When my daughter was a baby, she was a terrible sleeper. I spent many early morning hours trying to find advice online from research, experts, and parents in similar situations. As surely as there was any piece of potentially helpful advice, there existed its polar opposite. "Keep the baby near you, so it can form a healthy attachment," one expert article might read. "Let the baby soothe itself, or it will never be independent," read the next. I sometimes feel the baby sleep debate is similar to the teacher feedback one. When it comes to this absolutely vital issue, one that plagues teachers and often drives them out of the profession, why can't research provide a more solid answer? One book calls for one approach, but there's another in the next. And the next. And the next.

Here's the thing. Baby sleep and writing feedback have something in common - they're complex, they're individual, and they're so difficult that many, many people have tried to offer creative solutions. So instead of lamenting all these often frustratingly different possible approaches anymore, I decided to go hunting for treasure. Today on the podcast, I'm sharing my distillation of the feedback landscape. Ideas to keep in mind as you approach the feedback process, so that you can help students as much as possible while sparing yourself unnecessary angst. Because when it comes down to it, I think it's waaaaaay more important that your students get to have you as a healthy, creative, energized teacher than it is for them to get an acre of feedback on their writing.

Sources:

Andersen, Carl (2000). How's it Going? Heinemann Educational Books.

Graham, S., MacArthur, C., & Hebert, M. (Eds). (2019). Best Practices in Writing Instruction. The Guilford Press.

Hillocks Jr., G. (2007). Narrative Writing: Learning a New Model for Teaching. Heinemann.

Kohn, Alfie (2020). Forward to Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), edited by Susan D. Blum, West Virginia University Press.

Perkins, David. (2009). Making Learning Whole. Jossey-Bass.

Terada, Youki and Stephen Merrill. (2024: November 8). "Why Teachers Should Grade Less Frequently." Edutopia Online. https://www.edutopia.org/article/why-teachers-should-grade-less-frequently

Zemelman, Daniels and Hyde. (2005). Best Practice. Heinemann.

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422: 7 Research-Backed Steps to Better, Easier Feedback in ELA