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Slide Notes
This Haiku Deck is based on Peter Elbow's book: Writing With Power. This is Chapter 21 in which he discusses Criterion-Based and Reader-Based Feedback. Dr. Wafa Hozien uses this in her Dissertation Seminar course and other courses to teach students how to give constructive feedback on academic writing.
Constructive Writing Feedback
Published on Nov 26, 2015
This Haiku Deck is based on Peter Elbow's book: Writing With Power. This is Chapter 21 in which he discusses Criterion-Based and Reader-Based Feedback. Dr. Wafa Hozien uses this in her Dissertation Seminar course and other courses to teach students how to give constructive feedback on academic writing.
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Writing with Power: Reader Feedback
Wafa Hozien, Ph.D
This Haiku Deck is based on Peter Elbow's book: Writing With Power. This is Chapter 21 in which he discusses Criterion-Based and Reader-Based Feedback. Dr. Wafa Hozien uses this in her Dissertation Seminar course and other courses to teach students how to give constructive feedback on academic writing.
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Agenda
- Criterion-based and Reader-based Feedback
- Virtues of Criterion-based Feedback
- Virtues of Reader-based Feedback
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Criterion-Based Feedback
- Tells You. . .
- Helps you find out how your
- writing measures up to certain criteria.
- Most often used in judging
- expository or nonfiction writing
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Four Broad Fundamental Questions
- What is the quality of the content of the writing; the ideas, the perceptions, the point of view?
- How well is the writing organized?
- How effective is the language?
- Are there mistakes or inappropriate choices in usage?
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Narrow Questions to Ask
- Is the basic idea a good one?
- Is it supported with logical reasoning or valid argument?
- Are there too many abstractions and too few examples or concrete details?
- Is the whole thing unified rather that pulling in two or three conflicting directions?
- Are the sentences clear and readable?
Dr. Wafa Hozien Note: Peter Elbow in Chapter 22 discusses twenty-four of theses questions grouped under the four general questions
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Three Broad Fundamental Questions
- What was happening to you, moment by moment, as you were reading the piece of writing?
- Summarize the writing: give your understanding of what it says or what happened in it.
- Make up some images for the writing and the transaction it creates with you.
To get reader-based feedback you ask readers three broad fundamental questions:
What was happening to you, moment by moment, as you were reading the piece of writing?
Summarize the writing: give your understanding of what it says or what happened in it.
Make up some images for the writing and the transaction it creates with you.
What was happening to you, moment by moment, as you were reading the piece of writing?
Summarize the writing: give your understanding of what it says or what happened in it.
Make up some images for the writing and the transaction it creates with you.
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What to consider when summarizing your understanding?
- What mood or voice do you hear in the words?
- What kind of people does the writer seem to be talking to: people in the know? Nincompoops? Interested amateurs?
- How is the writer giving it to you: willingly? Slyly? Grudgingly hitting you over the head with it?
Chapter 23 contains forty-one of these specific questions grouped under the three general questions
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Criterion-Based Feedback Encourages
reader to tell you about the reactions he had which give rise to his statement about unity or paragraphs or spelling.
Reader - Cannot give you a piece of criterion-based feedback except on the basis of something having happened inside him; nor can a reader give you a piece of reader-based feedback without at least implying a criterion of judgment or perception.
What is its quality
- Use to if you want
messages about the
writing
How does it work
- Use to know why
happened in the
reader
That would seem to indicate that you should always ask for criterion-based feedback since it is writing you are trying to work on, not psychology.
What is its quality
- Use to if you want
messages about the
writing
How does it work
- Use to know why
happened in the
reader
That would seem to indicate that you should always ask for criterion-based feedback since it is writing you are trying to work on, not psychology.
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Reader-Based Feedback Encourages
reader to tell you what it was in the writing that caused these reaction in him---was it the logic, the use of evidence, the diction, or what?
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Crucial Questions
- How does it measure up against certain criteria?
- Good sentence* Good logic *Good Paragraphs
- How does it work on readers?
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Virtues of Criterion-based Feedback
- Feedback *Easy to Understand
- Checklist for Revisions
- Helps You Isolate
- Inquire about a couple of areas
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Virtues of Criterion-Based Feedback
- Pay attention to a broad range of qualities
- Good for readers who are reluctant to talk about their own reaction
- Good if you want to work on your conscious understanding of the criteria used in judging writing
- Useful for readers who must comment on many pieces of writing in on sitting or in a comparatively short time.
