creative writing feedback checklist

Giving Effective Feedback to Creative Writers

Your writing partner has asked for some feedback on her novel. Now what?

The Three P’s: Purpose, Plan, and Process

The Three P's of providing feedback will help you provide feedback that your writing colleauges can actually use.

Know Your Purpose

Grounding yourself with the purpose of your feedback helps keep you productively focused. Clarity of purpose should be your starting point before you even start reading or listening to a written work. It will guide your attention and ensure you are more likely to help than harm your writing partner. In other words: Are you giving tough feedback to someone who can benefit from it or shattering a new writer’s confidence? Are you there to help a new writer feel heard, or are you working with someone half-way down the path to develop their craft? Are you looking down in the weeds or at the big picture? Asking the writer what they want from you at the beginning of the feedback process is the best way to guide your efforts.

Make a Plan

Sitting down to provide feedback can mean different things to different people on different days. We are all busy and distracted, and having a targeted agenda can make sure we stick to our goals. Once you have your purpose in mind, it can help to have a written plan of attack that will allow you to focus your efforts and make sure you don’t forget to cover all the ground you intended. This plan can take the form of a simple to-do list or a more formal planning tool like the one shown above and below.

You can get it here: Creative Writing Feedback Planning Tool

Your plan should include the purpose of the feedback you are giving and critical areas you will be addressing, such as emotional reactions, story structure, craft, or editing. For long-term projects, keep each feedback sitting’s planning tool. Collectively, they can provide a historical record of the feedback supplied over time, which can help identify areas of feedback yet to be covered, or recurring problem spots.

Have a Process

Building a standard process can help you do your best work. Sample from these steps to make your own workflow.

1. Centered around the purpose of the feedback at hand, create your plan.

2. Set aside an appropriately sized amount of time. If your plan will require multiple sittings, go ahead and schedule these out on your calendar, so time doesn’t get away from you. I find it very inefficient to let too much time pass between sittings because I lose a sense of what I have already done and must start over to orient myself. Who has time for that?

3. Find a place where you can focus, be that hiding from your family in the bathroom, in a coffee shop soothed by the white noise of steaming espresso, or, if you are lucky enough to have one, locked in your home office.

4. For your first pass at written notes, make a version of the document, be it printed or an electronic file, that no one besides you will ever see. Here you won’t have to hold back or filter your thoughts. Having an eyes-only version of your first feedback pass ensures more helpful feedback later and allows you to move more quickly.

5. Read the document or portion you are working on more than once. It is hard to give good feedback if you have only skimmed.

6. Follow your feedback plan and take written notes about both what works very well and what needs improvement on your private version of the document.

7. You can wordsmith the final feedback on the version of the document you will provide the author at the end of the process. Don't overwhelm new writers with too much feedback - prioritize. Remember that writers at all levels appreciate kindness.

8. If possible, share your feedback with the author in person while physically present or using conferencing technology. A conversation allows the author to ask the reviewer for clarification and squeezes the most value out of the feedback. This connection is even more important when you are working with newer writers. One-on-one feedback allows you to nurture a trusted relationship with inexperienced writers that will help build their confidence.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following blogs for the fantastic information about giving feedback to creative writers.

How to Give Constructive Feedback to Creative Writing

How to Give Feedback on Fiction: A Guide for Readers

#5onFri: Five Tips For Writing A Helpful Critique

How to give constructive criticism to other writers

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How to Give Constructive Feedback to Creative Writing

December 14, 2020 // by Lindsay Ann // 1 Comment

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Do you wonder how to give constructive feedback on creative writing and poetry pieces created by student writers who have put their heart and soul into them?

I think all teachers struggle with this question to some extent. It is because we care.

This can lead to indecisive response to student work. We waste valuable time when we lack a plan for response and worry about the emotional reaction to our feedback.

In this post, I’m all about sharing practical strategies that will teach you how to best give constructive feedback.

I want you to feel as comfortable responding to creative writing assignments as analysis based writing or argumentative writing assignments so that you can help student writers grow without deflating their fragile egos.

Setting the Stage for Writing Feedback

I think that it’s important to remember the feeling associated with having someone else read our work.

When I was a student, it was always a mixture of anticipation and dread . Would my instructor like what I had written? Would my grade reflect the time and effort I had put into the assignment?

A couple of things before we discuss how to give constructive feedback…

👉 I think that it’s important to be clear with students upfront about the skills you’re looking for in a creative writing assignment. Frontload with exemplars and use creative writing exercises to practice skills. Then, when it comes time for students to write, they will know what they are expected to do as writers.

👉 At the same time, it’s important to focus on feedback during the writing process . This allows our response to be as readers rather than as evaluators.

👉 Finally, I think that it makes a BIG difference when you model your own creative process for students. The more I can show students that writing is messy and imperfect, that I go through the same process as them, the more my classroom dynamic shifts from teacher-centered to student-centered and collaborative. If you’re wondering how to give constructive feedback to students, ask them to give feedback to you first.

Constructive Feedback for Students

When it comes to student feedback, less is more. I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ll say it again (and again) (and…again).

Most students don’t care about our carefully-worded paragraphs. They want to be seen and heard , but they also want to be able to understand what they can do to improve.

This means that feedback should be direct, specific, and actionable . This means that we need to respond as readers , not evaluators. This means that we will leave a manageable amount of feedback to build a student’s momentum.

Strategies for How to Give Constructive Feedback

➡️ Only mark the lines you love the most. Highlight them, underline them, put a star in the margin. Choose a couple of these lines to comment on. What did you notice? What did you like/realize/want to know?

➡️ Focus on the skills taught in class. So, if you taught characterization and concrete details, give feedback specifically on those elements. Ask students to revisit resources/screencasts/examples, etc. to review these skills.

➡️ Focus on moments of clarity and confusion. Where did you, as a reader, make a connection or realize something important? Where were you confused?

➡️ Yin Yang Feedback

Find something specific that you liked/enjoyed (and explain why/how ). Maybe it’s a bit of figurative language or a vivid image. Pair this with a suggestion for where the writer can continue to work on this same skill. Essentially, this is like saying, “See, here, you did this thing that I liked and enjoyed…can you do more of that over here?” Or, “As a reader, it seemed to me like your intent was x, y, or z when you wrote _________. I’m wondering if you can make this clearer when _________.
What is the highest level of skill mastery you can observe? Find an example of success and talk about why/how it was successful. What is the most important skill that still needs to be developed? Find a place where the student can begin working on this skill.
Where were you most engaged/interested in the story. Leave a quick note about what captured your attention. Where were you least engaged/interested? This type of teacher feedback encourages revision.

➡️ Be curious. Read through the draft and ask questions… only questions . This is a kind of constructive feedback students love to hate (because it makes them think ). I ask my students to respond and revise. This strategy rocks because it establishes feedback as a two-way conversation rather than a one-way lecture.

➡️ Have students direct your feedback by asking you questions about their work. Alternatively, you can ask students to reflect on how/where they have demonstrated the skills you’ve taught in class (or the goals they’ve set for themselves). Then, you simply read through and respond to their comments, sharing your thoughts and suggestions.

➡️ Use a writer’s workshop model in which you conference with students about their work. You can train students to lead in these conversations if you choose the 1:1 model. Alternatively, you can form writing circles in which you provide students examples of constructive feedback before asking students to take turns reading their work out loud and solicit feedback from group members. You can float between writing groups, joining the conversations as needed.

Final Thoughts

I hope that I’ve helped you learn more about how to give constructive feedback to creative writers.

As we become purposeful in our responses to students, the benefit is that we streamline our own systems and processes which allows us to feel better about the feedback we are giving and also the amount of time it takes to provide this feedback!

Hey, if you loved this post, I want to be sure you’ve had the chance to grab a FREE copy of my guide to streamlined grading . I know how hard it is to do all the things as an English teacher, so I’m over the moon to be able to share with you some of my best strategies for reducing the grading overwhelm. Click on the link above or the image below to get started!

About Lindsay Ann

Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 19 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.

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[…] How to Give Constructive Feedback to Creative Writing […]

The Checklist: How to Give Better Creative Feedback

So you’ve laid out the scope of your project, built a rock-solid brief, come up with a brilliant concept and nailed down your strategy. The creatives have been hard at work bringing your shared vision to life, and now the product of their labor is ready for your eyes. This part should be pretty straightforward, right? Not so fast. Giving better creative feedback is an art in itself.

A thoughtful and intentional approach to reviewing creative work can be transformative for everyone involved. But all too often, carelessly delivered feedback stalls and confuses a project when it should be moving it along. With intent, patience and diligence, meaningful feedback builds and reinforces that all-important important dynamic – the creative partnership.

This is a checklist for delivering creative feedback in a way that motivates your collaborators and fuels powerful creative collaboration .

☑Revisit the Brief

Context, context, context. The reality of the modern workload is that we are often rapidly shifting our focus between different projects with differing objectives and priorities. As a project goes on, certain details don’t always stay as fresh as they were at the outset.

Before each new round of feedback, revisit your brief. In revisions, the brief is one half of the “decoding” key that will help contextualize and frame why certain creative decisions were made. You can’t make any meaningful suggestions or requests without first internalizing it.

This might seem so obvious. But especially as a project gets into further iterations and evolves, it’s easy to lose sight of the original objective – often to the chagrin of the creatives involved.

