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Amy Arnott
ENGL 6195
Dr. Mullin
15th February 2017
Teaching and Feedback: Youre Probably Doing it Wrong
The first year composition (FYC) classroom is a hotly debated space. What is taught

within the walls, how it is taught, the assessment strategies used, and the importance of even

having these courses is so widely criticized that no matter what strategies are employed

someone, somewhere, is arguing against using that method. Two contested areas within this field

are the teaching of grammar and the feedback given within the course. In other words, is it more

beneficial to go big picture when teaching writing or is the sole purpose of FYC to provide the

basic tools to enable good writing. Using Downs and Wardles Teaching about Writing,

Righting Misconceptions, Joseph R. Tellers Are We Teaching Composition All Wrong?, Jack

Seltzers Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers, Micciches

Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar, Richard Straubs Responding Really Responding

to Other Students Writing, and Jeff Sommerss Responding 2.0. I intend to explore what

teachers are really meant to do within the FYC classrooms walls.

The intentions of a FYC course is to teach writing, this idea is not really up for debate;

the most effective ways in which to do this are. Downs and Wardle stress the importance of

writing not being isolated. Writing needs to taught in a way that encourages transferring the skills

learned to various writing situation[s] (552). They acknowledge the difficulty of this, stating

that it is not known which genres or rhetorical strategies truly are universal in the academy, nor

how to help FYC students recognize such universality (557). Of course writing in any context

will have overlap with other genres, but these shared features are realized differently within
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different academic disciplines, courses, and even assignments (556). In essence, the idea of

writing being a universal skill, and therefore easily transferrable, is called into question (553).

However, I think that it is important to see writing this way. Not just for the sake of teaching it,

but in order to encourage students that writing is not an innate quality. It can and will be learned

within the classroom and beyond.

Downs and Wardle do cast a dark shadow over FYC, but their doubts are well founded.

Jospeh R. Tellers Are We Teaching Composition All Wrong? is possibly one of the most

pessimistically written critiques of FYC. From his opening statement that none of his students

can write a clear sentence to save their lives to his assertion that students do not revise,

Tellers outlook on FYC is far more negative than Downs and Wardles, who are still striving to

improve the way writing is taught in order to achieve the seemingly impossible task FYC has set

itself. It is easy to dismiss Teller and his negative attitude, but he makes some valid points. He

insists that the role of a FYC teacher is to teach students how to express themselves effectively

in writing. Moreover, he suggests that By Week 2 of the semester, students need to have

written a short argumentative essay and received feedback on their thesis, use of evidence, and

integration of sources. His approach delves into the mechanics of good writing. His method

locates the smaller elements that make the larger piece of writing work and gives direct feedback

on those. He builds writing from the ground up, from the thesis to citation, he teaches the parts

that culminate to produce good writing. In that respect he is just providing a more pessimistic

method of achieving the goal of teaching the universal skill of writing that Downs and Wardle

talk about (553). He takes the agency from the student, and places the onus on the instructor.

Micciches Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar hopes to change the way grammar

instruction is perceived within FYC. She aims to frame grammar instruction as a dynamic
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process rather than one with clear boundaries (719). She sees grammar as a positioning tool, a

way of framing and presenting ideas that influences how and what we see (722). Students fear

grammar. It seems rigid and yet changeable, something that is constantly critiqued without good

feedback on what the rules really are. Micciches opinions align with Tellers because she also

sees writing as a group of learned skills, and grammar is one of those skills. Without it effective

communication is prevented (717). Teachers of writing want students to be able to write well. In

order to write well, Teller and Micciche stress the importance of the stages that make good

writing. Instruction in the specifics rather than just the whole is key. If a strategy like this is

carried out, it is also quite possible that it will solve Downs and Wardles concerns about

transferability. Students will have a full arsenal of writing skills at their disposal and can pick

and choose which ones apply to certain situations, whether they be academic or in a wider

context. Moreover, grammar is only one element of writing, but in order to make meaning clear

to a reader it is essential. Grammar instruction is needed for a successful academic career.

Essentially, writing instructors want their students to engage in rhetorical situations in

order to improve their ability to write. Seltzers Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts

Persuade Readers explains rhetorical analysis and criticism as an effort to understand how

people within specific social situations attempt to influence others through language (281). This

is another part of the building blocks of writing. Being able to engage critically, understand fully,

and interpret texts aids the process of writing. Students themselves engage in rhetorical situations

through their assignments. They are, by writing, attempting to influence their audience through

the use of language in its written form. By evaluating anothers writing, students gain a sense of

how messages are formed. As Micciche and Teller would argue, effective messages are conveyed

through a number of different means that are all teachable and learnable. Students can learn
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effective ways to communicate to an outsider through writing, and they can accomplish this by

reading effective writing. Seltzer acknowledges that rhetorical analysis itself can be part of an

unending conversation (303). It is important to encourage this kind of thinking within the

classroom. Conveying a message is not always providing a correct answer, instead, it is

effectively communicating through language.

