Responding to Writing

A Practical Sourcebook for Instructors

By Dana R. Ferris, Grant Eckstein, and Betsy Gilliland

Subjects: English as a Second Language (ESL), Teacher Training
Ebook : 9780472226146, 336 pages, 20 Illustrations, 6 x 9, July 2027
Paperback : 9780472040445, 336 pages, 20 Illustrations, 6 x 9, July 2027
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Table of Contents

A practical collection of 25 classroom-tested strategies for supporting writing development through feedback

Table of contents

Table of Contents

Writing Sourcebook Preface

Introduction: Perspectives on Response

Dana R. Ferris, Grant Eckstein, & Betsy Gilliland

Chapter 1

Using “Facework” Strategies for Audiovisual Response to Student Writers

Chris Anson

Chapter 2

Actively Learning about Feedback through Analysis of an Editor’s Letter

Kelly Blewett

Chapter 3

Collaborative Processing of Teacher Feedback: Working with Indirect Feedback and Example Answers

Nicholas Carr

Chapter 4

Dissertation Working Groups: Responding to Writing as Pedagogy and Professional Development

Bowen Chan, Anne-Marie Fowler, Rachel Giles, Sarah E. Howden, Chandra Murdoch, Daniel Aureliano Newman, Raheleh Saryazdi, Robert Twiss, & Rhiannon Vogl

Chapter 5

Peer Review Training for Non-directive Feedback in L2 Writing

Emily Cousins

Chapter 6

Training Writing Center Tutors for Asynchronous Consultations

Thomas DeAngelis

Chapter 7

Sink or Swim: Advocating an Authentic Approach to Teacher Response Preparation

Anthony Edgington

Chapter 8

Multimodal Feedback Cycle Along the Way: A Promising Tool for Empowering L2 Learners’ Self-regulation

Ibtesam Hussein & Emily Harmon

Chapter 9

Reflective Responding to Low-Stake Reflective Writing: A Dialogic Site of Teacher-Student Interaction. 

Joan Hwang

Chapter 10

The Assessment Dialogue: An Invitation

Gavin P. Johnson

Chapter 11

Feedback Conversations for Transfer: Combining Instructor Feedback with Metacognitive Reflections in which Students Identify their Own Learning Intentions

Sarah M. Lacy

Chapter 12

Peer feedback on essay writing through Moodle forums

Maria-Lourdes Lira-Gonzales

Chapter 13

You Can Have It Both Ways: Mixing Modes Using Mainstream Technology for Effective Peer Response

Miranda Lutyens

Chapter 14

Making Feedback Social: Humanizing Assessment and Feedback in Writing Instruction

Michele McConnel & Kelly Metz-Matthews

Chapter 15

Departing Grade Justification: How Contract Grading Changed Our Response Practices

Mikenna Leigh Modesto & Sydney Sullivan

Chapter 16

Responding to Students’ Code-meshed Writing: Antiracist Approaches to Feedback

Angela Morris

Chapter 17

Response as an Essential Component in Engagement-Based Contract Grading

Katherine Daily O’Meara

Chapter 18

Online Peer Cohorts as a Pre-Writing Strategy

Yasmine Romero

Chapter 19

When Feedback is Not Enough: Positioning Writers as Decision-Makers

Tamara Mae Roose & Ju-A Hwang

Chapter 20

Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback: A Practical Tool for Promoting Linguistic Accuracy in Student Writing

Ana Ruiz-Alonso-Bartol & Kendon Kurzer

Chapter 21

ChatGPT and the Writing Process: Suggestions for Scaffolding Its Use as an Automatic Feedback Tool

Sabina Simon & Kim Edmunds

Chapter 22

Reflective Self-Assessment: Meaningful Reflection for Student-Led Writing Development

Madeline Crozier Sutton

Chapter 23

Rubric-Driven Engagement: Promoting Student Agency in the Feedback-Revision Cycle

Elena Taylor & Ghada Gherwash

Chapter 24

Screencasting Feedback in Academic Writing Courses: A Five-Step Process

Marie Webb

Chapter 25

Peer Review and the Critical English for Academic Purposes Classroom: Extending the Concept of a Critical Friend

Nichole Ziegler, Graham Crookes, & Daniel Holden

Description

Responding to Writing brings together practical, cutting-edge ideas from teachers who spend their days working with student writers and trying to make feedback genuinely useful. The book shares classroom approaches that have been tested in real courses, from high school settings to college and graduate programs. It shows how teachers, peers, and students themselves can make feedback a more collaborative and manageable part of writing instruction.

Each chapter presents a student‑centered approach that helps writers feel supported and more in control of their own writing and revision process. In addition to a summary of the approach with light background and context, readers will find straightforward examples, tools, and routines they can adapt to their own classrooms, including ways to use technology, build reflection into assignments, and support writers with varied backgrounds and needs. This book offers working instructors a set of dependable methods for helping students improve as writers while keeping feedback purposeful and humane.

Dana R. Ferris is Professor Emerita in the University Writing Program at UC Davis.

Grant Eckstein is Professor of Linguistics at Brigham Young University.

Betsy Gilliland is Professor in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa.

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