First, what resonates with you?
Second, do you share the opinion of any of the students in this short documentary? Who? Why?
Third, without naming names, do teachers at Abington High School need to hear this message? Why?
Last, I am thinking of asking Ms. Sullivan to let me show it to the faculty at our next meeting.
- What should I tell her to make my argument most convincing?
- What do you think faculty would get out of the experience?
- What would be the benefit to students?
I agree with all of these students. Teachers should make their comments more detailed so we know exactly what they're talking about and exactly what we need to fix in our writing. If we're unsure what they're trying to say, then it's impossible to change things. If they're more detailed, we're actually learning. If they just cross out a word, we're not seeing WHY what we're doing in wrong, we just know it take it out. Teachers can also be a little hurtful with their comments because they're so blunt that we're not sure if they mean well, and they aren't encouraging us. Obviously, the grammar and spelling are very important but it seems like teachers care about that stuff more than actually looking deep into our writing and seeing the true meaning of what we're trying to say. I've had teachers whos comments don't help at all. They tell us exactly what to change but don't know how to say it in a way that will help more. I think that Ms. Sullivan should show all the teachers this so they could see what it's like from a real student's perspective, and maybe they should read the blog posts we're writing so they see how Abington High School students are feeling about this.
ReplyDeletei agree with the girl that said sometimes it feels like when teachers just go through crosssing out words that theyre just looking at the grammar and not the idea behind what you are writing. i also agreed with the guy that said teachers should use a sweet/sour approach to writing comments not too musch of one and not the other, but an even amount of both. i think abington teachers could benefit from this because all teachers comment differently so seeing ways that students think is a good way to comment without hurting their feelings might make them realize they were being harsh with comments and should change that.
ReplyDeleteI think this dvd is a good thing to show the teachers because a lot of the points brought up in the dvd are true. I think basically eerything they said was true. AHS teachers should most definitely watch this because most of them do the things the students brought up in the documentary.
ReplyDeleteTo ask Ms.Sullivan to show this video you should show her and tell her that students should be able to read their teachers comments and have the teachers not say such negative comments. The teachers would definitely go silent when they watch this because most of them will realize they are doing these things.If things progress the students will be much happier and do much better.
I don's share the viewpoints of the students in the video. They come across as cry babies, who only want good comments. When they get bad comments they complain but when they get a good comment the "sun shines all day." Your supposed to figure out why your papers bad, and use that to write a better paper. If they give you only goood comments that doesn't help because it comes across as if you did everything right. You use the comments to write a better paper.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the teachers at this school need to hear this message. I think that what they're doing now is fine, and I don't see anything wrong with their correcting techniques.
like most said, comments should show/tell us what we did wrong and how to make it better next time. Also do not use destructive criticism use gentle criticism or constructive criticism. Be more suggestive and helpful not being demanding and a strict way of doing things. I think that using this 8 minute video to educcate critics and teachers, would benefit both students and teachers.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that video. I also thought everything thing those students said. Most teachers/ professors have unique ways of writing and commenting and sometimes it is confusing for the students to understand what the teacher meant. I know that when i get a paper back and see a lot of red, I autimatically get discouraged. So when all I see is words crossed out, arrows and just random phrases like, "not good" or "explain" I hate it. I honestly hate it. I think that as the teacher, they should do just that. Teach us how to be better writers and editors. They should suggest what we should do, instead of just say what we did wrong. If a teacher was to watch this video, I think that they would further understand how much their corrections really mean, and maybe put more thought into what they put down. Such as instead of "explain" they could say "explain more by using examples and the 5w's"
ReplyDeleteI think showing this video to faculty would definitely be worthwhile because i think it will perhaps make other teachers realize things they have been doing 'wrong'. It may make them think twice before destroying a students' paper because of various mistakes, and could make them look at the positive aspects as well. They may also attempt to make comments make as much sense as possible to the student.
ReplyDeleteI think this documentary explains exactly how me and my classmates feel about teachers commenting on our work. I agree with one of the male students when he says that one word comments don't really help such as "good" or "bad". Also, i dislike when teachers comment things like "explain" or leave question marks. I want to know what they want me to explain more and what they do don't understand.
ReplyDeleteI do believe teachers at Abington high can benefit from watching this video to break some of their habits. As silly as it sounds, their comments can make a huge diffrence in our understanding and writing.