☑Have the Last Version On-Hand

If you come across something that confuses you, your first move should be to compare what’s in front of you against the previous version, if there is one. This is easy if you use an online proofing tool with a comparison feature , making it easy to review any versions for a side-by-side analysis, and even highlight the differences .

With the brief and previous versions, suggestions, and creative decisions, all work together to serve as a “Rosetta Stone” of sorts for continuous communication with your creative colleagues. Feedback, ideas, and revisions all become threaded.

☑Highlight What is Working

In most creative writing workshops, workshoppers are invited to use the “sandwich method” when responding to the reader’s work. The idea is to begin with something that you like, explaining in detail why it’s working. The next layer is where the constructive part comes in, identifying areas for improvement. Finally, the feedback is “sandwiched” by another strength.

This is a good approach to take when reviewing any kind of creative work. Not only does it help create a safe environment for open discourse, but it provides a positive point of reference to compare and contrast any new changes against. Your creatives need to understand what parts of the work are measuring up to the project vision, in detail, in order to make changes that will conform to that standard.

In a broader context, this dynamic also contributes to developing successful long-term creative partnerships. Understanding what doesn’t work for a client is often as (if not more) valuable than what works. Approvals are often “I like it,” whereas a rejection usually requires deeper explanations. Stack up the rejections and the creative knows what to avoid. Of course, if it’s all rejection, well, there’s no way of knowing what works.

☑Be Specific

If you like something, you have to explain why. Naturally, this is also the case for any problem areas.

This much might be obvious: Advising someone to “try again” without providing any guiding details to direct them is most often destined to result in a disappointing outcome for everyone.

Just as importantly, you need to be sure you’re not exclusively using terminology that is vague or ill-defined in your explanations. Adjectives like “better,” “stronger” and “energetic” have no universal meaning and are easily misinterpreted when also absent of purely descriptive language.

Thorough and precise feedback should provide clarity with actionable tasks. What makes a desired change “actionable” is a comprehensive shared understanding of exactly what needs to be accomplished in each isolated instance.

What is the problem?

Why is it a problem?

What qualities should an alternative have?

☑…But Don’t Be Too Prescriptive

At the same time, in most cases you want to leave room for your creatives to channel the unique talents that you hired them for. When you are giving feedback to creatives, who’ve been hired to be creative, “identify the problem, but not the solution.” This means presenting the changes you desire in a way that is well-defined but does not completely prescribe the desired outcome .

Of all the components of giving good feedback, this might be the one that’s hardest to master. It takes practice, and the precise way of achieving this balance can depend entirely on the specific dynamic between reviewer and creative.

In any case, the last thing you want is for your creatives to feel that their job is just to press the buttons.

☑Provide the (Visual) Context

It’s really difficult to achieve clarity, without visual context. We’ve all been there: clumsy wording in an email, a misinterpreted phone call, a broken feedback loop…

Feedback is easily misinterpreted when it’s not presented within the context of how it should be applied. If you’re working with visual media, this means providing visual information in the clearest manner possible – whether that’s through on-screen markup, including a sketch or attaching a specific asset rather than just referencing it.

Ideally, creatives shouldn’t need to go hunting for missing pieces or matching up comments with the material they’re referencing upon receiving feedback – with the context, it should provide a clear course of action.

And beyond the practical application of contextual feedback, collaboration itself is a highly visual medium .

☑Keep Things Exclusive

Getting a second opinion is one thing. But bringing on a whole panel of critics to weigh in is not recommended, especially if they haven’t been directly involved in the project throughout its various stages. All this will do is confuse your objectives, prolong turnarounds, and overwhelm your creatives .

If you must, ask third parties for their thoughts on a particular, isolated matter – but do not give them free rein for critique and input.

If it’s unavoidable, be sure to generously build a stakeholder feedback round into your project schedule at a strategic point – and come to that meeting prepared to explain how you’ve arrived at any decisions that have already been made, showing the evolution of the creative.

Nothing disrupts the flow of a project like waiting for feedback that seems like it may never come. The longer something sits on your desk (hopefully on a metaphorical desk, if you’re an online proofing convert), the more difficult it is for your creatives to sustain the same level of motivation throughout a project.

Conversely, quick turnarounds sustain creative momentum and encourage your collaborators by communicating that you are engaged and invested in your joint goals. If you need some ideas on optimizing your to-do list , there are several models you might want to consider – getting people the feedback they need to do their jobs is vital to a fluid creative workflow.

☑Keep Feedback Centralized and Synchronous

Having a readily available history of the decisions that have already been made (and why) is critical to giving clear – and accurate – feedback and keeping your team in sync throughout the review and approvals process . Online proofing does this for you by centralizing one document for synchronized collaboration, and cataloguing each version along with their respective threaded comments. It’s so much easier than manually keeping a chronological record of all suggestions, discussions and changes to the work, from all of the parties involved.

Coordinating and compiling feedback shouldn’t have any extra resource requirements – and definitely should not negatively impact your project schedule.

Now…The Ball is in Your Court

Ultimately, good feedback is what sustains a strong creative workflow, resulting in fewer versions and faster turnarounds. Using an online proofing software sets you up for success from the get-go, with built-in features that turn many of these essential practices into habits you don’t even have to think about. So go forth and empower your creative collaborators with thoughtful and applicable feedback that motivates them to their full potential.

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Other articles you might like, major product release: the new dashboard, why you should get more comfortable giving constructive feedback , avoiding misinterpretations: how to give clear feedback , reacting to mistakes at work: how to turn errors into opportunities for growth.

Writing Critique Checklists

Following is an outline I use when preparing writers to critique one another. This outline breaks down the type of feedback according to the stage of the work. Of course this applies specifically to writing but it can give you some ideas for how you might outline forms of critique for other kinds of creative work.

At every stage, ask these two questions:

Who is the audience?
What is the genre/format?

Early Stage: Forming the Idea

When a work is in the early stages, you don’t want input that will interfere with the formation. For instance, you don’t turn over an early draft to someone and ask him or her to go over it with a red pen. Early draft is not the time for corrections to grammar and sentence structure. There’s a chance you will totally rewrite the piece anyway and eliminate the troublesome sentence or the phrase that doesn’t work. A thorough, technical critique at this point will merely frustrate you.

So in the early stage, talk about the general idea. If you do hand over an early-draft passage from this work-to-be, ask these sorts of questions:

What’s your general emotional reaction to this idea?
Is it interesting?
Where are you most emotionally engaged?
What do you think the point is, or where do you think it’s going?
Where do you want more?
Where do you want less?

Intermediate Stage: Putting It Together

Once the idea is pretty solid and you’ve produced quite a bit of raw material, it’s time to start shaping the piece. The intermediate stage will probably involve a lot of rewriting, filling in passages and rearranging material. Because it’s a time of revision, you can afford to ask more dangerous questions:

Is it easy to follow, or are there places where I lose you?
Where do I need to provide more information?
Where do I need to trim some fat and provide less information?
Does the tone welcome you? Does it put you off in any way?
It is compelling?
At what point does your interest flag?
Have I found the right beginning/end?

Final Stage:Fixing It

When you’re in the final stage, you’ve done about all you can do. You have rewritten, restructured, rethought and reimagined this piece. You have checked the spelling, grammar and other technical aspects. And at this point you are probably sick to death of this thing.

It’s time to call in someone who will now be more ruthless than you have the objectivity to be. Now any red mark is fair. When you turn over a work for this type of critique, it’s usually good to say, “I’m taking two weeks off from this, so take your time and mark it carefully but don’t call me in the meantime.” This final stage critique is the perfect opportunity for you to take a long-needed rest and to not think about the work. While you’re getting some R&R, your critic will be evaluating the following:

emotional engagement
sentence structure
transitions
anything that jars the reader
anything that doesn’t flow well or that is unclear
tension/release
promise/delivery
good on the ear?
author tics

“Author tics” is my term to describe the mistakes that are common to a particular author.

