responses to student writing

While the teacher's perspective was harder to relate to reading these two articles, I could definitely empathize more with the students' feelings toward short and unclear comments. The short comments of "not clear," "be more specific," or just "awk" have been all too frustrating; consequently, the tone of the short comments, while familiar to what the teacher wanted to convey, can come across wrong for the student. Even though it's not the case, I've misinterpreted it as something akin to disinterest, which does not make any writer feel very encouraged.

With that being said, I liked that both articles tried to tackle fixing those misunderstandings. In particular, I liked that in Beach and Friedrich's article, "Response to Writing," they discussed the idea of implementing oral commentary instead of written, since it is overall easier and that the teacher has more of a chance to "elaborate more on comments" (qtd. in 225). Thus, it is almost like having a mini, one-sided conference, but in gives the teacher a chance to go into more depth, and it also makes their tone a lot more clear for students so they do not misinterpret comments.

Even though teachers are responsible for a lot of students, and writing comments can be therefore tedious after awhile, they do need to find a way to make them meaningful. If they cannot do that, it definitely makes the student, as a writer, suffer. They may not understand what the teacher exactly means, and the teacher may not exactly have time for them later on. While I can sympathize with the plight of the teacher, even though it was harder for me to completely stand in their shoes, they are there to help the student blossom, and therefore should make comments that are not many and meaningless, but few and meaningful.