Comments on student papers come in many different forms. While ISUComm Foundation Courses requires all instructors to provide marginal and terminal comments–as well as a completed rubric–for all major assignments, we encourage you to develop your own, unique commenting style that aligns with your classroom practices.
Keep in mind that commenting on individual projects is a slow-burn approach to helping students improve as writers. Research shows again and again that comments do not result in significant gains in student writing over the short term (see Knoblauch and Brannon), but they do have a strong influence over student’s attitudes toward writing and their self-efficacy, or their beliefs about how capable they are of completing a task or achieving a goal. Essentially, your comments can help shape whether students see themselves as writers with potential or writers who should just give up, whether writing is something they should dread or something they know is within their grasp. Studies have shown that students prefer and/or react well to specific, clear, and positive comments (e.g., Gee; Haswell; Straub; Zak), so try to include comments that offer specific praise and revision suggestions—even on papers where doing so is difficult.
In addition, you can encourage students to do more with your comments by making them an essential part of your class. You might try one of the following activities:
- After returning papers, summarize some trends you saw and ask students to read your comments to see if those trends were present in their work.
- Require students to write a reflection on your comments, asking them to discuss which comments they found confusing or helpful and to compare these comments with past ones.
- Have students create a revision plan based on your comments, which they could later use for their ePortfolio assignment.
Whatever you choose to do, incorporating your comments into class shows that you value them and will encourage students to engage with them.