mary, 1997. ​ Writing at University: A guide for students. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

Hall, Emily; Hughes, Bradley, 2011. Preparing Faculty, Professionalizing Fellows: Keys to Success with Undergraduate Writing Fellows in WAC. ​ The WAC Journal​ , 20, 21­40.