Encouraging less linear and a more global view of writing is problematic because it then

leads into an argument of how best to convey that message. Seeing writing as a creative process

is a wonderful outlook on writing, but trying to convey to a group of students who are forced into

taking a writing class that writing is a process rather than a simply an end goal can be confusing.

The feedback that students receive on their writing is key to making this work in practice.

Providing feedback is another rhetoric situation in which a person is using language to influence

as Seltzer explained. In this case the instructor is using language to influence anothers use of

language. Teachers of writing can borrow methods from Richard Straubs Responding Really

Responding to Other Students Writing. Straub is addressing a student audience, and is giving

his advice on how to provide feedback that does not edit, but focuses on the parts of the writing

that contributes to the global cohesion and effectiveness of the writing. He encourages students

to read the paper with an eye to the circumstances that it was written in and the situations it is

looking to create (18). This is also good advice for instructor comments who need to be aware

of parts of the writing that are working, how they are working, and what needs improvement.

Another piece of advice Straub gives that instructors could benefit from is to write most

of your comments out in full sentences (19). This allows students to truly understand feedback

as there is less room for misinterpretation. Straub also advocates a rather traditional method of

feedback when he claims that marginal comments allow you to give immediate and specific
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feedback... Comments at the end allow you to provide some perspective on your response (19).

He encourages students to get specific in these comments (20). Specificity is key to

understanding. Just as Teller insists that feedback given by week 2 of the class is the most

effective way to proceed in the classroom, it is just as important that the feedback given is as

specific to that persons writing as possible. Moreover, as Teller so harshly said peer feedback is

unhelpful, and so the specific feedback given by an instructor becomes even more important.

Jeff Sommers would agree with the need to be specific in feedback. However, in

Responding 2.0 he suggests a seemingly much more radical approach to traditional written

feedback Straub advocates. He advocates using recorded voice responses that employ a variety

of technologies (21). He talks of giving voice recordings, or video recordings of feedback in

response to writing assignments. He argues that utilizing this method is the answer to long

sought efficiencies or shortcuts teachers have craved (22). Spoken commentary can

produce more response in less time than the traditional method of marginal and end notes that

Straub argues for (24). Moreover, it is not just beneficial for the instructor. The feedback can be

more individualized in this format because it requires less time (25). It is a shortcut that is

mutually beneficial to both parties. A drawback to this approach that Sommers acknowledges is

that this is an unusual approach to feedback. Student will need to be prepared by their teachers

to use the commentary efficiently (31). Hearing someone talk about your writing without

having the opportunity to rely in a traditional conversation is very different to reading comments

on a paper. It something that Sommers argues has a learning curve, but once it is overcome is an

effective and successful method of communication. While this may not work for every student,

or every instructor, it is always profitable to have more options that the written comments that

have permeated writing feedback.

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It is essential to encourage students to see writing as something flexible, moldable and

transferrable. It is also important that even grammar instruction, which is easily viewed as one of

the most rigid parts of writing, remain something that helps the global cohesion of a piece of

writing, and not just a set of rules everything must bend to. Grammar is something that clients in

the Writing Resources Center constantly struggle with and that alone makes a case for its

presence in the FYC classroom. I believe that feedback is one of the most crucial aspects of any

learning process. It is the responsibility of the instructor to be as clear in that feedback as

possible to encourage development. Relying on traditional methods may well work for many

instructors and students, but the landscape of teaching and learning is always changing. It makes

sense that methods like those described in Response 2.0 are beneficial. Academia and

education are going digital. Utilizing technological advances to help students and teachers alike

simply makes sense. However, it is also extremely important to know that when using non-

traditional methods students will probably need to be versed to what to expect and how to use

that feedback. When responding in a voice clip it is important that the feedback does not become

a lecture on the students writing, that the door for conversation is left open, and that students

still feel encouraged.

The best way to teach writing will always be debated. Teaching writing is an abstract,

sticky field. It makes sense that a combination of the ideas presented in this essay is the best

route to take. Realistically, it is doubtful that such a combination is feasible. What works best

will differ from class to class, person to person, and in order to successfully teach writing there

needs to be a balance of various methods. Just as instructors of writing will be teaching students

various ways to tackle the act of writing, instructors need to have various ways of teaching it.
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Works Cited

Downs, Douglas and Elizabeth Wardle. Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions.

College Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 4, 2007, pp. 552- 584.

Micciche, Laura R. Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar. College Composition and

Communication, vol. 55, no. 4, 2004, pp.716-737.

Teller, Joseph R. Are We Teaching Composition All Wrong? The Chronicle, 3 Oct. 2016,

www.chronicle.com/article/Are-We-Teaching-Composition/237969.

Seltzer, Jack. Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers. What Writing

is and how it does it, edited by Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior, Routledge, 2003, pp.

279 306.

Sommers, Jeff. Responding 2.0. Journal of College Literacy and Learning, vol. 39, no. 1,

2013, pp. 21- 37.

Straub, Richard. Responding Really Responding to Other Students Writing. Writing about

Writing: a College Reader, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs, 2nd ed.,

Bedford St. Martins, 2014, pp. 16-25.