Teacher Feedback and Children's Creative Writing Development

Introduction

According to a seasoned author of the British Educational Research Journal, "Education without educational research can be governed by dogma, superstition, tradition, and other forms of prejudice about what will work well and be 'good for' those involved in the educational process." (Murphy 1996) Education is an ongoing process, and even the most experienced teacher remains a student as well. It has always been the goal of parents, teachers, and mentors to provide the best possible start in life for young children. Education is the foundation for a productive, successful life, and the ability to craft and comprehend language is one of the greatest skills learned during the school years.

It can be a challenge to motivate students to write, as well as a challenge to help them develop their abilities in this area through any means. It has been discovered through years of trial and error, as well as carefully formulated research, that feedback is essential to the learning process of students. In the area of creative writing in particular, students may find it difficult to develop skills when presented with a letter grade or numerical score as their only source of feedback. Students must receive feedback that can actually answer their questions and keep them on a path to literary success. It is the major goal of this study to examine the effect of a teacher's written feedback on creative writing and how this aids children's progression in creative writing. This project aims to investigate the effect of a variety of written forms of feedback used to mark children's work, and how these affect the quality of subsequent pieces of creative writing.

A great deal of research has been done regarding the effects of teacher feedback on the development of creative writing in children. In reviewing the literature on this subject, a common thread can be found declaring that traditional methods of feedback may not be the most effective methods available for encouraging and developing children's writing, and that a more inclusive approach must be taken to best serve the needs of children. The following review of literature will give an overview of current theories relating to how teacher feedback affects children's progression in writing.

The author of Children's Minds (Donaldson 1989) warns teachers and other mentors involved in the education of children to avoid labeling students as failures, which is a common occurrence in many traditional methods of "grading" children's work. "If the child is defined as a failure he will almost certainly fail, at any rate in the things which the definers value; and perhaps later he will hit out very hard against those who so defined him." (Donaldson 1989) Marking a child's writing assignment with a grade that represents failure may be a way of defining that child as a failure. Children must be respected in their creativity and achievements. However, it is also harmful to children to provide them with false or meaningless praise in the name of avoiding negative definitions. A child will often be the most accurate judge of his or her achievements and progress, and therefore it is very important that the feedback given to children genuinely help them achieve more and strive for higher standards for their own sake.

Literature Review

Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between early reading skills and self-image (Donaldson 1989), meaning that it is not only the feedback received that influences a child's self-esteem and motivation, but also actual achievement. The ability and skill level of the child must be assessed with both sensitivity and objective accuracy; mistakes, errors, and shortcomings of the written work should not be ignored for the sake of the child's feelings, but rather used as an opportunity to guide progress and constructively critique the work. Unfortunately, there is no specific formula for teaching and feedback that ensures this ideal is reached in the classroom. Teachers must accept that errors will occur and respond to them in a constructive way; one author refers to this as the true art of teaching, for there is no fixed set of rules to follow. "Obviously much depends on the child's personality. Ways that work with a passive withdrawn child will not work with a hyperactive impulsive one." (Donaldson 1989)

It remains vital to avoid traditional methods of rewarding "good work" regardless of how this art is crafted. Giving rewards — such as gold stars or special privileges — for achievements in writing will not only define those who do not receive them as failures, but will also discourage children from engaging in writing voluntarily when no rewards are present. These prizes are removed from the act of writing itself, and teachers must find ways to use feedback to help children excel in and enjoy writing for the sake of writing.

The compilation of research presented in "Grading Students' Classroom Writing: Issues and Strategies" (ERIC 2001) deals further with the issues and questions that must be addressed when approaching the grading of students' writing. Concerns include how to create effective writing assignments, how to maintain a fair and professional sense of judgment, how to include students in the assessment process, and how to formulate the most helpful feedback. "When the grade is abstracted from the grading process, students may be left wondering how a grade was derived… evaluation may be severed from the process of writing." (ERIC 2001) Students should be able to learn how to approach writing, as well as how to evaluate their own writing and the writing of their peers, from the evaluation and feedback process.

