In their articles “Ranking, Evaluating, Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment” and “Writing Comments on Students’ Papers,” Peter Elbow and John Bean respectively tackle the subject of writing feedback, specifically in a classroom setting. Elbow greatly emphasizes the need for less ranking in the classroom, while also emphasizing more effective evaluation practices coupled with positive reinforcement; Bean echoes a lot of Elbow’s points, even giving examples of how to actually implement positive reinforcement in feedback.

Elbow explains his reasoning for lessening his emphasis on ranking and increasing evaluation as such: “The crux is no longer that commodity I’ve always hated and never trusted: a numerical ranking of the quality of their writing along a single continuum. Instead the crux becomes what I care about most: the concrete behaviors that I most want students to engage in because they produce the more learning and help me teach better” (Elbow 8). This quote really stuck out to me because it fully embodies what I believe to be the goal that teachers should all strive for: how do I make sure my students learn these skills? When our class discussed the ways we were taught how to write, a point in our conversation revealed that some of us didn’t care for our grades, they were just a means to an end. Pass so you don’t have to do the work anymore.

This sentiment is reflected in another of Elbow’s quotes: “My goal is not to get rid of evaluation but in fact to emphasize it, enhance it. I’m trying to get students to listen better to my evaluations–by uncoupling them from a grade. In effect, I’m doing this because I’m so fed up with students following or obeying my evaluations too blindly–making whatever changes my comments suggest but doing it for the sake of a grade; not really taking the time to make up their own minds about whether they think my judgments or suggestions really make sense to them” (Elbow 9). If Elbow’s practices were more proliferated in the US school systems, maybe we would have been more keen to engage as students. If whole generations of students were taught to write through ranking instead of pertinent evaluations, then we’d have generations of the “blind” leading the “blind,” a feedback loop more akin to the screeching sound from amplifiers than actual cogent critique and suggestion.

A section of Elbow’s article that I enjoyed immensely was the section on Liking. Elbow writes, “But it’s helpful to uncouple the two domains and realize that it makes perfectly good sense to say, ‘This is terrible, but I like it.’ Or, ‘This is good, but I hate it’ (Elbow 13). I enjoy this so much because it reminds me of how I review and give feedback to my writing peers. We all very obviously admire each other’s work, so its very easy for us to give that positive reinforcement to each other; no offense is taken because we know that its all in order to help each other grow. The One Most Inextricable from My Soul and I often send (or show) each other what we’re working on in order to get perspective on our writings, and because of the rapport we’ve built with each other over the years, we’ve become more effective sounding boards for each other. This rapport also allows us to give each other criticisms that might seem harsh to some, but instead for us is the most helpful. Maybe if a teacher and student build enough rapport, the liking will come naturally, and the teacher’s evaluations will hold more weight for the student.

Bean also mentioned something that reminded me of the revision section I presented on. He wrote, “It thus helps to establish a hierarchy of concerns, descending from higher-order issues (ideas, organization, development, and overall clarity) to lower-order issues (sentence correctness, style, mechanics, spelling, and so forth)” (Bean 322). This is incredibly reminiscent of the revision operations and systems of change in Sommers’ article, if not just exactly that. To me this really just emphasizes how important feedback is to the act of revision, and reminds me of how Emily said she’d ask her partner to read her work aloud in order to find places to improve. Another’s eyes or voice can be irreplaceable in the revision process. It also reminded me that Ava purposefully stopped speaking during the discussion because she didn’t want to move onto the topic of feedback just yet. I’m looking forward to her presentation on this section!

This blog post was written while I listened to the original soundtrack for the film Look Back (2024), composed by Hakura Nakamura! I saw it this past weekend after finally finishing a move, and I loved it as much as I loved the manga! It feels like an ode to everyone who makes art, and I know I’m going to watch it at least as many times as I’ve read the manga!