One of the most challenging parts of teaching writing is providing meaningful and insightful feedback to my students that will help them to improve. I've developed several ways to go about scoring and giving feedback in an efficient way.
Below is a sample student paper from a
AP English Language synthesis prompt on eating locally. The rubric from the prompt is from College Board and is posted
here.
For practice Georgia High School Writing Test essays, I have used much more specific feedback. Below is some of the feedback students received from me on practice prompts for the GHSWT.
Feedback
for Prompt # 2 Student Name: Henry
Score
(out of 25): 5
Ideas
o
For
starters, where is your plan? I want to
see it. Remember, you have 100 minutes
to take the writing test, and you should
be using 15-20 of those minutes to think, to focus, and to create a detailed
plan. You remember our grocery store
analogy, right? A plan will save you
time, it will keep you from forgetting important stuff, and it will prevent you
from including a bunch of junk.
o
The
biggest problem with your paper is that it’s just too vague and too
general. Your paper lacks the specific
details and examples that are needed to get you a higher score in that ideas
domain that counts for 40% of the score on the test.
o
Remember
that ideas count for almost half of the score on these papers. You need to spend more time coming up with
ideas that make sense. Remember, too,
that you will not lose points for writing something that the reader might
disagree with, so long as you support your ideas with specific examples and
details, and so long as those ideas are sound and coherent in the first place.
o
You
actually have some good details in your paper, but what you’re lacking is
specificity. Remember that you can make up facts and statistics
when you’re writing this paper, as long as they’re believable. (Also, I wouldn’t recommend making stuff up
for real papers that you write for school unless you like making your teachers
mad.) So for this prompt, you could have
said that:
o
A
dog can protect the house. In fact,
houses with dogs are 72% less likely to be burglarized.
o
I
will be willing to walk and care for the dog.
o
A
dog would only cost us $40 per month.
See how I just made those up? They’re completely fake, but they’re
believable.
o
You
need to eliminate irrelevant ideas. (Like
the part where you talk about how many of your family members fear dogs.) This,
again, goes back to the time that you spend during the planning process. If you plan more thoroughly and thoughtfully,
you’ll be able to eliminate ideas that have nothing to do with your
argument. When your ideas are all over
the place, or are off-topic, then it is distracting to your reader and makes
your writing far less effective.
o
See,
this is a persuasive essay, and not a compare/contrast essay. For these prompts you need to figure out what
you believe (or what you think can make for a better paper) and then commit to
it. Be bold with what you have to
say. We call this “writing at the top of
your voice.” Decide where you stand on
an issue and be assertive when you support and defend this idea. So, while your thesis statement does address
the pros and cons about getting a new family pet, it’s way too
wishy-washy. Commit to your idea
o
You
need a more specific thesis statement.
Your thesis statement is a sentence that concisely states what you will
be arguing for in your paper. It doesn’t
have to be long or amazing or the best sentence that’s ever been written, but
it does need to make it clear what your paper is going to be about. Thesis statements can be more general, such
as:
o
Our
family should get a dog.
Or they can be more specific, such as:
o
Our
family should get a dog for protection, for quality of life, and to teach us
responsibility..
o
Your essay is
entirely too short. Your paper needs to
be between 1-2 pages (but no more than 2), and anything under one page will be
considered incomplete or too brief.
Organization
o
You need to be
using more transitions. Make sure I
give you a handout that has a bunch of them listed. Remember, too, that transitions earn you
points in both the organization and style domains, since just by including a
word like “since” or “however,” you are automatically altering the structure of
your sentence, thus providing sentence variety.
Score!
o
What
you lack in organization is a powerful conclusion. In middle school you learned to basically
repeat everything you’d already said in your conclusion. Now, as you are a more sophisticated writer,
you need to use your conclusion to really drive home to your reader why your
idea is so important. This is the part
where you can be melodramatic, even.
Preachy, almost. In this essay,
for example, you could have talked about:
o
How
a dog would teach you responsibility, which would help you be more successful
in life.
o
How
a dog would protect your family against burglary and other crime.
