Education Commons^™

Journal Of Response To Writing 9(1) Spring 2023

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Stylizing Peer Feedback Through Playful Shells, Wei-Hao Huang

Journal of Response to Writing

In this teaching tip, I introduce a hermit crab review activity. In the hermit crab review, students take an unusual form to contain their peer feedback, a form that frames and curates their peer response. This playful form of peer feedback makes peer review more accessible to students who are not proficient in providing feedback.

Teaching Students How To Give And Receive Peer Review Feedback, Megan Heise

Journal of Response to Writing

This teaching tip build on scholarship around the disconnect between teacher expectations and student experiences of peer review (Ahmed, 2021). In particular, it frames writers' feedback preferences through Elbow and Belanoff's (2000) "kinds of responses," and encourages reviewers to hit the "sweet spot" of constructive and supportive feedback after reading DePeter (2020). This framing helps scaffold the "asks" of peer review for students in a situation that is often fraught, challenging, and/or confusing, providing teachers with an opportunity to effectively teach an important and relevant transferable skill.

Resisting The Deficit Model: Embedding Writing Center Tutors During Peer Review In Writing-Intensive Courses, Stephanie B. Conner, Jennifer P. Gray

Journal of Response to Writing

For many students, peer review can be muddled or frustrating. They can feel uncomfortable with the process if they do not feel confident with their own writing, and many believe poor past performances disqualify them from offering constructive feedback. Because writing center tutors are trained in sharing feedback in a kind and helpful manner, they are positioned to be excellent models for students inexperienced with or damaged by feedback. Learning how to participate in effective peer review can remove the emotional baggage attached to writing and create a respectful community of writers in the classroom. In this teaching tip, we …

Teaching Students To Close Read Feedback, Kristen Starkowski

Journal of Response to Writing

This article describes an exercise that can be implemented in a range of writing classrooms in order to help students unpack and craft a revision plan based on instructor or peer feedback that they received on their writing.

Written Corrective Feedback And Learner Engagement: A Case Study Of A French As A Second Language Program, Maria-Lourdes Lira-Gonzales, Antonella Valeo

Journal of Response to Writing

Within the context of second language (L2) writing, learner engagement with feedback has elicited significant theoretical and empirical interest (e.g., Zhang & Hyland, 2018; Zheng & Yu, 2018). Research has highlighted the dynamic nature of learner engagement with corrective feedback (WCF), but the ways in which learner and contextual factors impact such engagement with WCF in authentic classrooms are still underexplored (Han, 2019). Furthermore, little is known about how L2 learners engage with WCF from an ecological perspective, which considers the relationships between learners and their surrounding environments (Bronfenbrenner,1993; van Lier, 2000).

Situated in an adult French as a second …

Spring 2023 Editorial Introduction, Betsy Gilliland, Kat O'Meara

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Learner Engagement With Written Corrective Feedback: The Case Of Automated Writing Evaluation, Hooman Saeli, Payam Rahmati, Svetlana Koltovskaia

Journal of Response to Writing

The study explored six ESL university students’ behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement with e-rater feedback on local issues and examined any changes in students’ engagement over two weeks. We explored behavioral engagement through the analysis of screencasts of students’ e-rater usage and writing assignments. We measured cognitive and affective engagement by analyzing students’ comments during the think-aloud protocol and reflection surveys. The findings indicated that the students had varying levels of engagement with the feedback. Behaviorally, all students used a range of revision operations to address errors based on the provided feedback. Cognitively, some students were more engaged than others. …

Student Self-Diagnostics: Engaging Students As Co-Respondents To Their Own Writing, Robert M. Rowan

Journal of Response to Writing

Student self-analysis and reflective work can be useful components of the writing classroom. This article examines a student self-diagnostic tool, developed by the author, which can elicit closer attention paid to the student’s own writing, analysis, and research processes and to other desirable outcomes the teacher’s learning plan may be pursuing. This tool, the Genre Understanding Sheet or GUS, has been successfully deployed in a variety of writing courses such as introductory composition, business and professional writing, and technical communication. The article examines the GUS and its development and rationale, reviews the underlying science and theory-work which inform its design, …