– from “The Soul Tells a Story: Engaging Creativity with Spirituality in the Writing Life” by Vinita Hampton Wright Loyola Press

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/720105.The_Soul_Tells_a_Story

Writing Center: Checklist For Creative Writing

How to Set Up an Appointment Online
Documentation Styles
Parts of Speech
Types of Clauses
Punctuation
Spelling & Mechanics
Usage & Styles
Resources for ESL Students
How to Set up an APA Paper
How to Set up an MLA Paper
Adapt to Academic Learning
Audience Awareness
Learn Touch Typing
Getting Started
Thesis Statement
The First Draft
Proofreading
Writing Introductions
Writing Conclusions
Chicago / Turabian Style
CSE / CBE Style
Avoiding Plagiarism
Cross-Cultural Understanding
Writing Resources
Research Paper - General Guidelines
Annotated Bibliographies
History Papers
Science Papers
Experimental Research Papers
Exegetical Papers
FAQs About Creative Writing
Tips For Creative Writing
Exercises To Develop Creative Writing Skills

Checklist For Creative Writing

Additional Resources For Creative Writing
FAQs About Creating PowerPoints
Tips For Creating PowerPoints
Exercises to Improve PowerPoint Skills
Checklist For PowerPoints
Structure For GRE Essay
Additional Resources For PowerPoints
Additional Resources For GRE Essay Writing
FAQs About Multimodal Assignments
Tips For Creating Multimodal Assignments
Checklist For Multimodal Assignments
Additional Resources For Multimodal Assignments
GRE Essay Writing FAQ
Tips for GRE Essay Writing
Sample GRE Essay Prompts
Checklist For GRE Essays
Cover Letter
Personal Statements
Resources for Tutors
Chapter 2: Theoretical Perspectives on Learning a Second Language
Chapter 4: Reading an ESL Writer's Text
Chapter 5: Avoiding Appropriation
Chapter 6: 'Earth Aches by Midnight': Helping ESL Writers Clarify Their Intended Meaning
Chapter 7: Looking at the Whole Text
Chapter 8: Meeting in the Middle: Bridging the Construction of Meaning with Generation 1.5 Learners
Chapter 9: A(n)/The/Ø Article About Articles
Chapter 10: Editing Line by Line
Chapter 14: Writing Activities for ESL Writers
Resources for Faculty
Writing Center Newsletter
Writing Center Survey
Begins with an engaging opening sentence and opening paragraph
Concludes with an impactful ending that makes the audience appreciative of the writing
The ending is plausible and fits in with the rest of the story
Uses strong, descriptive language throughout the entire piece
Contains a variety of verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and nouns to add to descriptive language
Sentence structure is varied and helps create different moods
Follows a logical order and a logical sequence of events
Provides cues and transitions to the reader when there are changes in the timeframe
Includes enough detail that the audience knows the looks, thoughts, and personalities of the characters
Utilizes dialogue when necessary to add more depth to the characters
Feelings of characters are evident in the writing
The story is well-paced and developed
Contains a clear, consistent point of view throughout the entire piece
Does not contain too many details or descriptions that make the writing less effective
Contains enough detail for the audience to understand the story, the plot, the setting, and the characters
Utilizes literary devices that enhance the writing
Suspense and tension are built and carried throughout the piece
The setting is described in enough detail for the audience to know what the setting is like
Mentions the five senses to add to the descriptions
Uses the same verb tense consistently through the writing
Free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors
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Creative Writing: Feedback and Assessment

17 june 2019.

I, like every other (language) teacher the world over, am always thinking about the best way to assess. What do I mean by ‘best’? The most cost-effective, the most useful, the fairest…? And ‘best’ for who? Students, teachers, employers, educational institutions…? As I’ve explained in previous posts, in an attempt to find a practical answer to these questions, I’ve introduced continuous assessment and peer assessment over the last couple of years in my two on-line creative writing courses, notably the blogging course ( Creative Blogging Course ).

In this ongoing reflexion, I came across three interesting terms this month: authentic assessment, ipsative assessment and indigenous assessment . The first two I discovered in the article entitled Does University Assessment Still Pass Muster in ‘THE’ which explains that authentic assessment concentrates on skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking and involves ‘tasks that are more realistic or contextualised to the “real world”’ and ipsative assessment involves trying to measure progress. More detail can be found about this in an article by Gwyneth Hughes in The Guardian . Scroll down to the comments which make for interesting reading too.

Partly, because this is not the way we have been trained to assess so it seems as if it’s a denial of our skills and formal training (despite the introduction of the CEFR ‘s ‘can do’ approach almost twenty years ago now, recently updated in a companion volume ). As my colleague Amanda pointed out “teachers essentially make grammar equivalents in their head : if the candidate uses the conditional, then they are at the B2 level”.

In other words, disparate linguistic items (essentially grammar points) are easier than other skills and sorts of knowledge to assess. With two colleagues, I am currently creating an online placement test to advise students on whether or not they need to do a short remedial English module before the start of term, and apart from oral and written comprehension skills the test is invariably grammar based. So as an experienced teacher, this is instinctively how I assess.

All of this begs the question: how can creativity be assessed in a meaningful way? This, seems to me an important issue because if it is not assessed then the implication is, it is not important to the normative system within which we work.

This month I am reworking the feedback grids that we use in class for the creative writing workshops for second year undergraduate LANSOD students (students who specialise in domains of study other than English). In order to understand the manner in which the grids are used in class see my article Diversity in Creative Writing Workshops , paragraphs 25-28, with a previous version of the grids in appendix C.

I’m presently thinking about tweaking them to encourage student writers to take their peers’ feedback onboard and draw relevant conclusions about what they need to concentrate on in their writing. They are also invited to think at the end of the course about whether or not they have progressed and if so how. You can also see, in the attached document (which is work in progress and has NOT been adopted for the course as yet) a proposition for a points system. Any comments welcome.

Working on a communication that I have been invited to give at the IUT in Montpellier entitled Creative Writing and Storytelling for EFL Students: making it up as we go along, at the beginning of July, I have been thinking about the relevance of creative writing and storytelling in different domains, such as economics and medicine and research in general. And so I was delighted to read Pat Thomson’s blog entry this morning: ‘the joys of creative re-description’ in which she reminds us that working with and analysing data is a creative process and creating new terminology when necessary is akin to re-describing the world (Richard Rorty) . She concludes with the following:

“When we researchers develop more than one term for our research results, then we are actually building a new vocabulary. Our new vocabulary might help other people to see things differently, start a conversation or they might extend what we did.

And this kind of creative re-description is often how we signal our claim of adding to knowledge. We have given a new name to a set of results – our work with them, the patterns we have produced, the constellation of results we have made, has produced something not quite like everything else out there. So we have a new term.

The act of re-description is creative, and legit.”

Which resonated with my weekend reading, Samuel R. Delaney’s novel Babel-17 , the name of the language the heroine Rydra Wong has to learn in order to save the world and in which the author explores the relationship between thought and language:

“language is thought. Thought is information given form. The form is language. The form of this language is …amazing” (20). Wittgenstein would have approved.

In the beginning was the word. And all that.

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12 Writing Fiction Checklists

Edited: Some of these resources have changed, so there are only 11 checklists now.

Checklist of 17 Character Qualities
10 Checkpoints for a Scene
Style: Checklist For Fiction Writers
Editing Checklists for Story, Plot, Characters, Dialogue and more.
A Novel Writing Checklist
Story Plan Checklist
Synopsis Checklist
The DUMMIES Checklist for Writing a Novel and Getting it Published
Revision Checklist for Novelists
Writer’s Editing Checklist
The Expanded Power Revision Checklist

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The wayfinder: ya fantasy, word choices for picture books: two by two by wordsmith lisa stauffer, series tips: characters, timeline & plot, long cooling off period – stuff your mss in a drawer, drone’s eye view of your manuscript, 3 ways to show don’t tell.

Arts and Humanities as Higher Education

An international research group and network, founder of arts and humanities in higher education journal, ‘have you considered … ’: written feedback and the student creative writer, a&hhe special issue december 2016, ‘have you considered … ’: written feedback and the student creative writer, patrick allington, flinders university.

Writers need editors, and writers need to learn how to work with editors. For their part, editors need to provide cogent advice about a manuscript. Importantly, though, they need to do so in a way that accommodates writers’ sensitivies. Similarly, academics providing feedback to university creative writing students need to be aware of a complex mix of priorities – complex because although a piece of feedback is a response to a formal task undertaken in a learning environment, it is also a response to individual creativity. I draw on my working history as both editor and academic to consider the content, limits, motivations and, not least, the tone and language of giving feedback on fiction manuscripts. In particular, I compare written feedback that academics provide to students with the feedback professional editors give to writers. While I identify differences between the two activities, I conclude that the juggling act editors engage in – challenging the author and identifying problems with a manuscript, while also affirming the person and the project – is directly relevant to creative writing academics seeking to offer constructive and truthful but non-damaging feedback for students.

Creative writing, editing, feedback, fiction, Steven Carroll, Lucy Neave, Peter Carey

What’s the question?

The critically acclaimed and prize-winning Melbourne novelist Steven Carroll does quite a few things ‘wrong’. From my critical perspective, Carroll periodically stands charged with didacticism, telling not showing, over-explanation, a reliance on coincidences to drive the plot and develop characters, repetition, and prose that moves so slowly that at times it almost seems statuesque. Despite these apparent or theoretical flaws, Carroll’s novels succeed. Frequently, they soar.

Steven Carroll is not the subject here, or not directly. Instead, I consider the complex mix of priorities, issues and desired outcomes that are in play when a university teacher provides written feedback to a creative writing university student. I focus on the content, motivation and responsibilities of written feedback. Perhaps most especially, I focus on the language and tone of feedback. In particular, I explore connections and differences between editorial feedback and teacher-to-student feedback.

The list of apparent flaws in Carroll’s work encapsulates many of the actual flaws evident in student writing. This essay, then, is in part a cautionary tale about the vexing qualities of feedback – both its details and its tone. What are some of the key factors that a writer of feedback might usefully consider when writing such feedback? To begin answering this question involves me acknowledging that, as a teacher of creative writing, I need to take a contextual view, a long view, a realistic view, a creative view and an industry view. Far from being perplexed or confused by these multiple views, I welcome the convoluted and dynamic qualities involved when writers attempt to find their personal version of excellence.

Three parameters frame this discussion. First, I argue that the tone of feedback is critical and that the way editors communicate with writers is relevant to the way creative writing teachers might frame feedback. I conduct discussion around Australian novelist and academic Lucy Neave’s description of the genesis of her novel Who We Were (2013). I argue that the tone of fine editorial feedback is, on the one hand, rigorous and critical, and, on the other hand, affirming, and I suggest that teacher-to-student feedback would benefit from a similar juggling act.