It is a great idea to show this video to the faculty because some of the teachers can really learn and benefit from this. Also, it informs the teachers that maybe they need to do a better job on fixing or helping us with our papers so a better understanding betweeen us and the teachers can be made.
I think that what the studentswere saying on this were very true on the first part of the movie. Teachers really do need to be more specific in their comment and tell us more about why they said something was "wrong" or "bad". This is the only way to help us grow as writers and also i 100% agree that when teachers only write negitive comments i tend to not care about what they have to say anymore becasue i feel like all they are doing is criticizing me and that what i thought was so good is all wrong. It would be nice and encourge me to keep trying to improve my writing if they told me the parts what were good or outstanding. yes all the teachers could really benifit from this and u could just tell Ms.Sullivan that kids will be more motivated to learn and do better on papers if they are getting praised for things rather than just getting yelled at for somthing they didnt want to do in the first place. This would lead to higher grades and that helps make our school as a whole look better.
ReplyDeletei can relate this this very very much because i have been in some of the same situations as they have. I believe that the comments on a paper really mean a lot to a student, you can't only give them whats bad or only give them whats good but you have to give them a little of both. i most likely relate to the guy who said you need sweet and sour. You need the sweet before the sour so it can put you ina good mood then they give you suggestions not demands on what they should try to do to improve for next time. Many teachers at abington high school are like this because mostly all they do is cross stuff out or write doesnt fit or something along those lines. That doesnt help out at all becasue all it does is say waht you did wrong and nothing on what you did good or what you can do to improve. A major benifit to the students would be that it will help them improve for next time.
ReplyDeleteWhat resonated with me was the final scene when the students each gave a suggestion to their professors about how they should comment. The only way teachers will know that their point is being made through comments is if they know what the students are looking for in the comments. I share the opinion that you should put "sweet before sour" because seeing a discouraging comment before anything else may make you not want to read the others. If a student does not read all their comments they will not know how to improve their papers. putting a constructive comment first would encourage the student to keep reading the other comments and make positive changes. I think that teachers at AHS could definitely benefit from seeing this video because some it can be helpful to any teacher to see how students perceive their comments on papers.
ReplyDeleteThe part of the documentary that stood out most to me is when the students said teachers need to show the students that comments are there to help them not to shut them down. The opinion I agreed witht the most was the one about comments should start a coversation not end one. I agreed with this the most because it shows the point that a good comment will help a student by getting them to ask questions, while a completely negative one will put them down and cause them to think all their paper/work was bad. I think teachers at AHS should see this because it allows them to see ho students think.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there should be a balance of encouragement and criticism when teachers are correcting papers. It's never a good feeling when a teacher just marks up your paper and corrects everything that's wrong without including a few comments about the points they thought were strong or parts the student did well. A lot of teachers dont write enough about why something's wrong or bad, they just say that it is. It doesn't help any if you don't understand why you went wrong with a certain thought or sentence, and some teachers don't really consider that. Abington teachers could definitely benefit from this video, and the students also would as a result.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone on the video about how comments can just ruin one's day and make you feel insecure about what you wrote. Also about how some teachers don't finish their comment. Like Jorge said, the word bad doesn't tell us anything. Is the way it was written bad? Or just you don't like the way I'm thinking on a certain topic? Also when we, students, get that one compliment on our writing it does make your whole day a lot brighter. It shows us that, "hey maybe all that time I put into this essay was worth it." Also it shows that our writing wasn't as bad as we thought.
ReplyDeleteFor telling Ms. Sullivan about the video, I would if I was you show her the comments we leave on the blog because then it will let teachers know that we all feel the same way about the comments left on our writings and what it makes one believe. I think the faculty would get that maybe they should think before what they write down and elaborate on it. The benefit for the students are if the teachers do listen to this video, then we will now understand what that particular teacher wants from us when writing and what some of their comments mean.
I think teachers would benefit from seeing the video. I feel that teeachers correct moreso for grammar than they do for the ideas inside the paper itself. Seeing it might let them know how students feel when they turn in a paper. There is a lot of time and effort put into essays, and the typical corrections that teachers make don't help the writer to understand what they did wrong. In this way, they don't learn from their mistakes, they just know that they messed up. This could make a student want to give up after knowing what they worked hard on didn't have anything positive in it. Positive comments, corrections about what was written, and letting the students know what they did wrong would make correcting of papers more effective.
