Responding to Student Writing

In “Responding to Student Writing” by Nancy Sommers, she talks about the importance teacher’s comments on students writings and how they need to encourage revising. Another thing that Sommers touches on is that most teachers write vague comments that could pertain to anyone’s paper and because of that students tend to get confused on what they're supposed to do to their paper. Sommer’s main argument is that comments from the teacher are supposed to help “show [the students] through [the teachers] comments why new choices would positively change their texts” for the better (346). 

Comments are important for writers because it shows some kind of guidance for the paper and it also gives the writer a view from the reader’s standpoint. Comments help the writer to see questionable composition that they are otherwise blind to. Sommers thinks that teachers tend to take the text away from the student in a sense that they stop focussing on what the teacher wants them to fix rather than continuing to think about what their purpose was in the first place. Sommers calls this appropriating the text. I would definitely agree with Sommers on this point because I’ve been in the situation where the teacher gave me very vague instructions. It’s sort of like a guessing game and by that time, I was focused on fixing what I was told to fix that I didn’t even realize what I was writing about anymore. 

Sommers states that teachers always correct grammar and give generic comments more than anything and that they aren’t useful in any way. Every paper and writer is different and using generic comments such as “needs thesis statement” or “use more detail” doesn’t help a student much because it could mean anything. As for spending time on grammar, it’s also a waste of time especially if it’s just the first draft. Sommers says that teachers need to start giving comments that are appropriate for the text that the student is writing. If it’s the first draft, there’s no need to spend time on grammar because that sentence that was supposed to be fixed might not even be in the paper at the end. 

I would say that I have to agree with Sommers in all points that she makes because I’ve written papers before and I’ve gotten comments from teachers and they do all of the things that Sommers says are not the best way to comment. I relate to being confused by the vague comments teachers leave and it’s not helpful at all. 

Sommers, Nancy. “Responding to Student Writing.” College Composition and Communication 33.2 (1982): 148-156. Web.