I probably won't be able to read all of your writing because there are many of
you and there's only one of me.
And even the people working with me in this class,
even if we all together tried to read it, we probably can't.
So a lot of the experience of responding to others' writing is going to
be you responding to one another.
Now I'm going to pause for a second because I want make sure I emphasize that
even if I had a class that was just comprised of 12 students,
I don't think that's effective, and I think it makes it very school-based,
right, like you'd write an assignment just so a teacher can look at it.
So even in a very small class, students respond to one another's writing,
and I also give feedback too.
And so throughout this course I'm going to be modeling different strategies for
feedback so we can do it in the most productive way possible.
Some people are very comfortable sharing their writing with others, and some people
get really nervous, and so we want to be able to embrace all kinds of writers and
have everybody working together.
I am working on improving my writing too, so
I am interested to hear what you have to say in feedback to me.
If you write something, someone else reads it and then they
say something to you about it that lets you know that they have understood it,
Sometimes this interaction happens in writing.
We read other people's ideas and
then we might write something of our own in response.
It might not be like a direct response to the author, but
academic writing is about interacting around writing.
Let's think about what this writer said and make sure we understand it,
think about his or her terms and try to work through it in that way.
A writer will provide a draft of a text and somebody will
give feedback, helping that writer think about how that piece can be stronger or
what other ideas he or she might consider.
This is probably the version that many of us are most familiar with,
especially in school, because we are used to writing something in order for
it to be determined to be really good or really not good or somewhat good.
And then we get a grade attached to it or we get accepted or
rejected from an application that we're trying to do.
Writing is evaluated and in order to accomplish things sometimes we have
to subject ourselves to the evaluation process.
Throughout our workshop and our course, we're going to think about our
approaches to response with these two key terms, positive and constructive.
If you can only remember one thing in this course, think
about that reading other people's writing will help you be a stronger writer.
So notice what works in order for you to help that writer think about what he or
she can continue to do in that project or in others, and
also what you might want to admire and model in your own writing.
In the I am a Writer segment, I mentioned that I worked really hard on
annotating this letter and the teacher wrote bravo with an exclamation point and
an A, and that felt good but it wasn't really constructive.
And I have heard some students say, well, just mark up my writing with a red pen and
be as tough as possible and tear it apart and tell me everything I need to do.
But anyways, I do think you can still offer constructive feedback to
a writer, and even sometimes saying that something is not working.
In fact, this morning I got an email from an editor that
said that the conclusion of a piece that I'm writing should be stronger.
And so the editor offered a couple of suggestions and
then finally said I just think you should rethink the ending to make it stronger.
And if you're one of those kind of tough-love people who wants really
rigorous scrutiny on your work, I think you can still be rigorous and yet
also be generous and kind.
What does this writer need to know in order to move forward on that project and
then also with his or her writing over the course of his or her lifetime?
One of the most helpful ways that you can respond to other writers is just to
summarize what they say.
Reflect back to a writer what you heard or read in his or
her piece by saying, you argue or you suggest.
Sometimes writers don't know that they were arguing something, or they want to
know if the reader read something totally differently than they had meant to say it.
So spend time really actually making sure that what you are saying to another
person is deliberate and that you've revised it and thought about it carefully.
And then there are two different ways that you might inflect your response.
When you're writing something that's positive, I like to attribute it to you.
However, when you're saying something more constructive, such as
the conclusion might need to be rethought, you might want to say the paper.
Attribute it to the paper or the project rather than the writer because then,
if a writer is inclined to feel sensitive about his or
her writing, at least it's kind of distancing.
Specifically for right now, our first exercise and
response is going to be you responding to one another's
introductions to themselves as writers, the I am a Writer piece.
For this piece, we're not revising it, so
you don't need to say, think about adding this next time, right?
I don't often offer templates for writing
because I actually want to encourage you to be very experimental with your writing.
You could certainly go off list if you want.
But if you're looking for templates, here are a few things that you
can say to one another as you're responding to the I am a Writer.
Or I've had such a similar experience with writing and
then share something that resonates with you in that person's text.
And you could also write that you admire the way that that writer
approached a certain part of the essay or a certain part of the project,
or approached a writing experience in his or her life.
And then finally, the questions.
Ask the writer, I'd like to know more about this.
Or what about this?
Or what other experiences did you have?