Talking about writing [electronic resource] : teachers' oral feedback to elementary writers
Keywords: Education.

The new writing standards outlined in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are ambitious. Meeting these new demands will be challenging for all students, but even more so for English Learners (ELs) who are simultaneously developing language proficiency while learning to write in new genres. Teacher feedback is widely accepted to be a potentially powerful support for students' writing development. However, little is known about the kinds of oral feedback teachers provide in elementary classrooms. This qualitative study examined four fourth-grade teachers' oral feedback during writing instruction designed to support ELs in learning how to write opinion essays, a form of argumentative writing. The following questions were addressed: (1) What is the range and variation in teachers' oral feedback patterns? (2) To what extent and how do teachers' oral feedback practices differ in relation to students who are classified as higher language proficiency ELs? (3) How do teachers' oral feedback practices relate to students' writing growth? (4) What goals do teachers have for writing instruction, and how do these goals relate to feedback practices and to students' writing growth? Data sources include audio and video recordings and detailed fieldnotes from observations of teachers' instruction. Other sources of data include students' writing assessments, and test score and demographic information. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teachers. Feedback interactions were analyzed for duration, initiation, focus, and teachers' and students' moves within each interaction. These patterns in teachers' feedback were then analyzed in relation to students' writing growth on elements drawn from Newmann, Lopez & Bryk's (1998) rubric for intellectually authentic tasks. Finally, teachers' interview data were analyzed in relation to feedback patterns. This study found that all teachers provided feedback and the interactions were generally short, specific, and focused on the task at hand. The ELs who were present during instruction (all higher language proficiency students) received largely comparable feedback to non-ELs, and teachers tended to provide more feedback to lower-achieving students in their classes as well as to those who requested feedback. In all classrooms, there were few opportunities for students to engage with teachers about the content of their writing across multiple turns at talk. The data also show differences in the focus of teachers' feedback, differences that were tightly connected to particular aspects of students' writing growth. An analysis of contrasting teachers' interviews found that teachers described different goals for writing, and prioritized distinct aspects of the task even while following the same curriculum closely. These priorities were largely reflected in the kinds of feedback teachers provided. The findings from this study indicate that feedback may be a potentially overlooked aspect of classroom instruction. The data suggest that students attend to teachers' oral feedback, and the aspects of feedback to which teachers draw students' attention during feedback interactions may be tightly connected to the kinds of writing growth students make. Furthermore, teachers' feedback may play a key role in either maintaining or degrading the rigor of the task. These insights into the brief feedback interactions taking place in these classrooms suggest that feedback is a potentially powerful aspect of writing instruction that requires further theoretical and practical attention.