Responding To High Stakes Writing: When Six Colleagues Read One Cover Letter, Sarah Snyder, Mark Blaauw-Hara, Cristyn Elder, Joseph Janangelo, Michael Pemberton, Staci Perryman-Clark, Irwin Weiser

Journal of Response to Writing

As preparation for the rhetoric and composition job market becomes more readily available through multiple sources, some cover letter writers may find themselves confused by the well-meaning, but perhaps conflicting, responses to writing given by mentors from differing backgrounds, statuses, and epistemes. This article seeks to illuminate the rhetorical situation behind the cover letter with simulated writing responses to a genuine cover letter by five reader archetypes: a supportive reader, a critical reader, an outside reader, a teaching-centric reader, and a research-centric reader. Through this exercise, cover letter writers are shown how to weigh writing advice through the juxtaposition of …

Responding To Writerly Identity As Inclusive Pedagogy, Katherine Rothschild

Journal of Response to Writing

Creating inclusive pedagogies that serve the whole student is a goal of many writing programs and writing centers, but it's difficult to find pathways to implement this goal. Employing responsive reflection to students' writerly identity work may offer instructors and writing center directors an accessible path to both encourage writerly identity development across contexts as well as reflect on pedagogical practice for inclusivity.

Moving From Zero Draft To Essay Writing: A Scaffolded Exercise, Lindsay Knisely

Journal of Response to Writing

This exercise guides students in first- and second-year college writing classes through the process of developing their Zero Draft into a completed essay by asking them to respond to five reflective questions. This is a metacognitive project that asks students to expand the ideas in their zero draft to transition from their brainstorm to a finished essay. It is a scaffolded writing assignment that supports students to develop a robust portable writing process that they can transfer to future writing projects.

Supporting Audience Awareness In Multimodal Text Creation, Anthony Degenaro

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Cla-Informed Self-Disclosure Of Language Learning In The Writing Center, Kristen Allen

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Journal Of Response To Writing 9(2)

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Hidden Inequities In Labor-Based Contract Grading, By Ellen C. Carillo, Current Arguments In Composition, 2021, Amanda Sladek

Journal of Response to Writing

This review considers Ellen C. Carillo's The Hidden Inequities in Labor-Based Contract Grading, an important contribution that examines labor-based grading contracts through a disability studies lens.

Student Interpretation And Use Arguments: Evidence-Based, Student-Led Grading, Ll Aull

Journal of Response to Writing

Assigning grades is conventionally the exclusive, lonely terrain of the instructor, even as other aspects of teaching and responding to student writing are collaborative. As an alternative that promotes student engagement and agency, labor-based contract grading is used in a growing number of writing classrooms. This article strives to add to these conversations by describing evidence-based, student-led grading as an option that engages students as well as a broad construct of writing. This approach foregrounds students’ own response to their writing, in the form of evidence-based interpretation and use arguments for their grades. It engages students in the process of …

Feedback Conversations: An Activity To Initiate Instructor-Student Dialogues About Writing Development, Sarah M. Lacy

Journal of Response to Writing

In this essay I discuss the pedagogical implications of a classroom activity in which students work reflectively with instructor feedback provided to their writing. Using the comments feature in Google Docs, these “Feedback Conversations” create a dialogue between student and instructor using feedback as the exigence for collaboration in developing a student’s writing process. This activity addresses the work of Anthony Edgington (2020) and Pamela Gay (1998), by offering an exercise which allows instructors to remain reflective on their feedback practices, while also instigating a “conversation” between student and instructor. By offering a virtual space to house this conversational exercise, …

Crafting A Writing Response Community Through Contract Grading, Sarah Klotz, Kristina Reardon

