Article+Reflection+by+Zeynep+Deniz

Zeynep Deniz 1734706

=** Reflection on the article " What about a feedback revolution in the writing classroom" **= = = = = =In the article called “What about a feedback revolution in the writing classroom”, Icy Lee argues for the need for a feedback revolution. She provides us with the results of some researches mentioning that written feedback is not an effective way anymore. According to her ideas, the ways of giving feedback in writing classroom should be revolutionized. In her article, she points out 3 important questions about feedback revolution such as “Why a feedback revolution”, “What it means to start a feedback revolution” and lastly “How to go about it”. = =Firstly, she really identifies the need for changing the way of giving feedback in a good way. She explains the most important parts shortly and strongly as well. As we all know, writing teachers evaluate our works by commenting on the paper with red ink. They check all of our mistakes such as grammar, vocabulary, meaning and comprehensibility. As a result, we get our writings with full of comments and it makes us frustrated. Actually, she tries to highlight this problem. She says that it is not an appropriate way of giving feedback. Because of this, students’ motivation may decrease and they may lose their attention. I really agree with her ideas. For example, if my paper includes a lot of mistakes and teacher corrects all of them, I think that I am not good enough to write something and I do not want to write anything. As a future English teacher, I should be aware of these facts and avoid making my students unmotivated to the writing lessons. = =Secondly, the meaning of starting a feedback revolution is to change our teaching philosophy. Teachers should be sure about giving enough chance to students to participate into the feedback process. Also, instead of writing comments on the paper, they prepare a rubric and evaluate students’ work according to it. So, students can see their weakness easily and tries to improve them instead of getting frustrated. Here, I again agree with her ideas. As she said, feedback is not a tool for judging writing. It is a tool for improving learning and teaching. If we use it effectively, we can help our students very much because they improve their weaknesses according to constructive feedbacks that their teachers give. In the future, I will consider these assumptions. I will not give feedback for the sake of giving feedback. I will use it to show my students weaknesses in an effective way. = =Thirdly, there are some ways to start feedback revolution. One of them is sharing the same idea with the school leader and policies. If you have enough support from the school manager and parents, you can change the teaching philosophies easily. I have the same belief with Lee. If you are supported by the person who holds the power, you can apply new feedback technique without questioning. Other one is strengthening instruction to make them clear. Also, teacher should select attractive topic to write about because boring topics may lead student’s failure. In my lessons, I will try to provide students with interesting topics. I as a teacher should be aware of their needs and interests. In this way, I help them achieve their goals. = =As a conclusion, I totally agree with Lee’s ideas about feedback revolution. When time passes, we reconsider our philosophy and modify dysfunctional ones. In our education process, we need to improve the ineffective parts and especially the traditional way of giving feedback to teach our students well. = = =