Feedback Reflection

 Hello everyone!

Giving three rounds of feedback on the student's writing was a useful experience because it allowed me to test what works better for me in terms of feedback and what might be useful for the student. It was also interesting because I have seen my professors stick to one form of feedback and would rarely incorporate all three in their assignments. 

I thought that the first essay would be the easiest to get through because I have mostly given feedback in the form of marginal comments. Because I work for the CAST department at MSU, I regularly receive emails from students who ask if I can read through their drafts for their papers. With some of these students, I don't get the chance to meet with them in person, so I find that writing marginal comments is sufficient because it leaves room for questions, suggestions, doubts, or moments to compliment the writer. I prefer writing comments the most. That way, I don't have to summarize everything at the end, because I may forget an important point I noticed earlier. 

I went through the first sample essay without much difficulty, using the rubric as a handy guide on what kind of comments I should leave. For instance, I reviewed the Thesis & Introduction section of the rubric, where it states, "Strong, arguable thesis; engaging hook; smooth introduction of both texts and authors." The student's thesis was stated, but the argument was nonexistent, and there was insufficient explanation of how the stories connected to the thesis. The student's thesis was, "I will be comparing and contrasting between these two stories about how both of these stories the main characters and her parents struggle to communicate." One of the comments I left in response was: "You state what your essay is about, but the wording and topic are unclear." I decided to leave an overarching, summarizing comment after every paragraph so that I would avoid being repetitive.

The second sample paper was easier to get through, reading-wise, and I admit it was faster to leave an end comment rather than several marginal comments. Perhaps I would have found it harder to write an end comment for this writer if their essay had more grammatical and structural issues, but this writer had a strong thesis and scored proficient in all the other areas of the rubric.

The third sample paper was the most challenging to leave feedback on. I didn't enjoy the process of recording my feedback to the imaginary student. This may be because I personally don't enjoy this kind of feedback and would prefer if a teacher left written comments. It was harder for me to organize what I wanted to say in dialogue than to write it out.

When thinking about how I would give feedback to a larger classroom with about 20-30 students, I think it would be difficult for me to write marginal comments for each student because of time constraints. I have decided that if I had a smaller group, I would take the time to leave marginal comments for each, but if it's a large classroom, I would just go with an end comment. I would probably leave marginal comments if the essay counted as a final project, regardless of the class size. Video and audio feedback would not be my go-to, haha.

I enjoy giving feedback, and I'm looking forward to learning different ways of doing so, as well as strengthening my own feedback.