Formative Feedback using Google Docs

We are in the thick of our new fantasy story writing unit. Students gathered lots of ideas launched from minilessons, chose one to commit to, and shared that idea with me using a plot mountain. They also identified a social issue that they are going to show through their story. As I reviewed plot mountains, I noticed how many stories mirrored their interests out of school: the video gamers have characters being sucked into games, the dystopian readers have futuristic settings with problems of injustice, boy-crazy girls have characters who fall in love with superheroes, and those concerned with bullying have bullying stories (one is being bullied by her talking diary who is revealing all her secrets!).

image from Google play website

After a week of drafting, it was time for me to take a close look at how these stories were going. The students are drafting on Google Docs, which they shared with me. Not only does it save paper, but it also allows me anytime access to their drafts and a tool for commenting easily. As I read, I made sure to find opportunities to highlight and write a positive comment in the margin where I saw the student apply something we talked about in class--slow motion details that show scenes clearly, an interesting lead, short tense sentences in an action scene, dialogue that reveals something about the character-- or something I really enjoyed as a reader-- a funny moment, a surprise, or an interesting conflict or character.

I also found opportunities to highlight and question places where I became confused as a reader. Perhaps the student shifted scenes abruptly and needed to transition more smoothly. Maybe the student started in first person and switched to third person halfway through (or vise-versa) or changed the character's name. Or something happened so abruptly that I was caught off-guard (What? Your best friend just entered your house and shot your brother out of the blue? Why?).

Other times I highlighted and nudged toward a skill taught during previous minilessons. For example, we've been focusing on sentence variety, so I might highlight a couple of simple sentences that could be combined, or long sentences in an action scene that might be better as short tense sentences, or fragments that seemed to have no purpose. Another common comment centered on a long "telling" lead paragraph, explaining everything about the fantasy setting or all about the character and their traits or conflict. For these, I usually said something like, "This is a long paragraph filled with lots of "telling". Consider how to "show" this information to the reader instead: you could say it during a conversation, you could have the character do something that shows his traits, or you could do... something else?"

Finally, I highlighted and "taught" some simple skills where I saw a consistent error. I highlighted dialogue and explained how to use punctuation inside the quotation marks when the quote is followed by a speech marker. I also told students to add a "return" and "tab" when each new person talks. Similarly, for those stories that were all one paragraph, I found the first place where the idea shifts, and "taught" how writers look for those places to add paragraph breaks (using a "return" and "tab" to indent). Several students shifted verb tense in the middle of their stories, so a quick "choose one tense and stick to it throughout your story" reminder at the point of shifting sufficed.

As I was doing all this reading, highlighting, and commenting, I had Lucy Calkins' voice in my head, "Teach the writer, not the writing." Although I felt I was fairly prescriptive in some places (especially the skills comments), I tried really hard to keep the ownership of the story in the students' hands. By asking questions, giving strategy reminders, and open suggestions starting with "consider", the choice about how to revise is up to the student.

I captured my suggestions on a document so that I can go back to the students and talk through some of the more difficult suggestions (such as the show-not-tell lead), and I can also go back to the story and see if my nudges moved the student along. Once students submit their final stories (they change ownership so that I am owner and they can only view), I can re-read my comments as I grade to see if they actually followed through on making changes.

Google docs keeps students' writing process very transparent. I have constant access to their work and students can always view my suggestions. Once they feel satisfied that they have acted on the suggestion, students have the power to "resolve" the comment, which hides it from the draft and makes it look clean, but it is still available to view through the comments button at the top of the page. Students can share their writing with a few others in order to get peer feedback, and I can see the kinds of comments their peers make. Are they the "I love your story! It's so good!" comment which does little to help the writer, or are they the constructive kind, either specific and positive ("I love how you showed that your character is brave by making her confront her fear of spiders") or helpful ("You need more periods here because I got confused when I read it")? Google docs has been a great tool to use for student writing projects!