Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback

As I was perusing Jennifer Gonzalez's most recent blogs, she wrote about how to get students to read feedback, especially their writing pieces. This blog stuck out to me because I absolutely hate grading my students' writing pieces. No matter what feedback I give them through individual conferences or in groups the students just don't listen! It's incredibly frustrating and I put off grading their papers for weeks after they turned them in. It really bothers me that kids don't care about the feedback I put on their essays, not just because I took the time to do it, but because I did it to help them. I want them to grow as writers, and most of them do throughout the year, but so many only seem to care about that number: the grade.

I won’t lie: It made me angry. Not only did I feel like I had wasted my time, I felt like they just didn’t care. And then the snowball of thoughts would start: How will they survive if they don’t care about feedback? What’s going to happen in college? Or when they get jobs? Ugh! I’m done!

BUT THEN....Gonzalez found that if she returned her students papers with ONLY feedback and delay the delivery of the actual grade. This way the students focus moves from the grade to the feedback. It's brilliant!

The simple act of delaying the grade meant that students had to think about their writing. They had to read their own writing—after a few weeks away from it—and digest the comments, which allowed them to better recognize what they did well or not so well. The response from students was extremely positive; they understood the benefit of rereading their essays and paying attention to feedback. One boy in Gonzalez's class said, “Mrs. Gonzalez, you’re a genius. I’ve never read what a teacher writes on my essay before, and now I have to.”

Below are the following steps to "Delaying the Grade"