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Writers develop over years; comments on any single paper need to help them move to what’s next. 

• You don’t need to comment on every possible aspect of any given project. Use your time to help the writer see what’s next. 
• Think of responding as more of a coaching session and less of an autopsy. 
• Use your assignments to begin a conversation about what sorts of learning you’re coaching. Then your comments on a project are part of a running conversation. If students know what your grading scheme values as they start their work, everyone is better off. 
• Recognize that learning to write well is a long process. 
• Comment with patience. No single set of comments is likely to cause immediate change in writers’ work. Comments build relationships. 
• Recognize that some errors result from inattention. Give students a chance to fix their own errors, and then decide which of the remaining ones to pursue over the course of the semester. 
• Have students respond to their own writing. Ask them to write you a letter, or a note, that tells you something about the work, such as their purpose in writing, their sense of strengths/weaknesses, their favorite piece of evidence, their sense of where they could go next, their report of how the peer review helped them. 

Helpful responses to student work contain these three elements, which keep students focused on specific goals for improvement. 

• Formative responses help learners improve​. Use commenting not just to explain why the student got the grade they did, but how they can improve in the future. This can include pointing to places where a student did well, and asking them to apply that same technique to other places in the essay, or giving longer explanations of a few errors, which will allow them greater context for their mistakes. 
• Offer timely responses, when it’s possible for students to learn and change​. This means turning feedback around quickly so it will be useful to students within the timeframe of your course. If possible, scaffold assignments where students can turn in drafts and receive feedback before they hand in a final, or allow assignments to follow a pattern that students can build on throughout their time with you. 
• Ensure that your comments are descriptive, goal-referenced, and directed​. Comments that relate directly to course and assignment goals can help students see the purpose of the feedback they receive more clearly. Knowing exactly what you are looking for in an assignment can also help you keep responding from becoming overwhelming, for both you and the student. 

Use these questions to guide your comments, so that students can see what actions they can take in their next assignments. 

• What did the student do?​ This includes both the things they did well and what they didn't do well. Understanding and pointing out what points they made, what their evidence was, how they structured their piece and the conclusions they drew gives both you and the student a picture of what has been accomplished. 
• What is the goal of the assignment?​ Rubrics, assignments and course goals can all create an outline which both you and the student are aware of, and allow for clarity of purpose and a common reference point. Bring these tools into your commenting to give you both structure. 
• What should the student do next? Helping the writer understand where to go from here is a crucial step in the process. Without it, responses can be frustrating to the student, and ultimately, won't be useful in their writing process. 

• Find ways to comment on student work before the final version is due. Don’t waste time making extensive comments on work that won’t be picked up, or on work that does not lead into another assignment. 
• Identify no more than four issues in a given assignment. Use a template: The strongest aspect of this project is…The one thing that would have most improved it is……What I’d suggest you work on for next time is… 
• Look for patterns of error and accomplishment. Don’t edit extensively (if you want to edit, choose only one paragraph to edit).  Students learn more from identifying their own errors than from dutifully correcting what you comment. 
• Don’t repeat responses from one person to another. Respond to the whole class when you can. 
• Try audio comments. 
• Have students respond to each other's work. Embed peer review practices into the writing processes you suggest or require and hold students responsible for using the peer review sessions to guide later writing and revision. Remember that students learn from doing peer review as well as from receiving peer reviews; these conversations are a way for them to use the terms of your course and discipline. 

• Have students generate something related to the start of the assignment—a research question, a topic, a method, an approach—and spend class time discussing those early steps. Taking some time for a public discussion of good—and not-so-good—first steps can save a lot of time later. 
• Share models of work you like and show students why you like it. 
• Tell students what to expect from your comments. Limit your comments to key criteria or skills and tell students that’s what you do. 
• Read through a set of essays—or sample the set—to get a sense of the range of responses.
• Skim an essay before beginning to respond to it, to get a feel for its best accomplishments and its weak spots. 

• Tell students what you see their work accomplishing. 
• Ask questions. 
• Look at how students’ paragraphs are structured and give them feedback on the size and organization of their paragraphs.
• Evaluate the main point or thesis in the student’s work. 
• Evaluate the overall organization of the paper and make specific observations about the strengths/weaknesses of that organization.  
• Make your own priorities clear. Novice writers can’t tell what’s most and least important (and if you make line edits in a section of the paper you also say needs major revision, what are you really telling students?). Be very clear about what are the top issues in your response and give specific suggestions for revising. 
• Have conferences when possible. A face-to-face conversation can go a long way. 

• Make your response a dialogue. Involving students in the final assessment process promotes motivation and engagement because it puts part of the responsibility back onto them. Hearing the writer’s take on their own work makes your response more personal. 

• Limit your responses to course or assignment goals. If your assignment sheet or course goals named specific criteria for success, use those to organize your responses. Try to connect your feedback to prior responses. What performance arc can you describe? 

• Highlight what matters now and for the future. Don’t waste time on comments that won’t carry forward. Describe your evaluation of the project in a way that helps them see ways to apply your insights in other contexts. Can your responses advise students on what they could extend/learn/build on in other courses? 

• Name patterns you see. Keep marginal comments limited, identifying examples of meaningful patterns of success or challenge. Don’t edit extensively, but offer specific ways to build on strengths and/or address challenges 

• Work smarter, not harder. Articulate your goal for this round of response, and limit your responding activities to what fits that goal. Maybe generate a template for your responses so that sentence-starters shape how you respond.