Broome Community College Writing Center

Responding to Student Writing Online -- Timesaving Tips

This handout was created for a Faculty Workshop intended for professors who teach and are preparing to teach online courses. The Writing Center and The Teaching Resource Center will offer this workshop again. Professors who have offered online courses speak positively about many aspects of the experience, but they express concern about the time they devote to responding to students' writing. What follows is a brief list of suggestions to help ease the load.

Create macros or boilerplates: To create macro comments in WORD (the process will be similar in Lotus Notes), click "tools," then "macros," then "record new macro." Name the macro with a short, easily recalled designation. An audio tape icon will appear next to the pointer. Type in your macro, which you can customize/edit for particular students. When you're finished, go to "Tools," "Macro," "Stop Recording." You can use macros with the "Comment" feature or by themselves (use a distinctive font and/or color).
You don't have to spend extra hours of labor creating macros: instead write them as you respond to students’ texts. Once you've published your list of writing criteria (something like: "What Makes for Effective Writing in Sociology 101?" or "English 111: Writing & Revision Checklist" or see BCC Writing Center’s Writing and Revising Checklist), you have several options:
- Link a short comment (such as "coherence") to an anchor (the corresponding explanation) on your writing criteria page. You can customize comments by adding or deleting text.
- Or keep track of the features of writing which you comment on most often (something like: "thesis, coherence, evidence, transitions."). When you comment on paper containing these problems, create your macro as you respond to a particular writer. The resulting macro/comment will probably be more genuine than one which you compose without a context.
- Link to websites’ pages, which offer specific explanations and advice, such as Purdue’s handouts. For example, this one covers coherence: "When sentences, ideas, and details fit together clearly, readers can follow along easily, and the writing is said to be coherent. It all ties together smoothly and clearly. Such comments inform or remind students of what "coherence" means. For more resources for writers and handbooks, see BCC Writing Center’s list of links.
Add some comments that are explicit to the writer and the paper, perhaps an end comment that synthesizes a few of the draft’s most significant strengths and weaknesses. (Here you might refer to the Fall ’99 BCC Faculty Workshop Series "Responding to Student Writing" resource packet for additional suggestions. Contact the Writing Center: swilliams@sunybroome.edu)
Consider alternatives to the traditional paradigm, in which each paper receives the teacher’s comments and a grade. Try a portfolio approach, perhaps assigning grades to writing only a few times during the semester. Try using peer review/response models, so the students become responsible for helping classmates improve their writing. With practice, modeling, and occasional input from you, students can provide genuinely useful feedback to their peers. Try using collaborative projects. Check-out the Writing Center's Resources for Faculty page for links to teaching tips.
Refer students to the Writing Center's on-line tutorial services.