Style
o
You
need to be aware of audience in both language and tone. For one, your audience for this paper was your
parents, so the ideas and the examples that you assert need to be ones that
would appeal to this audience. You also
need to use language that would appeal to this person.
o
Even
though the prompt asks you to address people who are more comfortable with (in
this case, your parents), the language in the paper is far too casual, and is
therefore less persuasive and less effective.
These are all formal, regardless of the age of your audience. (I’m talking about your use of “y’all.” It’s fine for casual conversation, but not
okay for a paper like this.)
o
I
need you to use a few more good words. You don’t have to have your paper chock full
of $10 vocabulary words (because that in itself is annoying and distracting),
but try to incorporate a few vocabulary words into the paper. Not a lot, but a few.
o
Your
paper needs to have more variety in sentence structure. You can do this by including more complex
sentences, compound sentences, or compound-complex sentences. You could also begin sentences with
infinitives (to + a verb), with adverbs, or with prepositional phrases. Your sentences aren’t wrong, but they’re not
as sophisticated as they should be.
o
Transitions
again. If I were you, I’d memorize about
5 transitional words or phrases that I could use naturally, and I’d get in the
habit of using those five. Not only will
that make you more likely to pass this test, but it will make you a better
writer overall.
Conventions
o
You
need to eliminate run-on sentences. A
run on sentence is two independent clauses that are joined without the
necessary coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or semicolon
(;). To fix yours, either break the
sentence up into separate sentences, or add conjunctions or semicolons. (Semicolons can be very effective, too, but
should also be used sparingly.)
o
You
need to make structures more grammatically complex. Nothing that you have here is incorrect, but
your grammatical structures are overly simplistic. You need to take more risks, and work on
doing those well, to score higher in this domain and to be a more effective
writer. You need more sentence variety,
more adverbs and adjectives, more variety in general. Simple sentences can be great, but only when
they’re combined with other more complex sentences and grammatical structures.
o
Commonly
Misused Words errors. You need to pay
special attention to:
o
It’s
and its
o
You
need to work on your apostrophe usage.
Be sure to include the apostrophe in contractions. (won’t).
o
You
need to familiarize yourself with comma rules.
Use commas to add appropriate pauses in sentences.
o
“A” v. “An.”
You use “A” when the article comes before a word that begins with a
consonant or consonant sound. You use
“An” when the article comes before a word that begins with a vowel or a vowel
sound. So, you would eat “an
egg” or “a sandwich.”
Mr.
Henry, you need to be putting more effort into these papers. I refuse to believe that this is the best
that you can do.
**********************************
Feedback
for Prompt # 2 Student Name: Kathryn Score (out of
25): 11
Ideas
o
You
include a plan, but it is far too brief and needs more detail and more
thought. Don’t just put a plan on there
to keep me from harping at you about it; you need to be putting effort forth in
the planning process to end up with a better paper. Remember, you have 100 minutes to take the
writing test, and you should be using
15-20 of those minutes to think, to focus, and to create a detailed plan. You remember our grocery store analogy,
right? A plan will save you time, it
will keep you from forgetting important stuff, and it will prevent you from
including a bunch of junk. It’s part of becoming a better writer.
o
You
actually have a lot of good details in your paper, but what you’re lacking is
specificity. Remember that you can make up facts and statistics
when you’re writing this paper, as long as they’re believable. (Also, I wouldn’t recommend making stuff up
for real papers that you write for school unless you like making your teachers
mad.) So for this prompt, you could have
said that:
o
A
dog would teach responsibility to my siblings and me.
o
People
who have dogs live an average of 10 years longer.
o
People
who own dogs are 58% less likely to have their homes burglarized.
o
You
need a more specific thesis statement.
Your thesis statement is a sentence that concisely states what you will
be arguing for in your paper. It doesn’t
have to be long or amazing or the best sentence that’s ever been written, but
it does need to make it clear what your paper is going to be about. Thesis statements can be more general, such
as:
o
Our
family should get a dog.
Or they can be more specific, such as:
o
Our
family should get a dog for protection, companionship, and to teach
responsibility.
