Our department chair is encouraging us to add comments to student writing assignments. This sounds time-consuming; I have more than 100 students in my Earth science classes. Would students even read my comments on lab reports or term papers?
—Steve, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
When students don’t understand the purpose of their assignments, they may think of them as something that happens so teachers can assign a grade at the end of a marking period. The type of feedback they get may reinforce this misconception. If all students see are red checkmarks, circles around misspelled words, and a “grade” at the top of the page, it is understandable when they put the paper into their notebooks without paying much attention.
Students may appreciate positive signs such as a generic smiley face or “Nice work” at the top of the paper. But it sounds like your department chair is focusing on informative feedback to help student recognize quality work and learn how to improve their writing.
Feedback should focus on what specifically the student did well, point out where the student may have made errors or demonstrated incomplete thinking, or discuss how the student could improve. With more than 100 students, it would indeed be overwhelming to write a detailed analysis for each student. Rubrics can be used to provide feedback, showing students how they performed on components of the task.

A personal remark or specific suggestions from the teacher can also be helpful to students. For each assignment, you could decide on a part of the task to focus on—the conclusion, the data tables, the graphs or diagrams, the description of the procedure, data analysis. Skim through the papers to get a general sense or patterns in the writing. Then focus your comments in this area.
Eventually, you’ll develop comments that can be personalized to various projects:

• Sammy, I can see how you’ve supported your conclusion with evidence from the lab.
• Using a diagram to compare and contrast plant and animal cells was a great idea, Rosa. It helped me to understand what you observed.
• Your explanation was very clear and included three supporting reasons.
• I don’t understand what you mean in this paragraph. Could you please clarify?
• Allen, you have some creative ideas that show a lot of imagination.
• The procedure seems to be missing a few steps. Please revise it to show all of the steps.

Should you provide feedback or comments on grammar and spelling? It’s common for rubrics to have an “effective communications” criterion that includes conventions, spelling, and legibility. But in looking at students’ writing in science, feedback on the content of the response and the use of inquiry skills should be more important considerations. You could spend hours trying to edit student work, highlighting and correcting every error in spelling, usage, or punctuation. But an overabundance of corrections could discourage students from writing. You could certainly ask students to revise for the basics of standard grammar and usage and correct spelling of words that are essential to the unit (those on the word wall or in their notebooks). But you will have to make exceptions for students who are learning English or who have disabilities affecting their writing.
Do students remember a teacher’s comments? I did not consider myself a writer in high school. I did what was expected on writing assignments, and my work was often returned with comments such as “Well done” on it. This generic comment did not do much to change my attitude about writing. In my senior math class, the teacher assigned a term paper (what was she thinking—a term paper in math?). I chose the topic of projective geometry and perspective, which I found fascinating. When I got the paper back, I looked at the grade, but what I remember most is Sister Raphael’s comment: “Your paper is so interesting, I put down my pencil and read it again for pure pleasure. Thank you.” That comment meant more to me than any “A” I ever received and changed my attitude about writing. If you’re wondering if your comments will have any effect, I still have the paper in my file cabinet more than 40 years later, and as a teacher I followed her example of providing feedback.
 
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