Second, I argue that writing fiction can never amount to following a checklist of ‘do’s and don’t’s’, not least because writers such as Steven Carroll routinely break the rules. While counselling ‘don’t rely on checklists’ might seem uncontroversial, it is a proposal that bears remembering every time an editor or teacher considers how to critically respond to a work of fiction.

Third, I reiterate that failure or misstepping is a necessary part of a writer’s development. Framed around a discussion of the writing ‘voice’, I discuss the Australian novelist Peter Carey’s early writing history. Many writers work on stories that they do not finish or that do not succeed. That such ‘failures’ form a legitimate and sometimes vital part of a writer’s development and/or professional practice is a challenge for a teacher of creative writing – and not just because it is difficult to know how to formally assess a grand or honourable or necessary failure.

In part, I offer exegetical commentary on my own personal working history, considering the different types of written feedback I have provided to fiction writers over a number of years of varied professional practice. I have looked for common ground between these different types of feedback, and for differences. In addition to now being a creative writing academic, I have been, or continue to be, the following: an editor of fiction accepted for publication; a reader who rejects fiction for publication; a manuscript assessor who writes written reports on fiction manuscripts, assessing strengths, weaknesses and publishability; a judge of writing competitions; a one-on-one writing mentor in non-academic settings; a workshop convenor in non-academic settings; a writer-in-residence at a nursing home; and a professional critic of fiction (‘professional’ means that I did it for money, but not that I made a living wage from it).

In the context or giving and receiving feedback, I note that I am an active writer of fiction whose work is sometimes accepted for publication and edited, sometimes rejected for publication, and sometimes, at least in the first instance, neither accepted nor rejected. The editors who have worked with me on my writing – both fiction and non-fiction – have had a marked impact on both my writing and editing. An example: one editor I worked with demonstrated his acute understanding of my manuscript by debating its merits with an external reader, in the process offering a description of the story that captured what I was trying to achieve in more accurate terms than I had myself managed. The gave me, the writer, complete confidence in him, the editor.

The broadly related topic of the creative writing workshop, a teaching and learning space ubiquitous in many creative writing programs in which a facilitator and a small group of students come together to discuss each other’s work, is not my focus here. Certainly, the limitations, tensions and possibilities of the workshop space, including its capacity to develop students’ ability to give and receive feedback, warrants ongoing assessment. But here my focus is elsewhere. Neither do I include a survey of student reactions to teacher feedback, even though such surveys can serve a useful function at the immediate conclusion of a topic and, perhaps even more so, after a passage of time. Here, I focus predominently on written feedback from editors/teachers to writers/students.

Not different but different

On one level, a creative writing assignment is no different to other types of university assignments. A marker marks an assignment based on a transparent set of criteria (a formal or informal rubric). A course coordinator might make decisions about whether to mark a piece of work using summative or formative assessment: ‘in summative assessment, a student’s work may be assessed ultimately as providing certification that the student has achieved the required standard in a subject or discipline as a whole’ (Taylor and da Silva, 2014: 795), whereas in ‘ formative assessment’ ‘a student’s work may be assessed as part of the learning process with the aim of improving the student’s performance’ (Taylor and da Silva, 2014: 796).

Another key consideration is whether, and to what extent, the student has or has not actually answered the question asked. If, for example, the assignment asks a student to write 500 words in the style of Stephen King but the student produces 1100 words that more resembles the prose of Joan Didion, can the student expect to receive a high distinction even if the marker decides that those 1100 words are brilliant? If the answer is ‘no’ – because (1) Stephen King is not Joan Didion, and (2) 1100 words is more than double the word limit – then the marker needs to think not merely about how to ‘grade’ the assignment (how to give it a number) but also how to respond to the student. Specifically, the marker needs to be able to explain why those 1100 brilliant words do not answer the question, while finding a way to acknowledge the brilliance.

But however much a creative writing assignment is simply that – a university assignment, and therefore a ‘writing exercise’ or a ‘writing task’ – it is also an act of individual creativity. When writers place words of fiction on the page or on the computer screen, they expose their inner worlds to scrutiny and possible ridicule: to write fiction (or poetry or memoir) is a genuinely exposing act. Most student writers, even highly proficient ones, are still developing their craft. If the industry talks about ‘emerging writers’, many student writers are ‘pre-emerging’ writers. Such categorisations reflect partly on quality, but they are mainly about industry and reader exposure and recognition. Student writers are often unused to submitting their work for publication, and unfamiliar with the feelings associated with strangers (whether industry or the general public) reading their work.

But even when student-writers are in the earliest stages of developing their craft, they frequently display writerly characteristics that are recognisable in established writers. Good editors are often mindful of these writerly characteristics (and bad editors, in my view, ignore them at their peril), which include the following:

a mix of intense confidence – or even arrogance – and intense self-doubt (sometimes a writer alternates between these two extremes, but, from my observations, a writer often experiences these extremes simultaneously)
public pronouncements by a writer that he or she craves critical feedback, followed by sullenness or hostility when the feedback actually appears
suspicion about the motives of editors, irrespective of the actual content of the feedback (as in, ‘nobody messes with my vision’ or ‘the marketing department sent you, right?’).

It is an editor’s responsibility to understand an author’s susceptibilities to feedback and to phrase critical comments accordingly – but to do so without the slightest equivocation – in order to help a writer produce the best possible version of an author’s manuscript . But before that – that is, before the moment when an editor delivers feedback and an author reads it, or, at the very least, at the front end of that moment – it is an editor’s responsibility to demonstrate to the author that the editor knows what the author is aiming to achieve with a given manuscript. That is no small task, and it is not easily achieved. Writers, whether or not they are students, sometimes feel confused by diverse or even contradictory appraisals of works-in-progress. They also sometimes carry with them the demons of past bad experiences (there are all sorts of reasons why an editing process can go wrong). A good editor starting on a new manuscript, and establishing a relationship with a new author, understands and takes account of all this.

In this context, it is worth noting that the mechanics of feedback from editors is not something that is especially widely discussed. In part, this is because the industry (including writers) likes to maintain the illusion that writing and publishing fiction is always a solitary task. As Mandy Brett has pointed out, readers like that illusion too: ‘The feeling I have when reading fiction–of a single mind feeding me experience and sensation–is seldom articulated but incredibly powerful. As a reader, I don’t want fiction to be a group project’ (Brett, 2011). I am partly sympathetic to the idea than an editor should stay in the shadows, but I also agree with Brett that it is odd that a worker in the arts aims for, or should be expected to aim for, invisibility. She is also right to acknowledge the role of gender in this invisibility: ‘it is gendered obviously and I am not going to try and flog that old sack of horsemeat into a canter, but we all know that where there are a lot of women in the same line of work it tends coincidentally to be characterised as more servile and less prestigious: subtly less worth evaluating or acknowledging’ (Brett, 2011).

I do not suggest that the way an editor works with a writer can or should translate neatly into the way a teacher might offer written feedback to a university student. For one thing, an editor who is working with a writer towards publication has determined that the manuscript should be published: in other words, the editor and/or the publisher admire the manuscript and the editor has a personal investment in the final, published version of it. That is not necessarily the case for student-writers (although it is thrilling to read a high quality piece of fiction written by student). It is often the case, too, that students are working on first drafts or early drafts – and many writers’ early drafts are poor (mine certainly are).

But even though the scenarios are clearly different, the language of editorial feedback can be instructive, I argue, in determining the tone of written feedback to students. Not least, if editors working with writers need to maintain a delicate juggle between criticism and affirmation, this same juggling act is necessary when providing feedback to relatively unformed student writers. There is no single correct approach, but writing teachers might clearly define, at least to their individual satisfaction, what they believe their duty of care is in terms of fostering and nurturing student writers.

On tiptoeing and brutal truths

The Australian novelist and creative writing academic Lucy Neave has written about the feedback (both oral and written) she received while writing what later became her debut novel, Who We Were (2013). After noting that ‘there is apparently little scholarship on the experience of being read and the impact of criticism on writers’ final drafts’ (Neave, 2014), Neave discusses the impact that feedback she received from various readers had on her working draft. One of these readers was a friend of Neave’s who was enrolled with her in a graduate creative writing program in the US – in other words, they were peers. But – significantly – this friend was also the editor of a literary magazine. The following forms part of what the friend wrote to Neave in an email:

‘The descriptions of nature, the more sensual aspects of the story, are some of my favourite prose. I would love to see that same texture and depth given to the emotional aspects of the story and to their view of their own work. If you were to show them when they’re happy, show them beginning to fall apart, and don’t worry about explaining it, but instead dramatizing it, I think you will have a dramatic leap forward.’ (quoted in Neave, 2014)

For Neave, the key point of this feedback is that her friend (politely) requests ‘more scenes’. But as Neave says, this feedback does not speak of vague ‘wrongness’, but instead offers particulars about the manuscript’s failings. It is a critical element of editing practice that feedback should be specific and comprehensible. I once worked with a poet (this was in a community rather than an academic setting) who tended to periodically draw words and phrases together in a characteristically unwieldy fashion, which fractured the flow, balance, clarity and especially the rhythm of his writing. I frequently wrote a single word – ‘clunky’ – in the margin of his manuscripts. This poet-in-training knew exactly what I meant by ‘clunky’ because of our shared history of giving, receiving and debating feedback. He and I had a one-on-one vocabulary that had evolved over time; in other words, we had a relationship. But if I had written ‘clunky’ on the manuscript of other writer in the group, it would be meaningless while also being negative in a non-specific way; or it might have meant something different in the context of a different one-on-one relationship. A creative writing teacher might find particularly challenging the need to provide this sort of personalised feedback to an undergraduate creative writing topic with a sizeable enrolment that runs for a semester.

