Reflection 2 - Grade: A+ PDF

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Really Responding- to Other Students Writing 1

Thought piece #2 Maxwell Sheehan Montana State University

Really Responding- to Other Students Writing 2

Responding to other people’s writing, and listening to other people's responses towards your own, is a critical part of writing and literacy. During the class discussion, we interpreted Richard Straub’s view on responding to writing. I like Straub’s idea of positive criticism and the ideas he has about what to do when responding and what not to do. My insight towards responding to other people’s writing is to provide an equal amount of praise and criticism, all the while trying to stay away from negative criticism. For example, instead of responding to a piece of writing by saying “ This sucks”, or “I don’t like these ideas”, I would rather explain to the writer what their work means to me, and how they could add to it or make it better under my own opinion. I also don’t want to plaster the individuals writing with an excessive amount of comments or criticism. What’s worked for me when responding to others writing is being specific, and responding in a way with criticism that I would benefit from as well. By being specific, this means telling the writer exactly what they might want to add detail to in order to sharpen the writing. As an example, instead of leaving a comment saying “add detail”, I would rather say something along the lines of, “I really enjoy what you are saying here, but how could you add more detail to this in order to clarify your idea?” I generally don’t like when people respond to my writing based on passed experiences. It seems as though in high school when students would peer review, there would be more spelling errors or grammar errors they caught in my writing rather than giving me some insight on how to help my main ideas improve, or how to add detail effectively. Like Straub explains, reviewing a paper by writing all over the person’s work and correcting grammar and spelling isn’t the point. The fact of the matter is growing as a writer is more important than growing as a speller. When someone is reviewing my writing, I would love if they could respond the way I respond to other people’s writing. This means telling the author exactly where you think they could maybe add more detail, providing questions, and giving suggestions. Responding to someone’s writing should not make you the new author. In other words it is their writing, and you should be respectful towards the piece while supporting them by giving suggestions, ideas, and praise. Obviously, responding to writing is an extremely important concept to understand and it is important to do so correctly, in order for the author to have the best outcome when looking back on their writing task....