ReplyDeleteAll of the students in this video brought up very good points on how teachers could improve the way they comment on papers, making it easier for the writer to read and allow them to become more friendly with writing. I thought the spiky hair guy had a good idea when he said you should bring some sweet before the sour. I think it is important to get constructive criticism, but it well make things much more pleasant if their are compliments to go along with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the students in the video and think that teachers here at AHS could definitely benefit from watching this video. I like how they said to suggest in your comments on the paper, don't just say it is bad, suggest what you can do to improve it. I also like the student that said "sweet before the sour". teachers should give the student the good news before the bad news, encourage them and praise them about what is good about the paper, then say what can be fixed. It will leave the students still feeling confident but knowing they need to improve. If teachers just write the bad things and dont't explain, the students are just left hanging and get nothing from it but feeling shot down. But on the other hand, the students should be able to figure what they need to improve on by reading the comments the way they are.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with everything these students are saying. I also think that teachers shouldn't just write "bad" or "good" or awkward". Students think that what they write is right, the whole essay shouldn't be graded on how well they wrote it, but the idea behind it.(unless it's supposed to be mainly on grammer) The students would benefit from the teachers more longer and detailed responses because they could understand what the teacher is trying to get across, instead of trying to deciefer the short one/two word notes. I think the faculty would greatly benefit from this film. I think so because it shows real students explaining what they expect/want from their teachers. Most of the time students in AHS don't tell their teachers that they don't understand what they are saying, but they should. So instead of the teachers brushing it off because they think the kids understand, now they can get it from other students perspectives and work on how to make their comments better.
ReplyDeleteWhat reasonates with me from this short documentary is that a lot of teachers do not give a descriptive response to something that has taken time, hard work, effort and determination. I share a few opinions with all of the students in the documentary because in the past I have gotton essays back that I do not get the best grade on and there is really no reason to why I did not get a higher mark. Yes, I do think that teachers at AHS need to hear this message because sometimes I feel like teachers do not take time to completely read essays because they have so many to correct. It would be nice to get a response telling what I could have done to make the essay better. Having a teacher give a more clear response to what area of writing I was struggling in could also help me in the future. I feel like sometimes I get an essay back and never find out what I did wrong and keep getting low marks because I do not know what to improve. A little message attached to the essay would also give me more determination to do better on essays and other peices of writing in the future.
ReplyDeleteIn the meeting, I think you should tell Ms. Sullivan that students like to get descriptive feedback on their work because then they know what to improve. I think the faculty would benefit from this documentary at the meeting because then they can realize that they might not be taking the time that they should to correct essays and other writings and then improve their correcting techniques in the future. The benefits to the students would be that they could now have motavation to write better and notice what they are doing wrong and what they could do to improve.
I agree with some things that the students said but not all. I agree that there should be both good and bad papers, because no paper can be perfect. It doesn't help if you are only told what is good about your paper, because if you didn't think it was good it wouldn't be in the paper in the first place. I also agree that the teachers should 'suggest' things not demand them. This is because maybe the teacher doesn't agree with what you said or how you said it, but depending on the topic you're entitled to an opinion. I think that the teachers of Abington would benefit from this video, and maybe the teachers who are 'good'commenters based on student opinion could hold a class or something about how to comment.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the "sweet before the sour" resinates with me because once you get an awful mark it makes the rest of the decent comments pretty much invisible and they mean nothing. I agree with the students that said to write shorter comments. I dont remember names, but when a teacher writes a long comment its like seeing a huge math problem, you just dont want to read or do it. I believe students should see this video because i have not had an english teacher whose comments i can read. Usually they are in some sort of cursive mess that i have to decipher, and then i can barely understand what they mean. You should tell ms Sullivan to watch it and see for herself that the students dont like professors remarks. I think the faculty would change their way of writing comments after watching this.
ReplyDeleteI loved this video because it was so true. I could relate to all of the people in this video in little ways. The comment that stuck with me most was when the boy talked about one word answers like "good" and "bad". What do they mean? What is so good or bad about them? I also liked the sweet and sour idea, it is hard hwen you get a papaer back that you work so hard on and someone just rips it apart. Comments the boost your confidence and make you think you can improve are so much better to reas. I also can relate because when I get a paper back and I dont understand that comments I just ignore them. I think this video should absoutly be shown to the AHS faculty!
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