"A powerful way to promote students' learning is to involve them in the grading process… Students' involvement also includes self-assessments. Providing effective feedback to students will help them learn to revise their writing." (ERIC 2001) Ineffective forms of feedback identified here include cryptic responses, negative responses, and excessive response, all of which primarily focus on the negative and on errors. A positive approach is more constructive, including creating a dialogue when writing responses, refraining from unnecessary criticism, providing good writing models, and summarizing all marginal comments at the end. "Positive, well-written responses perfect the art of providing effective feedback to students and serve as models of desirable writing." (ERIC 2001)

Sean Hawthorne (2004) addresses the concerns of apathy and disinterest among students, and the importance of finding ways to motivate students to write. "Language development is essential to intellectual growth… Given this understanding of the importance of English, it is disconcerting that many students remain disengaged." (Hawthorne 2004) Hawthorne mentions the "process writing" and "whole-language" approaches to writing in the classroom, as well as noting the lack of information available regarding motivating children to write. There are four conditions that enhance the motivation to write: "(1) Nurturing functional beliefs about writing. (2) Fostering student engagement through authentic writing goals and contexts. (3) Providing a supportive context for writing. (4) Creating a positive emotional environment in which to write." (Bruning & Horn 2000, in Hawthorne 2004) Without motivation, students will not apply themselves to writing.

Feedback is a fundamental part of motivating students to write. Studies have found that low achievers will attribute success or failure to external factors beyond their control, such as luck. This relates back to the concerns raised by Donaldson (1989) that traditional reward methods for encouraging writing are not effective, as they cause students to dissociate writing from internal and intrinsic factors. "Good writers tended to believe that writing aided memory, learning, organization and thinking… [and was] a means of personal expression and exploration and a way of communicating thoughts and feelings. Poor writers… believed that writing was done primarily as school 'work'… engaging in writing for the purposes of doing their work, getting it right, and making a finished product which could be assessed by the teacher." (Hawthorne 2004) Feedback methods should strive to erase this gap between "good" and "bad" student writers' understanding of the importance of writing and language. "The common practice of giving grades to students for their writing is counter-productive… this is a form of assessment that does not give the writer very useful feedback on how they can improve." (Hawthorne 2004) Goal-setting as a form of feedback, used in conjunction with other feedback methods, can be highly motivating because it encourages students to persist with an activity over an extended period of time, and challenging goals will help students reach their potential.

In Students' Roles in Formative Assessment by the Standards Site Department for Education and Skills (2005), the importance of commenting on students' work — rather than emphasizing the grade or score — is underscored. The feedback given on a piece of writing must offer guidance on how the work can be improved, or else it becomes useless in the development of the student writer. In fact, studies have shown that written comments are often ignored by students if the paper has also received a grade. According to one teacher, "Previously I would have marked the work and graded it and made a comment. The pupils only saw the mark and/or credit. After a credit they lost any motivation to improve. Now they get credit only after we have gone over the work so they have an incentive to understand the work." (Standards 2005) Teachers and students may both benefit from moving away from giving grades on writing and instead providing written comments only.

While technology has offered a great many services to young writers, there is also the threat of further depersonalization of the writing process. In some classrooms, computers — not teachers — are grading students' writing. (Sedensky 2005) Glorified spelling- and grammar-check programs cycle through student writing and assign a score without a teacher ever reviewing the work. "Like other essay-grading software, it analyzes sentences and paragraphs, looking for keywords as well as the relationship between terms. Other programs compare a student's paper with a database of already-scored papers, seeking to assign it a score based on what other similar-quality assignments have received." (Sedensky 2005) While some advocates of such technology boast about teachers' ability to assign written work without fear of the grading workload, this sends a dangerous message to students. If teachers are not willing to take the time to review and give personal feedback on writing, students will certainly not feel obligated to devote maximum effort to the process.

It may be argued that removing subjectivity from grading written work is a benefit of such technology; in fact, this is one of its most significant failings. There is no set formula for evaluating and providing feedback to students — it must be an individualized process. A computer-generated score does not provide constructive feedback and will discourage students from seeing writing as an important process rather than a mandatory school activity. "What you're learning, really, is how to cheat the program," (Sedensky 2005) not how to become an effective writer.

The book Teaching English (Brindley 1995) reminds us that "very close reading of children's writing is essential, because that is the best means we have of understanding their writing processes. Children value perceptive comments, responses and questions on their writing, but they quickly see through perfunctory approval and generalized faint praise." (Britton, in Brindley 1995) When teachers respond with flippant or negative feedback, students are likely to respond in much the same way as they would with a computer reading their work — producing sterile writing that focuses on giving the teacher only what is acceptable, avoiding anything that might not fit the teacher's requirements. Feedback should instead foster confidence, experimentation with language, and active learning.