Organization
o
You need to be
using more transitions. Make sure I give you a handout that has a
bunch of them listed. Remember, too,
that transitions earn you points in both the organization and style domains,
since just by including a word like “since” or “however,” you are automatically
altering the structure of your sentence, thus providing sentence variety. Score!
o
What
you lack in organization is a powerful conclusion. In middle school you learned to basically
repeat everything you’d already said in your conclusion. Now, as you are a more sophisticated writer,
you need to use your conclusion to really drive home to your reader why your
idea is so important. This is the part
where you can be melodramatic, even.
Preachy, almost. In this essay,
for example, you could have talked about:
o
How
dogs can protect humans and even save their lives.
o
How
children need to learn responsibility to grow into successful adults, and how
getting a dog is the perfect way to teach that.
o
How
having a dog would improve the quality of life for each member of the family.
Style
o
Even
though the prompt asks you to address people with whom you are very comfortable
(in this case, your parents), the language in the paper is far too casual, and
is therefore less persuasive and less effective. These are all formal, regardless of your
audience.
o
I
need you to use a few more
good words. You don’t have to have your paper chock full
of $10 vocabulary words (because that in itself is annoying and distracting),
but try to incorporate a few vocabulary words into the paper. Not a lot, but a few.
o
Transitions
again. If I were you, I’d memorize about
5 transitional words or phrases that I could use naturally, and I’d get in the
habit of using those five. Not only will
that make you more likely to pass this test, but it will make you a better
writer overall.
o
Try
to get rid of the words “you” and “your” throughout the paper. Instead, replace them with “we” and “our” and
“us.”
Conventions
o
You
need to make structures more grammatically complex. Nothing that you have here is incorrect, but
your grammatical structures are overly simplistic. You need to take more risks, and work on doing
those well, to score higher in this domain and to be a more effective
writer. You need more sentence variety,
more adverbs and adjectives, more variety in general. Simple sentences can be great, but only when
they’re combined with other more complex sentences and grammatical structures.
o
Remember
how the errors are calculated on this test.
If you spell the word “permission” wrong 15 times in a paper, but every
time you spell it “premission”, then it only counts as one error. If, however, you spell 15 different words
wrong, it counts as 15 errors. So, if
you’re not sure about the spelling of a word, give it your best, and then just
keep it that same way throughout the paper.
o
Commonly
Misused Words errors. You need to pay
special attention to:
o Bite (spelling error)
o Whine and wine
o Its and it’s
o
You
need to work on your apostrophe usage, particularly for possessive nouns.
o
You
need to familiarize yourself with comma rules.
o
You
need to refresh yourself or familiarize yourself with capitalization rules. (German)
o
This
is not a text message or an IM. Spell
out your words, and spell them correctly. (till v. until)
o
For
this paper, avoid beginning any sentence with “and,” “but,” “or,” or any of the
coordinating conjunctions (unless it’s “for,” and you’re using it as a
preposition instead of a conjunction).
Kathryn,
I like to see you improving. Continue to
take your feedback and use it to improve your writing. This is a good essay, and while there is
still much room for improvement, I’m impressed with what you’re able to produce
at this stage.
**********************************
By developing an efficient system to score and provide feedback to my students, I've been able to use my time in a much more productive way. I can analyze the data, then, to target problem areas of students and to work to address specific needs. Below is a section of a chart I used to tracked student progress on practice GHSWT prompts and the scores each student received in each domain. (Student names have been removed for confidentiality purposes.) Because I provide meaningful feedback to my students and analyze the data to improve my own instruction, I've been able to help my students' performance tremendously.
Student
|
Prompt #1
|
Prompt #2
|
Prompt #3
|
|
10
|
|
12.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
12.5
|
15
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
13.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
12.5
|
15
|
14.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
11.5
|
11
|
14.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
12
|
14
|
14.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
12
|
14.5
|
15
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8
|
13
|
|
|
|
|
|
14
|
15
|
12
|
|
|
|
|
|
12.5
|
10.5
|
12
|
|
|
|
|
|
11.5
|
|
11.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
13.5
|
14
|
12.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
11
|
14.5
|
14
|
|
|
|
|
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