Comments=Identity

For class on Wednesday I wrote an essay in response to Richard Straub's article "The Concept of Control in Teacher Response: Defining the Varieties of 'Directive' and 'Facilitative' Commentary". I addressed several points in my 2-page paper but something I decided to leave out and save for my blog is his point about the sense of identity teachers have over their comments. The exact quote is as follows:

"Teacher response is still dominated by the concept of control-largely, I think, because it goes to the heart of our teaching and our identity as teacher"

After reading the quote I underlined it because I knew I would want to write about it on my blog. The reason I picked it out specifically is because it made me think of teacher comments in a way I never have before. As a student, when I read over comments that my teacher makes I usually imagine the teacher themselves being there. That is not meant to sound creepy, but in my head I am able to understand the comments in the context of the class. What's weird is that I never realized that by doing that, I was interpreting them in the way they are meant to be interpreted. In addition to this, I came to realize how important a teacher's commenting style is. Most professors tend to have a specific style and stick with it for every piece of writing they comment on. It is a style in itself just as much as the way that they write essays or any other piece of writing. I then began to think about my style of commenting and how it has not changed in a very long time. My writing has improved and so has my ability to read but the way that I approach and asses other people's writing has ceased to change.

Overall, Straub lead me to many different conclusions about the role of teacher commentary in students' writing but what I found to be one of the most interesting points was its direct reflection of the teacher's identity.