Commenting on Student Essays

dust, dust, cough, cough...

It's been long enough since my last post that I'm beyond feeling guilty about it; now it simply feels like reconnecting with an old friend.

My role here at TCC has changed a bit.  Still teaching composition courses, but have picked up a couple of side gigs (both paid and otherwise) that have led to me spending even more time on the computer...as if that were possible.  I'm building content for a couple of wikis, which I love, and also trolling around to pull the collective wisdom of the web into them.

In the process of such trolling, I viewed an online video that had been sitting in an email recommendation for months.  This is a Nancy Sommers project, getting the student perspective on comments they get back on their essays.  Dr. Sommers has visited our campus previously, and I enjoyed her presentation at the time.  This offers a concrete way to hold onto the more salient points.

http://pages.mail.bfwpub.com/hackerhandbooks/authors/videos/

This video led me to a longer one on the same website, sharing a session of writing faculty discussing the same topic, which was very similar to what she did with us here at TCC.

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/webpub/catalog_videos/nancy_sommers_workshop_960x540/nancy_sommers_workshop_960x540_clearSkin_3/nancy_sommers_workshop_960x540.html

It's a longer one, almost 20 minutes, and if you're like me you may have little patience for videos that are over 5 minutes.  It's worth it, though, I promise.  My favorite takeaway: "When students talk about their best writing experience, it always had to do with feedback. It always had to do with that sense of a relationship, a transaction..."

Nice gems at the end for action items when the next pile of papers arrives on your desk, too.