This guide gives you: -a system for getting students writing more without more grading -a plan for leaving comments that help instead of hurt -the tech tools that will save you time and let you give students better feedback If you like this resource, feel free to subscribe to the future resources I create: http://eepurl.com/berT7v

1. Simplify
Feedback
A Visual Guide
By Gerard Dawson

2. Part I:
Planning
for
Sustainability
and
Success

3. Assigning an essay with no plan for when, how and
what to give feedback on creates teachers who are
burned out and students who lose interest because
too much time passes between drafts.
In Part I, you’ll learn how to use Kelly Gallagher’s
“writing coach” mindset to plan for a manageable
way to give students lots of practice without creating
extra work. You’ll also find an example of how a
group of freshmen students benefitted from this
approach.

5. Use this tomorrow...
The writing coach mindset helps make
feedback focused and timely.
Ideally, students would write a lot AND
teachers would read every word carefully and
provide immediate, useful feedback. This
takes hours and leads to burnout and papers
returned late.
Tomorrow, consider the writing you’re
students are doing. What piece of the writing
can you focus your feedback on in order to
leverage your time? Are you practicing the
use of evidence in an analysis essay? Then try
selecting one body paragraph in each essay
and give focused feedback on the use of
evidence in that paragraph. This cuts
down the time it takes for you to get through
all the essays so the papers get back to your
students faster. Fast feedback = learning.
When feedback is timely, it feels relevant to
students, and they’re more likely to put effort
into revising their writing.
As the previous page suggests, this technique
can be applied by breaking a single draft into
pieces, or having students write several drafts,
and the teacher choosing one to respond to.
So, focus your feedback. Students write more
than you can grade, and even more than you
can read. When it comes to responding to
student writing, sometimes less is more.

6. Plan with Purpose
You can start to adopt the writing coach
mindset tomorrow, even if you’re students
are in the middle of an essay.
The real benefit, though, comes when
teachers plan units with this mindset.
Some guiding questions to use when
planning writing units:
● What skills will students practice?
● What products will students create?
● How will I give feedback?
By keeping these in mind, you can
determine how to give students lots of
writing practice, without an overwhelming
amount to read and evaluate.
Case Study: Writing Complaint Letters
As part of a unit on persuasive writing, my
freshmen academic students wrote complaint
letters. This genre approach to writing is the
perfect time to implement a 3:1 writing philosophy.
Students chose a list of three people, companies or
organizations that they wanted to complain to.
They wrote to specific teachers, local businesses,
and even ambiguous groups (“Dear misogynists…”).
The beginning of the unit was devoted to
brainstorming activities, so students had plenty to
write about.
Then, each week, students wrote a letter of 350
words or more. Each week, I reviewed the letters.
This helped me determine what to teach in mini-
lessons.
At the end of three weeks, students chose one letter,
and I provided feedback using Kaizena. The
students revised their letters and mailed them.

7. Draft 1
Skill 1 practiced
Teacher checks
content in one
paragraph
Draft 2
Skills 1 & 2 practiced
Teacher checks structure
Draft 3
Skills 1, 2, 3 practiced
Teacher checks style
A Possible Workflow
To the right, notice a variation
on the 3:1 approach.
Students write three drafts.
For each draft, students
receive instruction on one
element of the writing. Here
those elements (broadly) are
content, structure and style.
The teacher gives focused
feedback on that element of
the writing.
As students complete
subsequent drafts, they use
past feedback and continue
practicing previously taught
skills.

8. A quick recap...
● Be a “writing coach,” not a reader and grader
● Plan so students write 3X more than you grade
● Break drafts into pieces that you can respond to
● Ask students to apply past feedback and
instruction to new writing drafts
● Allow students to choose their best writing to
revise and publish
Ready for part II?

9. Part II:
“I’ve collected
100 essays,
now what?”

10. Choose Your Path and Stick to It
In Part I, I mentioned that following a few guiding questions
when planning writing units goes a long way in managing the
feedback process. One such question was, “What skills are
students practicing here?” Now that the drafts are collected,
remembering the answer to this question, and focusing on
those skills is important to keeping feedback focused and
timely.
Here’s where I make some enemies. I let tons of errors slide.
That’s right. I ignore misplaced commas and thats in place of
whiches. At this point, some of the readership has left the
document, never to return. For those who choose to read on,
here’s why:
Remember, this guide is for simplifying feedback by making it
timely and focused. So, I plan the skills that students will
practice during a specific writing assignment, then only
address those skills in the feedback I give to students.
I usually have three to four categories--generally they include
structure, style, grammar and content--and address one
aspect of each of those in my feedback.

