Mariah Jessen

ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

Analyzing Errors in a Student Text

What I struggled with the most in this exercise was actually marking everything that I

could find. I didn’t like the way the paper looked cluttered with errors and I found the process to

be quite tedious. Even though it was tedious, I did find more errors than when I had first gone

through the paper. It also forced me to realize that I may have focused on the wrong errors from

my Activity A paper. This tells me that, most likely, I do not believe or prescribe to a

comprehensive approach, but prefer to be more selective. Therefore, when I grade writing in the

future, I will be sure to be more selective and base the markings on which draft they are on and

the purpose of the paper.

Another struggle I had was deciding how much of a “sentence structure” error to

highlight, especially when there were also other grammar issues present in that sentence that

would potentially remain in the corrected sentence. This experience has taught me that I should

be a bit more conscientious when I decide which errors to mark and give feedback on. Even

though one kind of error may have distracted me more, doesn’t mean that it is the error that was

the most salient.

The last major struggle I had was ignoring rhetorical issues. While I know I have a lot to

learn when it comes to knowing what to mark in students’ papers, I already know that I tend to

take issue with rhetorical and some grammatical problems at the same time. For me, it doesn't

make sense to focus on just one or the other, a fact that Ferris and Hedgcock (2014) briefly

mention. Perhaps this comes from my own experiences as a writer and my desire to better

understand the major problems with my paper with help from the professor while I would later

address the smaller problems myself or with the assistance of a peer.

Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

Reference

Ferris, R., D. & Hedgcock, S., J. (2014). Improving Accuracy in Student Writing. ​Teaching ESL

composition: Purpose, process, and practice​ (3​rd​ ed, pp. 289-308). Routledge.
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

Appendix

Appendix A

F&H Student Writing with All Errors Marked

Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

Appendix B

Student Writing Sample from Blackboard with All Errors Marked

Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

Responding to a Student’s Language Errors

In this paper, I will discuss my process and findings of responding to two different

students’ writing. The first one can be found in appendix A, the writing sample from Ferris &

Hedgcock (2014), and the second in appendix B, the writing sample provided on Blackboard.

For both samples, I chose to be more selective with the error corrections I made because Ferris &

Hedgcock (2014) state, “the teacher should be selective in providing written feedback,

prioritizing the most important issues on a particular paper” (p. 242). They also discuss the

importance of focusing on different issues based on the purpose and where in the drafting

process of the writing you are providing feedback for.

I chose to use highlighting, writing in the margins, and endnotes to give the students

more explicit feedback. . By doing so, it give the students more opportunities to understand my

feedback and what I mean by it instead of just leaving a highlight or only saying “unclear.” In

addition, I still left endnote suggestions that relate more to rhetoric than to error correction. As

Zamel (1982) stated, “Engaging students in the process of composing [does not eliminate] our

obligation to upgrade their linguistic competencies… If, however, students learn that writing is a

process through which they can explore and discover their thoughts and ideas, then product is

likely to improve as well” (p. 207, as cited in Ferris & Hedgcock, 2014, p. 280). This means that

one should focus on both features if we truly want to prompt growth in our students’ writing.

The chief problems I found related to error corrections in the first student’s writing were

related to sentence structure, verb tenses and word choice. On the sentence structure level, the

student would often either leave out words or the meaning of the sentence would be unclear due

to missing words, wrong word order and/or word choice issues. As for the verb and word choice
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

issues, they weren’t so bad that one could not understand what the author intended, but were

enough to cause a distraction.

The chief problems I found in the second student’s writing were related to lack or misuse

of articles, making a noun countable when it wasn’t, sentence structure issues, and some word

choice issues. The article issues and countable noun issues usually came together, but not

always. Sometimes the writer would use the wrong article or no article in general. The sentence

structure issues were mostly due to missing words and/or a word choice issue often relating to

prepositions. I focused on these issues due to Ferris and Hedgcocks (2014) observation that

experts tend to agree that we should correct or point out the the errors that are “global,”

“serious,“ “frequent,” and could be “stigmatizing” for the student (p. 286).

After these exercises, I still feel like more practice editing papers in general would help

solidify a way to approach error correction and feedback. Like all things, practice makes perfect

and these practices are no different. Perhaps actually being in a class working with another

professor to go over their feedback processes and why they did or did not mark an error in a

paper would be even more beneficial. I’m a read it, see it, discuss it, do it together, then try alone

kind of learner so being in the classroom and/or working with someone else would be really

helpful.
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

References

Ferris, R., D. & Hedgcock, S., J. (2014). Improving Accuracy in Student Writing. ​Teaching ESL

composition: Purpose, process, and practice​ (3​rd​ ed, pp. 289-308). Routledge.

Ferris, R., D. & Hedgcock, S., J. (2014). Response to Student Writing. ​Teaching ESL

composition: Purpose, process, and practice​ (3​rd​ ed, pp. 237-278). Routledge.
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

Appendix

Appendix A

F & H Student Writing Sample with Teacher Comments

Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B

Appendix B

Student Writing Sample from Blackboard with Teacher Comments

Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B
Mariah Jessen
ESL 6063
Assignment 9 Activity B