Teaching Writing Tip of the Week: The "What, Why, How" Feedback Method
Providing Student-Specific Feedback
Hello again everyone! Maryellen here. This semester, Tanya, Al, Amy, and I have been discussing meaningful writing and how we can create the right conditions for students to create it. In a previous tip, Tanya ventured into the territory of meaningful feedback with her tip on using video feedback to thoughtfully respond to student writing, increasing engagement along the way. Given how much time instructors spend reading and responding to student work, and how much time we hope students dedicate to enacting our comments, I’d like to continue in that vein.
When providing written feedback, how can we increase the likelihood that our comments lead to meaningful revisions?
Writing expert Nancy Sommers was motivated to answer that question when she discovered that the activity instructors often spend the most time doing is also one of the “least understood” due to both a lack of research into what constitutes “thoughtful commentary,” and a lack of clarity surrounding which comments actually motivate students to revise (Sommers 148). To rectify that, Sommers studied the comments of thirty-five teachers at New York University and the University of Oklahoma, in addition to interviewing them and the students who received their comments.
One of her surprising discoveries was that “most teachers’ comments are not text-specific and [can] be interchanged, rubber-stamped, from text to text” (Sommers 152). She also noted that instructors tend to have a style or rhythm that they fall into when commenting, like using phrases such as “be specific” or “elaborate” many times in a student paper. These comments, according to Sommers, are often extremely difficult for students to enact or apply. When providing written feedback on student work, Sommers found that actionable and text specific comments were the most productive.
Based on Sommers’ research, I developed what I call the “What, Why, How” method that moves instructors away from vague directives and toward specific, actionable, and meaningful written comments. As a Mary G. Walsh Writing Center tutor, I’ve used this method with great success during asynchronous tutoring sessions. Below, I offer an explanation of each aspect of the feedback method and provide examples of written comments.
WHAT
Use descriptive language to name what you are commenting on.
Example: “I noticed that you ended your paragraph with a quotation from an outside source and didn’t bring your own voice back in before ending the paragraph.”
WHY
Next, tell the student why you have commented. This is often part of helping the student to understand your experience as a reader, and how that may have differed from their intentions as the writer. Having an expansive “why” can help the student to understand the value in enacting the comment in addition to helping them develop an editorial sense for revising their own work in the future.
Example: “I'm having difficulty seeing the connection between your last sentence of this paragraph and the topic sentence of your second. Creating strong transitions between paragraphs will help improve the overall flow of your essay.”
HOW
The how often takes the most amount of time to explain but it is also where we can ensure our students understand what to do next and have a clear vision of how to do it. The how includes an example that is similar to the student’s own work for comprehension, but different enough that it invites the student to apply it to their own situation when revising. We want it to be specific enough that it is easy to follow, but not so specific that all the cognitive work has been done with none left for the student to contribute.
Example: Transition sentences are sentences that show the relationship between two or more ideas. Think of them as bridges that connect different sections of your work with specific words and phrases acting as road signs. Try to consider what the overlap is between one paragraph and the next, and create a transition sentence around this overlap. For example, last sentence of paragraph #1: This is just one of many ways that social media affects self-esteem.
For a less time-intensive “how,” I would suggest creating a bank of frequently used written comments (such as comments related to a missing thesis statement or transition phrase) in a Word document and copying and pasting those comments when providing feedback. You’ll need to adjust the comment to fit the rhetorical context, but you’ll at least have the gist of the comment already written. Your bank can consist of previous comments as well as explanations that you might pull from online resources such as the Purdue Owl.
The “What, Why, How” method asks us instructors to hold ourselves to the same level of specificity we are asking of our students, increasing the likelihood that they understand and act on our comments. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
Until next time,
Maryellen Groot
WIC Graduate Assistant
Sommers, Nancy. “Responding to Student Writing.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 33, no. 2, 1982, pp. 148–56. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/357622. Accessed 3 Mar. 2024.
I’m finding these weekly resources thought-provoking, relevant and useful. They are ready-made applicable RESOURCES— so much richer than simple “tips.”