The Struggle

I’ve always been the student that takes feedback to offense, well sometimes depending on how it’s worded, and/or who the professor is. The exercise where we had to write a paragraph critiquing the two students work “Four Seasons” and “The Right to Pray” definitely allowed me to walk in the teacher’s shoes and briefly experience the struggle educator’s face in correcting a student’s work. How does one critique a paper without completely bashing or discouraging the students? Of course providing positive, encouraging notes is an effective way, but as discussed in class these writings can have personal attachments to them and students can be sensitive about their work. Most of the time the negative comments stick with the students longer than the positive ones. Although we found some perks and good parts of the papers, there were far more things that needed to be corrected and we literally tore those papers apart, thank goodness the authors weren’t there to hear us critique them. Personally, I accept the feedback because it’s a part of writing/English, doesn’t mean I like it but it is what it is. I will say I can now take a step back and not take the feedback too personal.  It’s not an easy task trying to correct a paper without leaving the student feeling some kind of way. I think I now have a deeper appreciation of this struggle.