The quote from Lucy Neave’s reader is particularly interesting because it is full of the language of an editor. Consider it again: ‘The descriptions of nature, the more sensual aspects of the story, are some of my favourite prose ’ (emphasis added). This feedback offers praise and encouragement, but it does not gush. Importantly, it is specific; the reader says why she likes certain elements of the prose.

The reader goes on: ‘ I would love to see that same texture and depth given to the emotional aspects of the story’ (emphasis added). The reader could have said ‘You have failed to give the emotional aspects of the story sufficient texture and depth’. She could even have said ‘this sucks’ or ‘this fails’. Instead, the reader’s phrasing opens up options and possibilities. Rather than rejecting or criticising the draft in imprecise terms, the reader imagines and invites a bolder, deeper version of a draft. The quote continues: ‘If you were to show them when they’re happy, show them beginning to fall apart, and don’t worry about explaining it, but instead dramatizing it, I think you will have a dramatic leap forward ’ (emphases added). Again, the phrasing is open-ended rather than absolute: the reader effectively says ‘have you considered …?’ and even ‘let’s talk about this’, rather than delivering a prescriptive ‘you must do this’ or, even worse, ‘if I was writing your book, I’d write a different book altogether and you should too’.

These observations might sound like excessive tiptoeing, and could prompt the counter-proposition that writers should collectively toughen up. A generalisation based on personal experience: writers are sensitive – sometimes overly sensitive (Norton, 2009: 31-33). But the point of positively phrased feedback is not to pander to these sensitivities. Instead, the point – whether the feedback is for students, for amateur writers or for working writers – is to strike a balance: to offer the unadorned truth – if necessary, the brutal truth – delivered in a constructive, accessible and positive tone (Brett, 2011). In this respect, student writers are no different to established writers: given the slightest opportunity, they are likely to interpret positively expressed criticism to mean ‘You are a genius’. A painstakingly modulated tone allows an editor to say so much more and with more precision – and increases the chances of a writer hearing what the editor is actually saying. The published version of Neave’s Who We Were is an assured debut novel, one that draws together the personal, the professional, the cross-cultural and, especially, the political to telling effect (Allington, 2013).

I began by offering a list of things that the writer Steven Carroll appears to do wrong while writing his novels. There are various reasons why a novel cannot be reduced to a checklist of technical practices. Partly, it is because no single element of a story (plot, characterisation, dialogue, and so on) works in isolation: fiction writers draw these elements together carefully, crafting something that comes to appear, but rarely is, spontaneous. It’s also because writers do what they do – including, seemingly, twist or break ‘rules’ – in response to telling particular parts of stories in particular ways. As Xavier Pons suggests, Carroll distorts the real world of outer-Melbourne suburbia by magnifying key moments, and ‘attempts to breathe new life into realism by developing original narrative methods that renovate the usual conventions of realist fiction’ (2014: 11). Reviewing Carroll’s 2015 novel, Forever Young , Kerryn Goldsworthy also refers to ‘the Dickensian coincidences that Carroll uses unapologetically to illustrate the way that time loops itself around in the mind to produce moments of significance and illumination’ (Goldsworthy, 2015). Goldsworthy is correct that Carroll uses coincidences unapologetically. As the coincidences pile up in Forever Young (Carroll, 2015), Carroll’s feat is to convince readers to play along.

The example of Carroll makes clear, I think, that the idea of measuring a piece of fiction against a checklist is inherently flawed. Even highly skilled editors cannot insert themselves inside an author’s head. Feedback given without care – that is, feedback offered without taking fully into account the specific intent of a work-in-progress – can be unhelpful or even destructive, especially for student-writers still learning the craft of accepting, rejecting and interpreting feedback. When aspiring fiction writers first start thinking seriously about how to hone their craft – before they even expose their actual work to the scrutiny of actual readers – they are inundated with advice in the abstract, in the form of tips and rules that often include exactly the sort of ‘writerly sins’ that I identified as present in Steven Carroll’s work, and which, it is true, in most writing can indicate substantial flaws.

For a new or aspiring writer, a Google search will elicit pages of abstract, impersonal advice, often presented in the form of a list. This advice rains down on new, formative and emerging writers, delivered by everyone from fellow novices to living and dead luminaries such as Margaret Atwood (2010), Kurt Vonnegut (Popova, 2012), and many others. Some of these lists are prescriptive, implying that writing fiction consists of following rules, while others are aware of such limitations. And some, as with US crime writer Elmore Leonard’s ‘10 Rules of Writing’, are themselves entertaining and rigorous pieces of writing: ‘Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip’ (Leonard, 2010). [1]

A good deal of these impersonal instructions can be reduced to three well-worn maxims of creative writing: ‘write what you know’, ‘show don’t tell’ and ‘find your voice’. In his absorbing study of post-World War II creative writing programs in the US, Mark McGurl suggests these three maxims represent three key elements of ‘the abstract model of the autopetic process as the Program Era has understood it’. McGurl equates ‘write what you know’ with ‘experience’, under which he tiers ‘authenticity’ and then ‘memory, observation’. He equates ‘show don’t tell’ with ‘craft’ (or technique), under which he tiers ‘tradition’ and then ‘revision, concentration’. He links ‘find you voice’ to creativity, which includes ‘freedom’ and then ‘imagination, fantasy’ (2009: 23).

What the first of these maxims – ‘write what you know’ – does and does not mean is contested. All writers should strive for authenticity, but authenticity for a fiction writer should not, and generally does not, resemble the type of authenticity that, say, a non-fiction writer (whether historian, memoirist, journalist, science writer or so on) strives for. Believability and objective accuracy are not necessarily bedfellows in fiction. In addition, the pursuit of accuracy can lead to excessive exposition. Fiction writers should roam free … if they choose to. Fiction writers should explore whatever they feel compelled to explore. As a throwaway piece of feedback, ‘write what you know’ runs directly counter, I believe, to the very purpose of fiction. In new writers, it can foster an unedifying safeness.

A fiction writer relies, at least in part, on technique to achieve authenticity. In this context, the second maxim – ‘show don’t tell’ – is vital, as Lucy Neave and her designated reader seem to agree, and as I would suggest that many other editors, writers and readers would agree. My personal assessment of much of the unpublished contemporary fiction that I have encountered is that it would benefit from less summary and more scenes and more details: sometimes scenes are absent or near-absent, and sometimes scenes compete with redundant and deflating summary. I do not suggest that fiction can or should be free of summary. Nonetheless, stories are animated by action, allowing readers to become actual witnesses to events. And yet, Steven Carroll is an example of a fiction writer who seems to embrace ‘telling not showing’, and he does so to critical acclaim. Similarly, the US writer Philip Roth, for example, has forged a formidable reputation by over-telling. In broad terms, fiction writers persistently break or twist ‘rules’, creating unique solutions to their unique problems.

The third well-worn creative writing maxim is ‘find your voice’. But what does this mysterious direction actually mean? The Australian writer and publisher Angela Meyer has written that the question of whether a manuscript has ‘a strong voice’ seems ‘instinctual’ and ‘intangible’. Meyer identifies three specific (if related) elements: ‘the voice of a text’, ‘a writer’s voice’ and ‘being a voice for, or of …’, as in ‘She was the voice of a generation’ (Meyer, 2015).

To what extent, though, does a student-writer understand feedback that reads ‘you’re really finding the voice’ or ‘the voice is erratic here’? For many student-writers, the writing voice is a work-in-progress. Where the voice comes from, and how it emerges, is complex and hazy. It has to do with reading and with experiments in writing, with the influences of various other art forms (not least, in the twenty-first century, film and television) and with the influences of any number of personal, psychological, cultural, and political, peer or familial influences. Meyer links a writer’s voice to a writer’s concerns:

‘Concerns’ are a writer’s obsessions or fascinations: themes like death, secrets and love; settings or objects they are drawn to; even more abstract elements, like a particular colour. A writer may not know why ‘yellow’ or ‘hallways’ are a concern (these are two of mine), but this not-knowing is interrogated through the writing itself. (Meyer, 2015)

Meyer goes on to suggest that when writers are yet to ‘find’ their voice,

… it is evident in their writing – particularly when it has an uneven or erratic pace, so that the voice only comes through in snatches like a car radio in a dead zone; or when it has an overly earnest tone … Overt performativity is another giveaway, because the writer is still mimicking the form or style of others, without having gone deep enough … and matching their own concerns to an appropriate form. (Meyer, 2015)

It is unsurprising that student writers do not have an assured voice. Some writers never acquire it. Meyer cites James Baldwin, who wrote four novels before he published one. Similarly, the Australian novelist Peter Carey wrote three unpublished novels before switching to short stories, publishing the influential short story collections The Fat Man in History (1974) and War Crimes (1979). Subsequently, he switched back to novels, publishing Bliss in 1981. When I interviewed Carey in 2014, he said this about those early short stories:

I began only wanting to write novels and then I wrote short stories because all my grand – or grandiose – schemes to build these mansions of fiction failed. I came back to Australia and just thought, well, maybe I can build some really interesting little sheds and that would be good. And, indeed, that’s what those short stories were, and they were the first things I ever did that came close to succeeding. (Carey, in Allington, 2015: 158).