Journal of Response to Writing

As labor-based grading contracts gain momentum in first year writing classrooms, new kinds of response to writing take center stage. We explore how session notes composed by embedded peer tutors and students become rich tools in a writing process and create a gateway to the writing center for first-year students. By reading session notes in conversation with students’ reflective writing, we put forward three key findings: students articulate a relationship between building confidence in their writing and their willingness to seek, receive, and value feedback; students discuss how the labor required for an ‘A’ pushed them to access and learn …

Feedback As Boundary Object: Intersections Of Writing, Response, And Research, Lindsey Harding, Joshua King, Anya Bonanno, Joseph Powell

Journal of Response to Writing

While a great deal is known about instructor response to student writing—from commenting practices to student perceptions—less is known about how feedback impacts students’ writing and writerly development. While we set out to study students’ explicit engagement with written instructor feedback, our initial experimental design was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, we describe the dialogic collaborative process that emerged as we considered both the data we were able to collect and, in turn, feedback anew. This article proposes that feedback on student writing is a boundary object which affords those interacting with it the opportunity for collaboration despite the …

Feedback Practices In Hybrid Writing Courses: Instructor Choices About Modality And Timing, Ariel M. Goldenthal, Jessica Matthews, Courtney Adams Wooten, Brian Fitzpatrick, Lourdes Fernandez

Journal of Response to Writing

Despite a wealth of research on feedback practices in synchronous and asynchronous courses, little has been done to investigate such practices in hybrid writing pedagogy. How do instructors make choices about providing feedback when both instructional modes are operating in a course?

A qualitative study conducted with fourteen instructors who teach hybrid writing courses at a large state university reveals how they navigate a series of choices about providing feedback on student writing. This study shows that instructional modality, use of the LMS, and labor conditions influence the decisions instructors make about how and when to provide feedback, especially on …

Using Lessons From Collaboratively Processing Written Corrective Feedback, Nicholas Carr

Journal of Response to Writing

This case study investigates how two English language learners use knowledge co-constructed while collaboratively processing written corrective feedback (WCF) on jointly produced texts. It does so through the lens of sociocultural theory (SCT). This study extends the extant literature by investigating how co-constructed knowledge emerging from their interactions was manifested in subsequent individual writing and speaking tasks which were similar—but not identical—to the original collaborative writing tasks. Data were collected from video recordings of participants’ interactions as they collaboratively processed WCF; individual retrospective interviews, during which participants watched the video recordings and identified what they learned; and observation of individual …

Editorial Introduction, Kat O'Meara, Betsy Gilliland

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Online Teacher-Student Group Conferences, Betsy Gilliland, Michelle Kunkel, Mitsuko Suzuki

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Preparing Students To Engage With Teacher Feedback, Grant Eckstein

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Building Response Into Labor-Based Grading Contracts, Kat O'Meara

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Using The “Card” Response Technique To Assist Middle School Students In The Revision Process, Katherine E. Batchelor

Journal of Response to Writing

Although revision is essential to the writing process, it is often neglected in schools. However, when revision is taught successfully, through reflection, conferencing, positive teacher feedback, specific instruction linked to reading strategies, and time between drafts in order for students to think about their writing (including the expectation of multiple drafts), students not only revise more, but at a deeper level. This study investigates how middle school students’ writing drafts as well as attitudes and beliefs toward revision changed based on introducing a specific revision strategy called the CARD response technique, which is both a self-response and peer-response strategy. CARD …

Improving First- And Second-Year Student Writing Using A Metacognitive And Integrated Assessment Approach, Leanne Havis

Journal of Response to Writing

Metacognition emphasizes an awareness and understanding of one’s thought and cognitive processes, along with management of cognition through multiple strategies including organizing, monitoring, and adapting. Before students can truly become effective writers, they must develop an appreciation for the amount of planning, organization, and revision that comprises a writing assignment. In order to improve student writing, the exam autopsy approach, an integrated post-exam assessment model that draws upon self-assessment, peer review, and instructor feedback, was modified to include metacognitive components for use with essay exams and writing assignments. The current study employed a mixed-methods design with a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent group …