- Permit you to read with less than full attention and still give accurate feedback on specific criteria
Feedback that you have received from a teacher (we are accustomed to this type of feedback)
Ease to understand and you can figure out how to improve your writing if someone tells you what is not clear
You can use the feedback questions as a checklist for revisions.
Helps you isolate troublesome aspects of your writing, concentrate on them in revising and in future writing.
You can zoom in and inquire about a couple of areas.
Ease to understand and you can figure out how to improve your writing if someone tells you what is not clear
You can use the feedback questions as a checklist for revisions.
Helps you isolate troublesome aspects of your writing, concentrate on them in revising and in future writing.
You can zoom in and inquire about a couple of areas.
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Virtues of Reader-Based Feedback
- Improvement Focused* Trustworthy
- In charge of the Process *Available *Helpful
- Emphases the Practical Question *Efficient *Necessary
- Most Trust Feedback Because:
- you are only asking for “raw data”—what they saw and what was happening to them as they read
If you have one reader it will help him to pay attention to a broad range of qualities in the writing
Good for readers who are reluctant to talk about their own reaction
Good if you want to work on your conscious understanding of the criteria used in judging writing
Useful for readers who must comment on many pieces of writing in on sitting or in a comparatively short time.
Permit you to read with less than full attention and still—if you are practiced ---give accurate feedback on specific criteria
When judge or ranking applications, essays, poems—you can probably be more fair and accurate if you judge in terms of explicit criteria
Good for readers who are reluctant to talk about their own reaction
Good if you want to work on your conscious understanding of the criteria used in judging writing
Useful for readers who must comment on many pieces of writing in on sitting or in a comparatively short time.
Permit you to read with less than full attention and still—if you are practiced ---give accurate feedback on specific criteria
When judge or ranking applications, essays, poems—you can probably be more fair and accurate if you judge in terms of explicit criteria
Photo by Nic's events
Summary
- Criterion-Based Feedback forces criteria to be conscious
- Reader-Based Feedback allows criteria to remain unconscious
Feedback gives you the main thing you need to improve your writing
Feedback is the most trustworthy feedback because you are only asking for “raw data”—what they saw and what was happening to them as they read
Feedback has the advantage of keeping you more in charge of the whole feedback process
Feedback has the enormous virtue of being available to everyone
If you are writing an audience-oriented piece such as a memo or a tricky letter—writing that must work on your intended reader rather than be good in some timeless or abstract fashion—reader-based feedback will be more helpful to you
It emphasizes the practical question what the words are doing rather than the theoretical question of how good they are, it is less evaluative and judgmental.
Most efficient kind of feedback: it can lead to the fastest and most pervasive improvement
Feedback is especially necessary for poetry, fiction, and other kinds of creative writing.
Feedback is the most trustworthy feedback because you are only asking for “raw data”—what they saw and what was happening to them as they read
Feedback has the advantage of keeping you more in charge of the whole feedback process
Feedback has the enormous virtue of being available to everyone
If you are writing an audience-oriented piece such as a memo or a tricky letter—writing that must work on your intended reader rather than be good in some timeless or abstract fashion—reader-based feedback will be more helpful to you
It emphasizes the practical question what the words are doing rather than the theoretical question of how good they are, it is less evaluative and judgmental.
Most efficient kind of feedback: it can lead to the fastest and most pervasive improvement
Feedback is especially necessary for poetry, fiction, and other kinds of creative writing.
Photo by Nic's events
Conclusion
- Criterion: helps reader see things they would miss if they just gave themselves over to natural or habitual reading
- It can be a screen between the reader and the writer
- Reader-Based: Allows them to notice and react to more qualities in it than they would consciously analyze,
- it allows them to be more sensitive to nuances– especially matters of tones and presentation of self that are difficult to categorize.
- Allows readers just to relax and read your writing for enlightenment or pleasure, and to experience it on its own terms
This Haiku Deck is based on Peter Elbow's book: Writing With Power. This is Chapter 21 in which he discusses Criterion-Based and Reader-Based Feedback. Dr. Wafa Hozien uses this in her Dissertation Seminar course and other courses to teach students how to give constructive feedback on academic writing.
Photo by Luiza Bissolli