Somewhere in that time, Carey found his writing voice, which at its best is a rollicking, politically charged, highly inventive, sardonic and audacious voice. Perhaps this stemmed from a honing of craft/technique – an ability to control his sentences and paragraphs in the service of his sustained vision. Whatever else happened in that time, Carey found his voice. He went on to win the Booker Prize twice, although not necessarily for the right novels.

When I interviewed Peter Carey in 2014, I asked him if he ever revisited his first unpublished novels. He replied as follows:

For a lot of years I did. I’d go back – and you’d sort of have this childish hope that they’d matured in the top drawer, and that when you take them out they’ll be wonderful. And of course, they weren’t. And the things that were wrong before have, in a way, got worse with time. No one was unfair to me. In fact, people were very generous to me. I wasn’t unfairly rejected. People were kind; people recognised talent and supported this and extracted that and so on, but… no, they’re not going to get any better, they’re only going to get worse. (Carey, in Allington, 2015: 159)

At one point, the publisher Sun Books planned to publish one of the manuscripts, ‘The Futility Machine’. Years later, Carey told the would-be publisher that, ‘In retrospect I think I was very lucky I wasn’t published’ (quoted in Munro, 2015: 51). Whatever wonders and promise those early Carey novels possessed, they failed in publishers’ eyes and Carey’s own eyes. But it is worth considering the long view: Carey’s success later excellence emerged, at least in part, from a foundation of provisional failure. Audacious and ambitious writers are bound to sometimes produce manuscripts that fail.

Written feedback delivered to a student-writer should aim to avoid messing with this process of failing, as a simple mark of respect to that student writer, while also, as noted previously, being brutally truthful and offering criticism in a spirit of open dialogue.

Related to this discussion of failure is the idea of non-knowing. The English novelist and creative writing academic Andrew Cowan has written that, ‘I think the truest think I can say about my own experience of writing is that I don’t know what I am doing. Writing is the activity where I feel most adrift, least competent, most uncertain, least aware. I stumble along’ (2011). Cowan went on to quote writers – including Joan Didion, W.G. Sebald, E.M. Forster, Elizabeth Hardwick and others – expressing similar sentiments. He quotes David Malouf, for example, who says, ‘Writers have to be – naive is the wrong word – but in a state of innocence when writing. Everything you think you know you have to let fall out of your head, because the only thing that’s going to be interesting in the book is what you don’t yet know’ (Malouf, quoted in Cowan), Aa a fiction writer, I agree with Cowan and Malouf, and yet the idea and ideal of non-knowing can be confusing and even disingenuous. I understand, as William Trevor puts it, that many writers write ‘out of curiosity and bewilderment’ (quoted in Cowan), and yet writers are experts in employing a storied, rigorous and highly crafted version of bewilderment.

Experimentation and conformity

Some critics, editors and publishers complain or worry that literature has become technically proficient but bland, predictable and safe – and too infrequently bold. To whatever extent this is true, we should not accept the assumption that creative writing programs are to blame for this by favouring conformity or standardisation over experimentation and originality. Nonetheless, in focusing on the complexities of written feedback and fiction, I acknowledge that creative writing programs have an obligation to students and to the wider culture to not use the acquisition of technique and skill to dampen originality.

A persistent bigger question casts its predictable shadow: can creative writing be taught? On one level, this is a question worth asking and re-asking. Mark McGurl, for one, has done so to stunning effect in his sharply nuanced, opinionated and entertaining history of postwar creative writing programs in the US. But the question is often asked and answered in a tiresome and facile fashion. As with medicine, as with law, as with the violin, creative writing can be taught well, indifferently or poorly. Regardless, students probably will not all win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Or as the US writer and academic John Barth once said, ‘Not even in America can one major in Towering Literary Artistry’ (Menard, 2009). But for student writers of all levels, there is value in fostering skills in receiving editorial feedback and in developing self-editing skills.

[1] The list is readily available online, and which later appeared in book form (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010), was first published in the New York Times , 16 July 2001.

Allington P (2013) Well Read: review of Lucy Neave’s Who We Were and Amanda Curtin’s Elemental . The Advertiser (25 May).

Allington P (2015) Interview: Patrick Allington in conversation with Peter Carey. Kill Your Darlings 20 (January): 137-160.

Atwood, M (2010) Margaret Atwood’s Rules for Writers. The Guardian (22 February). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/22/margaret-atwood-rules-for-writers (accessed 1 March 2015).

Brett M (2011) Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing Fiction. Meanjin (70, 1). Available at: http://meanjin.com.au/essays/stet-by-me-thoughts-on-editing-fiction/ (accessed 10 February 2015).

Carroll S (2015) Forever Young . Sydney: Fourth Estate.

Cowan A (2011) Blind spots: what creative writing doesn’t know. Text 15: 1 (April).

Goldsworthy K (2015) Kerryn Goldsworthy reviews Forever Young by Steven Carroll. Australian Book Review 372 (June-July).

Leonard, E (2001) Writers on Writing: Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle. New York Times (16 July). Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/arts/writers-writing-easy-adverbs-exclamation-points-especially-hooptedoodle.html (accessed 8 Feburary 2015).

Leonard, E (2010) 10 Rules of Writing . London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

McGurl M (2009) The Program Era: postwar fiction and the rise of creative writing . Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Menand L (2008). Show or Tell. The New Yorker (June 8). [add URL] Date accessed: 20 July 2015.

Meyer A (2015) Breathing In, Singing Out: three notions of voice in writing. Killings : Kill Your Darlings online columns and blog (15 July). Available at: http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2015/07/three-notions-of-voice/ (accessed 19 July 2015).

Munro C (2015) Under Cover: adventures in the art of editing . Melbourne: Scribe Publications.

Neave L (2013) Who We Were . Melbourne: Text Publishing.

Neave L (2014) Being read: How writers of fiction manuscripts experience and respond to criticism. Text 18: 1 (April). Available at: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april14/neave.htm (accessed 20 July 2015).

Norton S (2009) Developmental editing: a handbook for freelancers, authors, and publishers . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Pons X (2014) ‘On the Threshold of Change’: Liminality and Marginality in Steven Carroll’s Fiction. Commonwealth Essays and Studies 37, 1: 11-23.

Popova, M (2012) Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story. The Atlantic , online (3 April). Available at http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/kurt-vonneguts-8-tips-on-how-to-write-a-great-story/255401/ (accessed 19 July 2015).

Taylor C and Burke da Silva K (2014) An analysis of the effectiveness of feedback to students on assessed work. Higher Education Research & Development 33: 4, 794-806.

Creative writing checklist

Creative writing checklist.

Write what you like to read...

Your characters (round not flat - "give me me") should have characteristics:

Physical/biological: age, height, size, state of health, assets, flaws, sexuality, gait, voice.
Psychological: intelligence, temperament, happiness/unhappiness, attitudes, self-knowledge, unconscious aspects.
Interpersonal/cultural: family, friends, colleagues, birthplace, education, hobbies, beliefs, values, lifestyle.
Personal history: major events in the life, including the best and the most traumatic.
Relationships: what they really think, what is communicated, what is disguised

These people should be as complex as possible and never yet encountered in fiction, or at the least...

Ambition/desire
Needs (unconscious)
A best friend (confidant)
A worst enemy (and why)
Pocket contents
Something precious lost recently
A name (boring name for wonderful life, flashy name)
Action is character, shows our character

...and should be described by:

Make a summary of what the character is like.
Show him or her through appearance.
Show him or her through a habitual or repeated action.
Finally, show him or her through a speech in a scene.

Use a journal to build ideas for character.

Consider all the influences that go into the making of your character: age, gender, race, nationality, marital status, religion, profession.
Complete this personal inventory for prominent characters.
Know about your character's behaviour, what s/he wears, buys, eats, says, works at and plays at.
Know how your character speaks and how this changes according to context, mood and intention.
See and describe your character vividly, how s/he looks, how s/he moves, his or her possessions and surroundings.
Focus on your character's contradictions and conflicts in order to create a complex person and also to generate plot.

Finally, you should be able to name what you like and dislike about each character and how that pertains to their role.

Your Story structure could have:

Resolution (start at the end): External vs. internal conflicts end differently - end state
Hook: at the beginning, starting state, usually boring, often a prologue with action
Plot-turn 1: conflict introduced, beginning to middle
Pinch 1: force characters to action, often introduces villain
Midpoint: "lets do something about this situation"
Plot-turn 2: "the power is in you"
Pinch 2: jaws of defeat, "all seems lost", loss of a mentor, bad guys win
Resolution: (The end)

AND Lots of Try/fail cycles

! Most stories have at LEAST two plots, each of which can be mapped out using this system. Create a matrix and then spread out these events, combining them only to make big scenes.

