Don't Worry I Won't Make You Worry About Your Feedback

   I am on my Sabrina Carpentar kick again. Here is the song that helped me with the title. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/21IVPfi81m6ywNgOvqTj1i?si=5d105155dbc04aef

  It has been an amazing journey so far being a writing coach. It is my first time; I am used to helping middle schoolers with homework when I was interning at a middle school a couple of years ago. Yet, this is my first time I am officially a writing coach and not just an intern who had to take on many roles. An aspect that I believe student writers need with feedback is praise, when we focus on the negativity. Their drive, creativity, and confidence go down. How would we like it if we just got constantly diminished for not having everything perfect? Teachers should never only give negative feedback, having students we look at certain spots, and come up with their own conclusions of what went wrong in a part of their writing. May help build their confidence and their critical thinking skills, since they are taking out the time to assess their own work. Negative feedback does offer growth, but it needs to be balanced and constructive. We can help students grow without diminishing their spirit.

     With peers, we should build a respectful classroom. Having friends to ask questions in the class has always helped me, it has also made class more fun to know I have someone in the class. Having peer review sessions is a great resource. It may be nerve wracking to some because their peers are reading their work, and writing can be a vulnerable state. However, everyone is reading someone’s in their class. They are all on the same level, and kids have a different language they use together than we have as adults. When we grade and give feedback it seems more official, with peer review feedback it is more neutral. When I was in school, I hated it because I didn’t want others to view my work. However, I was happy I was also reading someone else’s in my class. We were kind of all in this same boat, and it helped me from tipping the boat over. 

    I think the negativity all of us share responsibility in that area. If peers, teachers, and coaches don't notice the growth or their skills, then how will they grow? Students will only think of their work as something that needs to change. Praise offers that confidence to keep going. There is a hierarchy when it comes to feedback, it is teachers, coaches, and peers. Sometimes peers and coaches can switch. Teachers have the final say with feedback. They are the ones who sit down and grade the paper. They make take the students or the coaches feedback into consideration or view it as not relevant. With this hierarchy there is a power imbalance when it comes to giving feedback and how it is looked at. Students may see a post it notes from a writing coach and disregard it because we are not their teacher. We are not the ones at the end of the day giving them their grade. In addition, giving feedback looks different for each student as we travel back to week three when talking about giving feedback. The article A Writer’s Guide to Giving Feedback helped me understand not tearing down someone’s paper with negativity and highlighting all of the wrong parts. If a student gets a paper back with red all over it, you slaughtered their work. There should be statements of what they are doing good in there as well. For me giving feedback has helped me when we got introduced the glow and grow model. 

There are students who don’t turn anything in or students who go above and beyond. We shouldn’t give them different treatment. Whenever we are assigned to give feedback, I go in with no expectations of who did it. Having that mindset I believe creates this podium in the classroom of this student is better than this one. How is that going to help students? Everyone is at a different stage, As Rebecca Segel states, “each piece you edit will be at a different stage in the writing process, and each author will want different types of feedback at varying stages of the writing process” (Segel, pg. 1). Students are all different, no one is the same. We shouldn’t expect the same from everyone’s writings. Some may be more advanced and that is great, while others may be working on answering the initial questions which is also great in a different sense. Students who are putting in effort and trying are doing great because they are doing their best. I know I have this pit in my stomach from years of living with a father who drilled grades into my head. That if you are not performing perfectly, you are behind and need to be better. Though it is not that extreme, this pit in me wants all of the students to be on the same field playing the same game. Though that isn’t going to happen, and that’s okay. No one needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. As a writing coach, this has helped me get out of that mindset, which I know is awful (I can’t even get into the awful assumptions I have now due to just living with my dad) though I think I needed this to better myself in my everyday life and in my professional career. I did make this about me, I am also a little narcissistic (again, thanks to my father). 

When I think of giving feedback, I think of a quote from the Pitt. (I am rewatching it, and that is why it is on my mind again)

“Where does it say that shaming, belittling, and insulting are effective teaching tools? Harassment has zero educational value.” - Robby

PS: My dad and I are actually best friends, and I love him even though I have trauma with him. (is that Stockholm syndrome, comment down below). Proof that we actually love each other.