11. Case Study: Writing Complaint Letters
After students selected the complaint letter that they wanted to revise and send off to the recipient, I revisited
the rubric that I’d created before the unit began. There were three criteria that we had focused on throughout
the unit, and I addressed only these three aspects of writing as I gave the students feedback:
While ignoring spelling and grammar errors may be unthinkable for some, I return to my
principle idea that feedback needs to be timely and focused in order for it to help student writers improve.
By focusing on three to four skills at a time when I read student writing, I’m able to analyze the students’ papers more
efficiently as well as more effectively. I’m not haphazardly searching for errors; I’m evaluating
and responding to the student’s mastery of specific skills.
Style: Selecting diction
(word choice) and syntax
(sentence structure)
thoughtfully to create an
appropriate tone for the
letter.
Grammar: Accurate and
effective use of parallel
structure and complete
sentences.
Content: Effective use of
ethos, pathos, and logos to
achieve the purpose of the
letter.

12. Keep off the margins
I can remember the first writing assignment students
completed, my first year of teaching. It was an
analysis paragraph on Alice Walker’s short story,
“Flowers.”
After pouring over the students’ writing, correcting
errors and leaving notes in the margins, I returned
the papers to students with comments and a grade
on top.
Students improved their free throws on that day,
using their papers as a ball and the trash basket as a
hoop. No revision occurred. Few comments were
even read.
Since then, I’ve shifted the feedback process into the
drafting stage, and separated extensive comments
from the grading period of the writing.
I’ve also removed feedback from the margins of the
paper, and made it a vocal conversation between me
and students.
The biggest return on time investment in feedback
comes from using the power of the voice.
This can come in the form of a face-to-face
conference, a set of comments recorded and shared
on a smartphone, or dynamic, resource-rich feedback
shared using the Kaizena Google Add-on.
So, in the remainder of part II, you’ll discover:
● How to maximize effectiveness of writing
conferences
● How to use a smartphone to give audio
feedback
● How to use Kaizena and move students toward
self-directed revision
Let’s get started.

13. “Surely what
writers need
most is the
experience of
being heard and
a chance for
dialogue” -- Peter
Elbow
Say this, not that: a note on language
Raise your hand if you want to take your beliefs, values and
work-in-progress arguments, and ask a stranger for critiques.
No takers, huh? I often forget, and I imagine other teachers are
with me on this, that it’s hard to share your writing with people,
especially people you don’t know too well. We want students to
write openly and honestly, but we don’t always use the language
of our feedback to encourage this.
In “About Responding to Student Writing,” an article by Peter
Elbow, he reminds us that, “when we write comments that
purport to be true in general or true for other readers, we are
very likely to be wrong.”
A survey of my own academic experience proves this. I’ve had
many English teachers, and many different interpretations of
what is considered “good writing.” Let’s study some examples of
how to keep comments considerate and constructive.

14. 1. “You don’t use enough evidence to prove
your argument here”
2. “Make this more descriptive”
3. “This is confusing and needs to be
clarified.”
1. “You convinced me in the last paragraph,
but here I don’t quite believe your claim.”
2. “I can’t picture this scene. How can you
make it more vivid?”
3. “You lost me here. How can you reword it?”
The objective comment The subjective comment
becomes
The table below gives example of objective comments that purport to be “true,” even though
they are based on only one reader’s experience. These are the types of comments that cause
conflict, because they are opinions stated as facts. Again, consider all the English teachers you’
ve had, and the variety of standards they’ve imposed on you. By seeking to make subjective
comments like those on the right, we acknowledge that feedback is a conversation, and a
reaction to writing, not an end-all judgement of the writing.

15. The Tools
Doctopus
In-person conferences
Kaizena

16. Let’s get real...
Why reinvent the wheel?
I learned to use feedback tools by watching
the following tutorials (click the images).
They’re made by people with more
experience than me, so I think you can learn
from them, too. First up: the master, Penny
Kittle.

17. Questions for your
notebook:
1. Which techniques
that Penny uses
would you be
comfortable
using?
2. Which techniques
would push you
out of your
comfort zone?
3. What’s one line
that Penny used
that you could
repeat in a
student
conference?

18. A challenge for you:
Set up Kaizena in your
Google Docs account.
Use Kaizena to give
feedback on one
student’s writing, even
if you’ve already
responded to other
essays in another way.
Choose a student who
you are comfortable
speaking with and who
seems to adapt to
change well.
Ask the student for
their reaction to
receiving feedback this
way.

19. Get help setting up
Doctopus by emailing me:
Gerard.Dawson1@gmail.com

20. Putting it all together...
Giving students feedback on their writing is the task that I consider most important as a
teacher. It’s one-on-one teaching.
You’re not supposed to work less on student writing after reading this. If that’s what you
took away, then I haven’t made my point clear enough. You might, though, have a
mindset, system and set of tools that can make your work have a bigger impact on your
student’s writing.
Every teacher has some favorite materials, activities and lessons that these use as part of
their teaching tools. Hopefully, this guide has provided some ideas that will help you think of
responding to student writing in the same way as lesson planning--a task that requires a
clear goal, specific strategies, and a broad set of tools that can be used in a variety of
situations.
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