Providing Feedback to Student Writing
Approaches for using comments on student writing to promote diversity and respond to bias include:
- Ask for concrete examples, clarifications, illustrations, and details.
- Rephrase their comments to make sure you intend what they are saying and ask students to respond-did you understand what they were trying to communicate?
- Provide additional information that corrects information or fills in missing information.
- Provide students with different perspectives-alternative ways of looking at the same situation.
- Provide students with concepts that can help them to make sense of their own experiences.
- Provide students with additional resources-books, websites, films, etc-that can broaden their understanding.
- Acknowledge that there is often emotional strain in dealing with these issues.
- Affirm students' willingness to explore alternative ways of looking at the world and taking actions.
- Share appropriate examples of your own journey to become more knowledgeable and aware.
adapted from L. Marchesani's Promoting Diversity through Student Writing: Issues and Techniques. In Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook , Adams, Maurianne, Bell , Lee Ann, and Griffin , Pat, eds. New York : Routledge, p. 274
