Managing the Stack: Effective, Efficient Commenting on Student Papers
a Teaching Matters Workshop on February 16, 2007
led by Bill FitzGerald, Department of English

Please take several minutes to reflect upon your own practices with respect to responding to your students' writing. A few prompts: What forms (written, oral, individualized, general, etc.) does that response typically take? What aspects of written work do you typically comment on? How much time, on average, do you spend reading and responding to an 'average' paper?  How, in particular, do you use that time? How are you likely to distribute your responding efforts in line editing, marginal comments, and end-notes? At what stages in the 'life-cycle' of a writing assignment do you typically respond, e.g., drafts, final papers? What role does the timing of those responses play in the manner and extent of your efforts? In what ways do you link and/or distinguish your practices of evaluating/grading and your response practices? What forms of management do you employ in service of efficiency and effectiveness?