Your plot should have:

A problem...provides a story
Beginning (dilemma)
Middle (confrontation)
End (resolution) - even in bad condition

Your setting could be:

Plenty of description
The conflict or antagonist
Described by all the senses of the characters
An extra descriptor of the characters
Based on research like photos
A trip for the reader to the location of the setting

Once you're done with writing, bury your manuscript for a month. Then read it aloud to yourself and look for...

Clarity of characterization and plot
Construction like a nice jigsaw puzzle
Color as if you were there, seeing, feeling and believing

Continued Reading/Viewing

A Youtube video series on story structure
a set of flashcards that might be useful
Creative writing
Writing prompts
Nonfiction writing

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Creative writing tips

This helpful checklist or set of tips guides KS3-4 students through some of the fundamental elements of creative writing, including careful planning, as well as how to start and end a story. There is also guidance on how to use flashbacks and 'zooming in' to make their story more engaging for the reader.

It includes a list of techniques to help students:

Features to use:

adjectives, noun phrases, alliteration, imagery, triples, adverbs, verbs, motifs (recurring symbols), the senses.

An extract from the resource:

Try a number of places where you can ‘zoom’ in on the characters, the setting or important items. Have close-ups focusing on important details so the reader will notice them and realise they are important as they reveal new or vital ‘clues’ to help the story or description move on.

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University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Jun 08, 2024

2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog

Offered by English . The Creative Writing Minor at UMBC is appropriate for students of any major who are interested in creative writing as a form of expression. Students study the craft of writing across genres, including fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. They learn to read critically, produce and revise their own creative work, and share feedback on their peers’ writing in a supportive workshop setting. Beyond the classroom, they engage with the wider creative community, attending campus literary events and exploring publishing opportunities. By cultivating the habits of productive writers, students grow as self-editors and are able to continue creative pursuits after their undergraduate studies.

Minor Requirements

Minimum of 21 credits
Minimum grade of ‘C’ in courses applied to the minor
ENGL 203 must be completed in residence at UMBC
Other creative writing courses may be transferred in, if equivalency is determined for them
Up to 6 credits from the minor may be counted as part of the English, B.A.

Course Requirements

Required course (3 credits).

Complete the following:

ENGL 203 - Creative Writing Study and Practice (3)

Elective Courses (18 credits)

Complete 18 credits of ENGL courses including a minimum of 12 credits at the 300-level and 3 credits at the 400-level.

200-level Creative Writing

Students may complete one additional 200-level course from the following:

ENGL 271 - Introduction to Creative Writing - Fiction (3)
ENGL 272 - Introduction to Creative Writing-Scriptwriting (3)
ENGL 273 - Introduction to Creative Writing - Poetry (3)
ENGL 291 - Introduction to Writing Creative Essays (3)

300-level Creative Writing

Complete a minimum of two 300-level Creative Writing courses from the following:

ENGL 303 - The Art of the Essay (3)
ENGL 371 - Creative Writing-Fiction (3)
ENGL 372 - Creative Writing: Scriptwriting (3)
ENGL 373 - Creative Writing-Poetry (3)
ENGL 375 - Topics in Creative Writing (3)

300-level Literature and Culture

Complete a minimum of two 300-level Literature and Culture courses from the following:

ENGL 304 - British Literature: Medieval and Renaissance (3)
ENGL 305 - British Literature: Restoration to Romantic (3)
ENGL 306 - British Literature: Victorian and Modern (3)
ENGL 307 - American Literature: from New World Contact to the Civil War (3)
ENGL 308 - American Literature: The Civil War to 1945 (3)
ENGL 310 - Topics in Poetry (3)
ENGL 312 - Topics in Fiction (3)
ENGL 314 - Topics in Drama (3)
ENGL 315 - Studies in World Literature (3)
ENGL 316 - Literature and the Other Arts (3)
ENGL 317 - Literature and the Sciences (3)
ENGL 318 - Myth and Literature (3)
ENGL 331 - Contemporary British Literature (3)
ENGL 332 - Contemporary American Literature (3)
ENGL 334 - Medieval Literature (3)
ENGL 336 - Medieval and Early Modern Drama (3)
ENGL 339 - Early Modern Literature (3)
ENGL 340 - Major Literary Traditions and Movements (3)
ENGL 344 - Topics in Textual Studies (3)
ENGL 345 - Topics in Literature and History (3)
ENGL 346 - Literary Themes (3)
ENGL 347 - Contemporary Developments in Literature & Culture (3)
ENGL 348 - Literature and Culture (3)
ENGL 349 - The Bible and Literature (3)
ENGL 350 - Major British and American Writers (3)
ENGL 351 - Studies in Shakespeare (3)
ENGL 360 - The Literature of Minorities (3)
ENGL 361 - Studies in Black Drama (3)
ENGL 362 - Studies in Black Poetry (3)
ENGL 364 - Perspectives on Women in Literature (3)
ENGL 366 - World Literature Written in English (3)
ENGL 369 - Race and Ethnicity in U.S. Literature (3)

400-level Creative Writing

Complete a minimum of one 400-level course from the following:

ENGL 403 - Advanced Creative Writing: Non-Fiction (3)
ENGL 471 - Advanced Creative Writing-Fiction (3)
ENGL 473 - Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry (3)
ENGL 475 - Special Studies in Creative Writing (3)
ENGL 495 - Internship (1-4)

Peer Review

About this Strategy Guide

This strategy guide explains how you can employ peer review in your classroom, guiding students as they offer each other constructive feedback to improve their writing and communication skills.

Research Basis

Strategy in practice, related resources.

Peer review refers to the many ways in which students can share their creative work with peers for constructive feedback and then use this feedback to revise and improve their work. For the writing process, revision is as important as drafting, but students often feel they cannot let go of their original words. By keeping an audience in mind and participating in focused peer review interactions, students can offer productive feedback, accept constructive criticism, and master revision. This is true of other creative projects, such as class presentations, podcasts, or blogs. Online tools can also help to broaden the concept of “peers.” Real literacy happens in a community of people who can make meaningful connections. Peer review facilitates the type of social interaction and collaboration that is vital for student learning.

Peer review can be used for different class projects in a variety of ways:

Teach students to use these three steps to give peer feedback: Compliments, Suggestions, and Corrections (see the Peer Edit with Perfection! Handout ). Explain that starting with something positive makes the other person feel encouraged. You can also use Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial to walk through the feedback process with your students.
Provide students with sentence starter templates, such as, “My favorite part was _________ because __________,” to guide students in offering different types of feedback. After they start with something positive, have students point out areas that could be improved in terms of content, style, voice, and clarity by using another sentence starter (“A suggestion I can offer for improvement is ___________.”). The peer editor can mark spelling and grammar errors directly on the piece of writing.
Teach students what constructive feedback means (providing feedback about areas that need improvement without criticizing the person). Feedback should be done in an analytical, kind way. Model this for students and ask them to try it. Show examples of vague feedback (“This should be more interesting.”) and clear feedback (“A description of the main character would help me to imagine him/her better.”), and have students point out which kind of feedback is most useful. The Peer Editing Guide offers general advice on how to listen to and receive feedback, as well as how to give it.
For younger students, explain that you need helpers, so you will show them how to be writing teachers for each other. Model peer review by reading a student’s piece aloud, then have him/her leave the room while you discuss with the rest of the class what questions you will ask to elicit more detail. Have the student return, and ask those questions. Model active listening by repeating what the student says in different words. For very young students, encourage them to share personal stories with the class through drawings before gradually writing their stories.
Create a chart and display it in the classroom so students can see the important steps of peer editing. For example, the steps might include: 1. Read the piece, 2. Say what you like about it, 3. Ask what the main idea is, 4. Listen, 5. Say “Add that, please” when you hear a good detail. For pre-writers, “Add that, please” might mean adding a detail to a picture. Make the chart gradually longer for subsequent sessions, and invite students to add dialogue to it based on what worked for them.
Incorporate ways in which students will review each other’s work when you plan projects. Take note of which students work well together during peer review sessions for future pairings. Consider having two peer review sessions for the same project to encourage more thought and several rounds of revision.
Have students review and comment on each other’s work online using Nicenet , a class blog, or class website.
Have students write a class book, then take turns bringing it home to read. Encourage them to discuss the writing process with their parents or guardians and explain how they offered constructive feedback to help their peers.

Using peer review strategies, your students can learn to reflect on their own work, self-edit, listen to their peers, and assist others with constructive feedback. By guiding peer editing, you will ensure that your students’ work reflects thoughtful revision.

Lesson Plans
Strategy Guides

Using a collaborative story written by students, the teacher leads a shared-revising activity to help students consider content when revising, with students participating in the marking of text revisions.

After analyzing Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, students create a class book with artwork and information about their ancestry, traditions, and recipes, followed by a potluck lunch.

Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.

While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.

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The Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024) is an interdisciplinary conference that brings together researchers in machine learning, neuroscience, statistics, optimization, computer vision, natural language processing, life sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, and other adjacent fields.

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Each submission must describe independent work wholly performed by the high school student authors. We expect each submission to highlight either demonstrated positive social impact or the potential for positive social impact using machine learning. Application areas may include but are not limited to the following:

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We are using OpenReview to manage submissions. Papers should be submitted here . Submission will open June 1st. Submissions under review will be visible only to their assigned program committee. We will not be soliciting comments from the general public during the reviewing process. Anyone who plans to submit a paper as an author or a co-author will need to create (or update) their OpenReview profile by the full paper submission deadline.

