How do we learn to write? How do our teachers teach us to write? Do they teach us to write, or do they teach us to prioritize certain aspects of our writing? Do they teach us to develop our own voice, or to develop theirs?
Throughout my education, my teachers have identified me as a ‘good writer.’ But with how often I’m told this, I’m rarely ever told why. The marginal comments that I tend to see are either generalized praise (“good!”) or ambiguous critique (“expand”). But what do these comments mean?
In my experience—and many others from what I understand—many (if not most) English teachers take this approach for a variety of reasons. Some have not been specifically trained in giving students effective feedback on drafts. Some may have class sizes too large that they can only prioritize local errors like grammar and punctuation in their feedback. Whatever the reason may be, the students suffer—even those like me who are told they’re good writers.
Just like any good paper, arguments need to be grounded in evidence. Students need to be told why they’ve done something well (or done something wrong) in order for them to grow as writers. Without that knowledge, they may be taking a gamble on their next assignment not knowing exactly what is expected of them.
Most teachers that set the stage for the development of writers in grade school and high school seem to forget that the conventions of different genres of writing are not obvious or implicit to new writers. Receiving constructive, specific feedback is critical to students’ development as writers. Marginal comments should not be up to interpretation. Teachers should be transparent in their criticism. Rather than offer their students purely evaluative feedback, offer them readerly insight. Explain why, as a reader, the writer’s choices were effective or not. After all, their purpose is to help writers learn and grow as writers.