Jason Gordon Williams (2003) reviews methods of feedback common in written assignments for students of English as a second language, though his work is equally relevant to native English speakers. The two main kinds of feedback, as defined by Williams, are feedback on form and feedback on content. Feedback on form includes corrections of surface errors, indicating the location and type of error, or simply pointing out surface errors. Feedback on content most commonly takes the form of written comments. Feedback on form has been found to overemphasize the negative and therefore be ineffective in developing quality writing skills; however, feedback on content can only be more effective if the comments are not vague, contradictory, or inconsistent. Feedback on content is most effective when the location of the error is indicated but the student actively figures out the problem and how to fix it; indirect feedback may thus be more effective than direct correction. Written feedback is particularly effective when student-teacher conferencing also takes place.

Bush and Santi (2004) explain that in both feedback on form and feedback on content it is important to focus on the most significant aspects of the corrections that need to be made. "When students turn in papers with typos, misspellings, or errors in grammar, teachers may be inclined to go ballistic with their red pens… correcting or editing such weaknesses should not be where you spend your time. Get to the meat of the matter — a student's ideas and how he or she has structured them." (Bush & Santi 2004) It is suggested that teachers make their first comments on ideas and organization of the written piece, rather than on grammatical errors. Making positive comments and giving a closing comment that shows genuine interest in the student's ideas are very beneficial to the writing process. Avoiding over-commenting and providing comments on specific passages — rather than vague, nonspecific remarks — are also recommended. Bush and Santi also highlight the potential benefits of peer review for writing, where students use structured review sessions to provide feedback on each other's work in groups or one-on-one sessions.

In Unlocking Writing (Williams 2002), the concept of teaching at the point of writing is discussed. Traditional feedback on student writing takes place after the writing is complete, rather than during the entire writing process. "Teaching at the point of writing focuses on demonstrating and exploring the decisions that writers make in the process of composition. This emphasis is complemented by the encouragement of shared writing and a focus on particular aspects of the writing process: planning, composing, revising, editing and redrafting…" (Williams 2002)

Jones (2002) notes the importance of good writing skills in determining the influence a student will have later in life. Children's writing is, unfortunately, usually "brief and fragmentary… lacking a clear sense of purpose." (Jones 2002) Most teachers are more comfortable teaching reading than writing, so little emphasis is placed on the importance of writing, and students will achieve much higher in reading while writing ability lags behind. The process approach to writing treats the stages of the writing process as equally important to the finished product. These stages include making decisions, planning, drafting, responding, presenting and publishing, and reflecting. This allows children to experiment with how writing works, gain an understanding of its processes, and build confidence as they master each stage.

Using writing frames in the drafting stages of writing is beneficial for both student and teacher. "They provide a structure and direction for children's ideas on a chosen topic and act as a scaffold to support the writer. Writing frames are designed to encourage informed dialogue between teachers and children and children and their peers." (Jones 2002) Additionally, working with students during this process allows teachers to identify where strengths and weaknesses in writing actually exist for each individual, enabling highly constructive feedback. "It also allows the teacher to intervene effectively at critical stages in the process." (Jones 2002)

The purpose of this section is to present the qualitative methodology used to establish the specific aims of this study, which are as follows:

1. The variety of written feedback styles typically used (such as full written details, grading, target setting, etc.) and the relationship between these and the previously discussed research; 2. The current abilities of the children in the research group; 3. The kinds of creative writing the children will undertake during the research project, with clear objectives; 4. The opinions of the children regarding the styles of written feedback they prefer and the reasons for this preference; and 5. Comparisons of the styles of written work the children are asked to undertake and how this is differentiated.

Methodology

The Literature Review reveals that the traditional grading system is not the most effective form of feedback for students' writing. Creative writing projects in particular require a great deal of thought regarding the kind of feedback given to the student. Various methods of feedback include both verbal and written feedback, ranging from very brief, nonspecific comments to lengthy, detailed comments. The most effective feedback a teacher can give for writing is specific, positive, and constructive, and is itself an example of well-formed writing. Children must be encouraged to enjoy the writing process and to be actively involved in goal-setting and process writing. Students should be encouraged to experiment and have confidence in their work, as well as learning how to honestly appraise their own achievements.

