Chapter 14 in Bean: Writing Comments on Students' Papers

Bean begins his discussion by talking about how teachers often forget the "personal dimension" of grading students' papers (239). So often we got lost in a sea of run-on sentences, underdeveloped ideas, weak arguments, awkward sentences, missed punctuations, and lazy conclusions that we forget we are grading actual human beings' papers. We need to be aware of this as teachers so our comments aren't overly short or snarky. Our comments should encourage revision not dropping out of college.

Bean listed a sampling of comments left on students' paper and the reactions the students had to the comments. Here are some of my favorites:

Comment: Be more specific.
Student response: You be more specific (241).

Love it. So often "be specific" doesn't mean anything to a student. I know what when I have gotten that comment, I wondered "about what? I thought I was being specific."

Comment: You haven't really thought this through.
Response: How do you know what I thought? (241)

Comment: Try harder.
Response: I feel like kicking the teacher (241).

As you can see, all of these comments discouraged students from writing and revising when they should be encouraging students to do these things.

Shortly after Bean states that our purpose "is not to point out everything wrong with a paper but to facilitate improvement" (241). While I do agree with this to some extent, I do feel the responsibility to the writer to point out everything that I see as the reader, at least all of the higher-order concerns. I feel like when a student comes to me for help, or I am giving a student back his paper revise, he is trusting me to point out all the places that I see where he could revise his paper. I feel obligated to do so. As a student, I know I would be very frustrated if I revised my paper and re-submitted it and had cleared up all the issues that my teacher had pointed out, but I still got a B on the essay because the teacher didn't point out everything, so I didn't know that it needed more work. In fact, I would pissed.

I know it can be overwhelming for students to see all of those comments, but at least I feel like I am equipping them with everything they need to get an "A" and improve their essay. I feel like that is my job as a tutor or instructor. Plus, I don't think these comments are too overwhelming if handled appropriately. Instead of saying, "Be more specific," ask a question in the margin that the student can answer that will make his essay more specific. Psychologically this is better anyway. The student doesn't think, "Oh, I did this wrong," but "Oh, the teacher wants to know more.

I did, however, totally agree with Bean when he said that teachers' comments should prompt revision and deal primarily with higher-order concerns. He defines higher-order concerns as "ideas, organization, development, and overall clarity" (243). He then offers a list of questions to help guide revision:

-Does the draft follow the assignment?
-Does the writer have a thesis that addresses an appropriate problem or question?
-If the draft has a thesis, what is the quality of the argument?
-Is the draft effectively organized at the macro and micro level?

Again, Bean says the teacher should only comment on 2-3 areas, but as I stated before, I disagree.

I also disagree with how he suggests we handle lower order concerns. While I agree that we shouldn't line edit, he does suggest putting an "X" in the margin next to sentences that have grammatical errors. For a student who misplaced a comma, or forgot to put one in, this would be confusing as hell. A student wouldn't know if he was missing a comma, had improper punctuation, a problem with subject-verb agreement, or something totally different. I can see putting an "X" where there are misspellings or typos, but I think we should still circle other grammatical errors if we think the student does not know the rule. I think we should look for patterns of error, then explain the rule to the student. From what I hear, students are most frustrated with comments because they don't know how to go about fixing them. An "X" would just frustrate students, in my opinion.

Bean then goes on to discuss endnotes. He suggests that endnotes should" sum up the strengths of drat [...] identify main problems, [...] and make a few specific suggestions" (251). I think this is an effective model.

Basically what I gather is that we should use revision-based comments to respond to places where a student could improve his essay, praise him when he does it right, and have individual conferences with our students to make sure that they understand our comments and have a plan for revision.

Review of the Halls of Poetry

The Halls of Poetry creative works reading took place in the Hall of Languages, room 203, on Monday, October 19th, at 4:30 PM. Students from Dr. Jacob's undergraduate poetry class and Dr. Reid's graduate creative writing class too the stage to share their poetry, prose, and song.

