Responding To Student Writing by Nancy Sommers

15 September, 2012

Daniel Rivera




     Nancy Sommers, Professor and Lecturer at Harvard School of Education, writes about the challenges found in the process of responding to student writing, and elaborates on common tendencies of teachers that they should strive to avoid. Through her experience with many students' work and responding effectively to them, she emphasizes the importance of clarity in teachers' comments to students. But most importantly, she advises that teachers should encourage students to think for themselves creatively and avoid appropriation of ideas, or dictating the shape of their thoughts as they form.
     Sommers begins her article by acknowledging in depth what it means to comment on student writing and the amount of focus and time it requires. In perspective, she breaks down the amount it takes to read and respond to a single student's paper, which she states should be at least 20 to 40 minutes, and then multiplies the amount to at least 20 students per class, times at least 8 papers a semester. It is thus that she emphasizes the importance of this action being accomplished effectively. However, there is no "definite way that constitutes thoughtful commentary" and thus, it is one of the least understood methods, this commenting on student writing. So  Sommers begins to shed light on the topic, starting with the fundamental reason and purpose of this method. Why are comments important for writers? From the teacher's point of view, Sommers claims that the purpose goes further than a simple feedback and approval of a well-conveyed message. For Sommers, commenting on student writing dramatizes "the presence of a reader", leading them to become that reader themselves and ultimately, through evaluation, the student can develop control over his or her writing (Sommers, 148). Furthermore, the providing of commentary is important because it offers assistance during the process of composition of a text as it develops (Summers, 149). Comments on a paper serve as a guide, for a student to see what the reader's perspective, and provides clarity towards the next step during revision. However, Sommers admits that professors face the challenge of knowing the difference between theory and actual practice in commenting. Knowing the importance of their comments to the students, professors must make sure that their actual practice provides encouraging and productive feedback.
     One thing Sommers strongly advises against is what she calls "appropriation of text". This, she explains, occurs when a student receives a paper that has been revised, only to find that the professor has only focused on correcting the student's errors, and has disregarded the meaning of the student's text. More so, Sommers continues to add that professors must not give contradictory messages to students. An example of this would to ask a student to make a paragraph more interesting to the reader and expand it, when the teacher has only shown how to edit the sentences. To "edit and develop", or "condense and elaborate" are comments that can only cause confusion, and to an inexperienced writer...madness. Madness! Only in retrospect or from a distance one can find the humor at the irony of these comments, and a student's dilemma in such a doubt. But most importantly, this kind of revision may result in the danger of changing the student's view on the writing process. Instead of seeing a whole discourse in its entirety, the student now sees a sectionalized work, thinking all they "need to do is patch and polish their writing" (Sommers, 151). Furthermore, a negative effect may arise on the student's priority as a writer, focusing more on what the teacher wants to read, than what the student was trying to say. This hinders development of original, creative ideas and insight. For this reason, appropriation of text is a most dangerous thing to be avoided by professors.
     Another thing to avoid as one is revising student work, is the use of generic contexts and simple grammatical corrections. These simply lack depth and an individual connection from the reader to the writer, as Sommers describes, they could easily be "interchanged, rubber-stamped, from text to text" (Sommers, 152). Also, as a teacher may demand specificity in the student's work but responds with vagueness...well what is wrong with that picture? The teacher must be a role-model to follow in writing, providing well-structured thought in writing, even in something as simple as comments. Comments lacking depth or specific directions on how to revise corrections can create real vagueness from the professor. The teacher must "anchor a strategy in the specific of the student's text" in order to offer useful feedback (Sommers, 153). Things to provide in comments as teachers would be questions about meaning, and breaks in logic. Comments of depth create a better feedback for the student to successfully experience this shift of perspective and develop his or her writing the most possible.
     The responsibility of teachers in the development of their young student writers is a challenge indeed. Teachers have to embrace the idea that comments on a draft are an extension of themselves in the classroom, guiding and shaping the young writer. It is very important to see the experience beyond satisfying the job of teacher, and more as aiming to provide an enriching experience for the student, so that he or she may develop fully as a writer.