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Proof of high school attendance: Submitting authors will also be asked to upload a signed letter, on school letterhead, from each author’s high school confirming that the author was enrolled in high school during the 2023-2024 academic year.

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Creative Writing Checklist

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

7 October 2022

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A handy sheet for students preparing for any creative writing task, encouraging careful and deliberate crafting of language and structural features.

Useful for both GCSE and KS3 writing tasks.

Creative Commons "Sharealike"

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IMAGES

Creative Writing Feedback Sheet by Heemanshu Prajapat
Writing Feedback Checklist
Creative feedback checklist for marketers
Creative Writing Checklist
Writing Feedback Slips
Writing Quick Feedback Tool/Checklist by Education Central Store

VIDEO

Writing Performance Review Goals
Managers use Textio AI to give better feedback and cut review writing time in half
Top 5 Tips for a Successful Job Interview #shorts #top5 #job #interview
Feedbacker Demo
Retraining-Pianist.com I feedback checklist
How to Give and Receive Useful Feedback

COMMENTS

Giving Effective Feedback to Creative Writers
Sample from these steps to make your own workflow. 1. Centered around the purpose of the feedback at hand, create your plan. 2. Set aside an appropriately sized amount of time. If your plan will require multiple sittings, go ahead and schedule these out on your calendar, so time doesn't get away from you.
How to Give Constructive Feedback to Creative Writing
This is a kind of constructive feedback students love to hate (because it makes them think ). I ask my students to respond and revise. This strategy rocks because it establishes feedback as a two-way conversation rather than a one-way lecture. ️ Have students direct your feedback by asking you questions about their work.
The Writing Center
But don't try to write the paper for the writer by telling him/her what to say and how to say it. Write out your key comments and suggestions on the back of the paper or on a separate sheet of paper so the writer can refer to them later while revising. Golden Rule. Provide your peer with the considerate and thorough feedback you would want to ...
The Checklist: How to Give Better Creative Feedback
In most creative writing workshops, workshoppers are invited to use the "sandwich method" when responding to the reader's work. The idea is to begin with something that you like, explaining in detail why it's working. The next layer is where the constructive part comes in, identifying areas for improvement. Finally, the feedback is ...
Writing Critique Checklists
Writing Critique Checklists. Following is an outline I use when preparing writers to critique one another. This outline breaks down the type of feedback according to the stage of the work. Of course this applies specifically to writing but it can give you some ideas for how you might outline forms of critique for other kinds of creative work.
Checklist For Creative Writing
Checklist For Creative Writing. Begins with an engaging opening sentence and opening paragraph; Concludes with an impactful ending that makes the audience appreciative of the writing ; The ending is plausible and fits in with the rest of the story; Uses strong, descriptive language throughout the entire piece;
PDF Creative Writing Revision Checklist
18. Self and Peer Evaluation of this writing piece: Writing piece is fully revised and a 'clean' copy may be submitted as final draft. Some minor revisions are still necessary before final draft completed Some important revisions are still necessary before final draft completed Major revision is still needed before final draft is completed ...
Creative Writing: Feedback and Assessment
This month I am reworking the feedback grids that we use in class for the creative writing workshops for second year undergraduate LANSOD students (students who specialise in domains of study other than English). In order to understand the manner in which the grids are used in class see my article Diversity in Creative Writing Workshops ...
12 Writing Fiction Checklists
Here's a variety of checklists to help you evaluate where you are in the writing process. Edited: Some of these resources have changed, so there are only 11 checklists now. Checklist of 17 Character Qualities. 10 Checkpoints for a Scene. Style: Checklist For Fiction Writers. Editing Checklists for Story, Plot, Characters, Dialogue and more.
'Have you considered … ?': written feedback and the student creative
A creative writing teacher might find particularly challenging the need to provide this sort of personalised feedback to an undergraduate creative writing topic with a sizeable enrolment that runs for a semester. The quote from Lucy Neave's reader is particularly interesting because it is full of the language of an editor.
Creative writing checklist
Pinch 1: force characters to action, often introduces villain. Midpoint: "lets do something about this situation". Plot-turn 2: "the power is in you". Pinch 2: jaws of defeat, "all seems lost", loss of a mentor, bad guys win. Resolution: (The end)
Self/Peer assessment grids for Creative Writing
docx, 16.03 KB. Grids that allow students to assess their work individually or assess their peer's work, clear criteria with a 'next steps' box in which students should write any instructions for students who didn't meet a specific criteria and how they can change their work to improve it and include that feature. Creative Commons "Sharealike".
Editing Checklist for Self- and Peer Editing
Assess students' progress of the editing process by creating a simple checklist. List all students' names down the first column and a row for dates on which the editing checklist was used across the top. Then, as you observe students during the editing process, you can rate their level of effectiveness as an editor by using simple marks ...
KS3 & 4 Student Creative Writing Checklist
doc, 294 KB. I use this checklist with KS3 and KS4. It's an effective tool to help students focus on the basic components of effective creative writing. It incorporates the principles of Assessment for Learning with an emphasis on self and peer evaluation. The 'Y' column stands for 'You' ( the student), the 'P' column stands for 'Peer'.
Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab
Mission. The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives.
Results for writing feedback checklist
The Self-Regulated Strategy Development framework for informative writing includes peer feedback in stage 5. This product will guide the students through the process. Laminate each checklist and students can use a dry erase marker to check off each item as they complete it. I have included 2 versions.
Creative writing tips for KS3-4 English
This helpful checklist or set of tips guides KS3-4 students through some of the fundamental elements of creative writing, including careful planning, as well as how to start and end a story. There is also guidance on how to use flashbacks and 'zooming in' to make their story more engaging for the reader. It includes a list of techniques to help ...
Program: Creative Writing Minor
The Creative Writing Minor at UMBC is appropriate for students of any major who are interested in creative writing as a form of expression. Students study the craft of writing across genres, including fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. They learn to read critically, produce and revise their own creative work, and share feedback on their ...
Peer Review
For very young students, encourage them to share personal stories with the class through drawings before gradually writing their stories. Create a chart and display it in the classroom so students can see the important steps of peer editing. For example, the steps might include: 1. Read the piece, 2. Say what you like about it, 3.
Story Setting Creative Writing Checklist
Use this story setting checklist to assess your class' creative writing skills and how effectively they are using story setting. These checklists come in three differentiated versions, including options for self-assessment, peer review and teacher assessment. About to use the editable version of this for a Year 3 class doing a setting description.
Writing feedback checklist by Yolanda Czajkowski
Writing feedback checklist. 2 Ratings. Previous Next. Yolanda Czajkowski. 11 Followers. Follow. Subject. Creative Writing, Writing-Expository, Writing-Essays. Grade Levels. 2 nd, 3 rd, 4 th, 5 th. Resource Type. Worksheets, Assessment, Printables. Format. ... This is a quick way to give feedback to students on any writing assignment. It allows ...
Writing feedback checklist
Looking for a resource to help your students give peer editing & feedback on writing assignments? This resource gives your students a writing checklist, choice board menus & fill-in forms that can be used for reflection, peer editing & writing conferences. The resources will help your students offer quick and effective feedback.It also is a great way to increase motivation & ...
Peer Review Strategies and Checklist
Make your peer review feedback more effective and purposeful by applying these strategies: Be a reader. Remember you are the reader, not the writer, editor, or grader of the work. As you make suggestions, remember your role, and offer a reader's perspective (e.g., "This statistic seemed confusing to me as a reader.
PDF Creative Writing Proofreading Checklist
Punctuation: check the style sheet for dash usage; ensure correct and consistent usage of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes. Capitalisation: ensure consistency in chapter headings and subheadings. Capitalisation: make sure correct capitalisation is followed in regards to common/proper nouns, job titles etc.
2024 Call for High School Projects
In addition, the leading authors of up to five winning projects will be invited to attend an award ceremony at NeurIPS 2024 in Vancouver. Each submission must describe independent work wholly performed by the high school student authors. We expect each submission to highlight either demonstrated positive social impact or the potential for ...
Creative Writing Checklist
Creative Writing Checklist. Subject: English. Age range: 14-16. Resource type: Worksheet/Activity. File previews. docx, 15.36 KB. A handy sheet for students preparing for any creative writing task, encouraging careful and deliberate crafting of language and structural features. Useful for both GCSE and KS3 writing tasks.

Giving Effective Feedback to Creative Writers

The Three P’s: Purpose, Plan, and Process

Know Your Purpose

Make a Plan

Have a Process

Acknowledgements

How to Give Constructive Feedback to Creative Writing

Setting the Stage for Writing Feedback

Constructive Feedback for Students

Strategies for How to Give Constructive Feedback

Final Thoughts

About Lindsay Ann

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Reader Interactions

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The Checklist: How to Give Better Creative Feedback

☑Revisit the Brief

☑Have the Last Version On-Hand

☑Highlight What is Working

☑Be Specific

☑…But Don’t Be Too Prescriptive

☑Provide the (Visual) Context

☑Keep Things Exclusive

☑Keep Feedback Centralized and Synchronous

Now…The Ball is in Your Court

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Writing feedback checklist

Essay Writing Revision Stations: Peer Editing Checklist , Essay Feedback Centers

Peer Editing Checklist Review and Feedback Sheets for Multiple Writing Genres

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