Marking in Pencil on Paper: Because Their Writing is Not Mine

“Whoa. This is intense.”

“I never got this much feedback before.”

“You really liked this?”

“Last year, all we got were circles on a rubric.”

When I asked my students if they spent any time reading through those circles on the rubric, the overwhelming answer was, “No. Why?”

My suspicion is that they had received feedback—plenty of feedback. It is just not easy to deal with comments in an e-environment.

As we returned to school this year, I returned to grading papers—actual printed papers. And the response was positive. From students and their parents. After I finished grading, I returned these paper copies to my students, and we spent at least fifteen minutes of class time reading through and talking about the comments. Students asked questions to clarify why something was circled. Some asked me to read my comments to them, because I tend to comment in cursive, and they freely admit that they “don’t know how to read cursive.” Sigh.

With no prompting from me, students talked to each other about things they read in their margins, marks they saw on their writing, and their reactions to my reactions. They asked each other questions. They asked me questions. They answered questions I had written in their margins. They wondered about their writing. They took time to look back at it without a reflection sheet or other artificial assignment. There was clear and real thinking about writing, and it simply happened.

This did not happen when all of my comments were made electronically. In the digital world, my students simply accepted or complained about their grades and moved on. Hunting for, clicking on, looking at, and reading comments in Google Docs, Schoology, or any other digital platform for writing is cumbersome. Many…no most…of my students in the past two years never looked at a piece of digital writing again, once it received a grade. I actually fielded a number of emails from students wondering why their grade was a B or a C. After spending a good 20 minutes or so reading, commenting extensively, and scoring it! There were digital comment boxes all over the place! My students just didn’t look. It was too much to do. It was too much to ask. It was not easy. However, if students are given actual papers with writing on them, and class time to look at these, they can easily find the comments and markings. They can look at them and ask about them. And they do.

I choose to write every one of these comments, reactions, and circled errors in pencil. Pencil is not permanent. Pencil is erasable. Pencil is not harsh. By writing in pencil, I allow the students to maintain ownership of their writing. Writing is hard work, and I honor that. They may, if they choose to, erase every one of my comments and marks, and that is fine with me. Their writing is theirs, not mine. I will never claim to take away this ownership by marking writing in red ink or any other color ink. What a violation that would be.

Does my process take more time? Yes and no. Yes, it does take time to print the writing. Many of my students do not have printers at home. So, they submit their papers to me in Schoology. I print them. That takes more time than simply clicking on them from the list of submissions in Schoology. However, the commenting and marking takes far less time on paper than in Google Docs or Schoology. Electronic comments take highlighting, multiple clicks, and typing to explain why something is marked. And on some platforms, the comments do not line up well with the text. On paper, I can circle things as I read with little to no interruption. I simply circle errors. I do not explain what the error is. This helps to encourage the above-mentioned talk. Of course, the margin reactions and comments take a few seconds, but they are easy to find when the students see their graded papers. And those are the things they really look for. They know there will be much to read. There always is. I find the effort of printing and commenting in pencil worth the time, both as I grade and when I return papers.

So, consider this. Next school year, think about printing your students’ first pieces of writing, or letting them hand-write these assignments. Then, mark them in pencil. Simply circle errors without explanation. If necessary, ask them why they think something is circled. Use the margins for feedback, but even more, use the margins for real reaction. Show your surprise. Show your love for a specific phrasing or word. Wonder. Question. Gush. Then, get ready for some real reflection.