The event was a success. Lots of people showed up, including folds outside of the creative writing classes. Dr. Jacobs required her students to read, so there were a lot of fresh faces at the podium. I overheard many folks say that they enjoyed being able to hear the new voices and see the new faces. I think this was a great way to introduce new students into Commerce's writing community. It also served as a way for more experienced readers to find a new audience for their works and learn new techniques from writers that they had never heard before.
I also took the opportunity to get many of these people involved with The Mayo Review, so that was good.

Hopefully this is an event we can do every year.

The Mayo Review Open Mic Night Interview

This is my semi-formal interview. I talked a little bit with Brandon, the Editor of The Mayo Review, about the Open Mic Night, and I am also going to use some of my own knowledge as the Assistant Editor to talk about the the event.

We planned the Open Mic Night for Thursday, October 22, 2009. We were planning on having an open mic night sometime in October before we even knew about the Commerce Week on Writing, but we decided to move the event to the actual Week on Writing so we could join in on the festivities. Our Submissions deadline is also coming up, November 2nd, so we figured it would be great opportunity to really get the word out one last time.

We decided to host it at the Cowhill Express since we held our first open mic at The Spot. The Cowhill Express seems to draw in just as large of a crowd as The Spot, and it is just the perfect atmosphere for an open mic night.

I think this open mic got a lot of extra publicity because of the Commerce Week on Writing. I know several teachers, myself included, gave students extra credit for attending the event. We also did our usual advertising by placing flyers up in the Hall of Languages and advertising the event of Facebook.

I did not get to attend the event because I got a sinus infection and was having some problems with my blood pressure, but I did speak with Brandon briefly about the event's success. He said:

"Things went really great. LOTS of new faces and a nice long list of readers/singers. A few people said from the mic how they thought Open Mic was great and that they planned on coming back. One of the guys who read also turned out to be someone from the East Texan who later spoke to me and Toni, so it looks like we'll get a little more publicity."

I think it is great that there were a lot of new faces and that people said they had never been to open mic nights before and planned on coming back. I was also happy to hear that we are going to get a little more publicity in the East Texan. That's what the Commerce Week on Writing is about, right, getting new people to think about, talk about, and enjoy writing. I would say mission accomplished.

Commerce Week on Writing

Well, I realize that I posted the wrong posts to the wrong blogs, so if you read my last blog, you were probably really confused because that post was meant for my pregnancy blog. Sorry!

Here is the right post:

For the Commerce Week On Writing I am attending and helping out at the following events:
-Halls of Poetry
-NCOW Theatre
-Open House and Memoir Workshop
-Open Mic Night for Kids
-The Mayo Review Open Mic Night
-The Story Slam

I'll be videotaping whatever events need to be video taped. I already hung up flyers for the Mayo Review, and I created a flyer for the Open house. I am also working on a board for the Open House.

I created a facebook event for the Commerce Week on Writing and invited several people.

Open Mic Night

The Mayo Review is hosting its second Open Mic Night of the year on October 22, 2009, at the Cowhill Experss in downtown Commerce. The event kicks off at 7:30. Come and listen, or come and share your poetry, prose, drama, or music with Commerce's growing writing community, and learn more about The Mayo Review, and how you can get involved.

Hope to see you there!

Writing Center Open House and Memoir Workshop

On Tuesday, October 20, 2009, the Texas A&M University-Commerce Writing Center (HL 103) will be hosting a series of events:

From 2:00-3:00, the Writing Center will be open to the public for a series of Creative Writing Workshops. Bring your poetry, drama, and/or prose, and have a one-on-one session with an experienced tutor.

From 5:00-7:00, there will be an Open House. This is your opportunity to get an insider's look at the services provided by TAMU-C's Writing Center, have a Meet and Greet with some of the tutors, and enjoy some refreshments.

Also from 5:00-7:00 in the Writing Center, Dr. Fred Tarpley and the Silver Leos will be holding a Memoir Workshop.

Hope to see you there!