The best way to research the effects of different feedback methods on students' creative writing is to work with students directly. Evidence for this project was derived from examples of children's writing obtained through an actual classroom activity with a group of students. From the example classroom, a focus group of six students representing the full range of achievement levels was chosen based on writing performance from previous assignments: two average-ability pupils, two higher-ability pupils, and two lower-ability pupils. The makeup of the focus group was as follows:

1. [Student] — Average Ability Pupil; 2. [Student] — Average Ability Pupil; 3. [Student] — Higher Ability Pupil; 4. [Student] — Higher Ability Pupil; 5. [Student] — Lower Ability Pupil; 6. [Student] — Lower Ability Pupil (also has Asperger's Syndrome).

This gives a complete range of writing abilities found within the student population of this class. This focus group participated along with the rest of the class in several writing assignments of different styles, receiving various types of feedback throughout. An important note must be acknowledged regarding the composition of the focus group. While there is equal representation at each writing ability level, there is not an equal gender split: both average-ability pupils are female, though the lower- and higher-ability groups each have an equal gender division. This was a conscious decision, as gender differences — while an important aspect of motivational and developmental factors in writing — fall outside the scope of this study. Gender differences therefore represent a delimitation of this research and will not be addressed in depth.

A further component of the methodology involved interviews with two distinct groups. The children of the focus group were interviewed at the commencement of the project about the styles of feedback they had previously received. This interview consisted of the following four questions:

1. What kind of marking do you like to see in your book after you have done some writing in literacy? 2. When you see a comment in your book, do you read it again to see how you can improve your work? 3. What styles of written feedback or marking have other teachers used that you either really liked or really disliked? 4. Do you prefer written or verbal instructions at the start of the lesson?

An important consideration when interviewing the focus group of students is the difference inherent in interviewing children versus adults. The acknowledgment of children themselves as a valid source of information about their own feelings, abilities, and behaviors is considered a relatively recent phenomenon. "Most of what we know about interviewing we know from interviewing adults, from our experience being interviewed as adults, and from research done on adult interviewing." (Garbarino 1992) A further delimitation of this study must therefore be acknowledged: an accurate and consistent technique for interviewing children is difficult or perhaps impossible to achieve. Interviews are inherently sources of potential misinformation due to interviewer and respondent errors, among other factors. These interviews will therefore not be interpreted verbatim but rather taken broadly and at face value.

Interview questions were also asked of a small focus group of teachers, in order to help understand the effectiveness and shortcomings of feedback methods from the other point of view. The interview questions asked of teachers included the following:

1. What types of feedback methods have you used with students in the past? 2. Which of these feedback methods do you still use today, and which have you chosen to discontinue? (Alternatively, which feedback methods do you plan or expect to discontinue in the future?) 3. Why have you selected these methods of feedback? 4. What specific obstacles do you feel interfere with the ability to provide constructive feedback in the classroom?

Two lessons were incorporated into this study. Both followed an abbreviated process writing model based on the following simple writing frame: Brainstorming → Outline → Draft → Final Piece.

The topic of Lesson A was "A Dilemma." Other than this suggestion, the children were given a great deal of freedom in choosing the subject of their short story, with each child choosing their own dilemma. To aid the thought process, a Spider Chart was used for brainstorming. The class worked together on this chart on the board for basic ideas, and each student then created his or her own Spider Chart consisting of a one- or two-sentence outline of the dilemma, followed by a flow chart showing the progression of the dilemma through the story in connected bubbles. This visual representation shows how thoughts may be "bounced" around to reach a decision. This outline received feedback, and the student then proceeded to write a draft and finally a finished story, with final feedback given.

The writing prompt for Lesson B used a variety of everyday objects to trigger the children's imagination. The same writing frame was followed but with different methods: instead of a Spider Chart, the children used "idea cards" to brainstorm. Each card contained one element the student wished to incorporate into the final story, and the cards were then reorganized to form the action sequence of the plot. A draft was then created with the help of some teacher feedback, and a final draft produced.

Two very different approaches to feedback styles were used in Lesson A and Lesson B. In Lesson A, feedback was brief and supportive but not overly specific, given after the outline or chart was created. In Lesson B, far more detailed feedback was incorporated, with specific points addressed on how the children's work could be improved. Lesson A used a minimalistic approach to give students the most creative freedom, while Lesson B risked being too prescriptive and potentially reducing that freedom. Both methods were expected to yield positive and negative effects, which were then evaluated.