Written Feedback

For the sake of variety and time, I would periodically have ALL the kids give feedback to EACH AUTHOR on those share days...How? I had them write a quick comment on a small slip of paper I had reproduced...the slips would say something like...."I really liked_____________. You might
TRY________________________________________________." The kids would put the
author's name in front of each frame and then at the end of class, they would cut the slips apart (if I didn't have that done already), then deliver them to the author's mailbox or desk at the end of share time. That gave each kid 28 pieces of feedback from which to make decisions about revising. I did this later in the year when 1) stories started getting lengthier and 2) I knew we would be shorter on time than usual due to an assembly or something like that. Oh, I had the person giving the feedback sign their names to the slips before we even got started..that way if there was a question, we could track them down...it also increased the quality of the feedback since kids knew their names were on the feedback slips and they might be held accountable for what they were saying.....and of course, all feedback followed our regular guidelines for giving feedback.....

1) BE SPECIFIC-
2) BE HONEST-
3) BE HELPFUL-Think of ways to make the story work better and be more
interesting
4) WHEN MAKING CONNECTIONS, TELL THE AUTHOR WHY THE CONNECTION WAS
SIGNIFICANT without TELLING your WHOLE STORY!
5) Connect the feedback to strategies
discussed in class as much as possible.

Kids got pretty good at doing written feedback. Time-wise the listening audience could basically write their comments as the next author was transitioning to the SHARE CHAIR. This was fourth grade though...younger kids might need the feedback slips to be more like a checklist of things to check or circle of highlight or something....

Robert A. Redmond Teacher/Writer
Owner/Moderator: realwritingteachers@yahoogroups.com
"Inspiring Change One Student Writer at a Time"