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Balancing Praise with Constructive

Criticism on Student Papers

Josh Hendrickson, M.A. – SociologyHallie Meeker - Anthropology

Why Praise?

What is the purpose or goal of praise on student writing?

What is motivation?

What motivates your students?

What are your goals as in instructor?

What is the purpose of the writing assignment?

“Packaging”

Common Motivators

Power

Affiliation

Success

Ego / Esteem

Pay

Autonomy

Security

Equity

What other ways can we use to motivate students?

The best possible motivator is perhaps knowing how your students are as people.

Ineffective Praise

Vague praise

Forced praise

Incorrectly identified motivators

Conflicting messages

Effective Praise

Know the student.

Use the student’s name.

Be specific!

Tie assignments together.

Focus on learning objectives of the assignment.

Remember the hierarchy of rhetorical concerns.

Rhetorical Hiearchy

Purpose: what is the goal or objective for this piece of writing?

Audience: to whom are you writing?

Context: what are the current arguments and points-of-view on your topic? What format or genre does your audience expect—academic essay, business report, memo…?

Development: how much evidence do you need to support your argument or to clearly communicate your message? What types of evidence are appropriate for your purpose, audience, and context?

Organization: how should you organize your ideas to best meet the expectations of your audience?

Style: genre conventions, vocabulary, sentence structure, paragraphing

Conventions: grammar, spelling, punctuation

Balancing Praise & Criticism

What happens when there is too much praise?

Too little?

Introductory Classes with Multiple Assignment Types

Should all assignments be praised and constructively criticized equally?

What types of assignments (if any) should have more constructive criticism than praise?

Organizing Praise/Constructive Criticism

Think about different comment types Margin comments End notes

What do you want to stick with the student? What comments will be read first? Last?

Framing Praise and Constructive Criticism as

Tools, not an Attack

Students should want to seek constructive criticism to improve It should not be something that is dreaded

Being personable, even as a grader

Clearly differentiating between different assignment goals

Motivating Students with Different Interests

Being mindful of different studies

Making specific comments applicable to the big picture

Exercise

The following passage is from a student in ENG 102 at Middlesex Community College.

Read through the passage and using the guidelines covered earlier, identify areas of praise for this student.

Construct a short written response to this student that incorporates the feedback.

Tiara TrudelleCritical Essay for Drama

Debra Anderson

Nora from Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and Arthur from “On Tidy Endings” are very similar in nature. They are from two different worlds, living two very different lives, yet it is their devotion to the ones they love that make them very much the same person. The love they have for their life partner’s led them down an unsuspecting path which would fill their lives with happiness and a lot of heartache. The decisions they make along the way were very different from each other, but behind them lay the same intentions; everything they did they did for the people they loved. With these decisions came consequences and this helped develop who they would become. Comparing these two characters we find conflict in their methods but justification in their reasoning and the paths they decided to follow.