Workshop Feedback
Learning to provide useful feedback is as important as learning to create and revise good projects of your own. If you stay in academia, you will be asked to be reviewers for various journals throughout your careers and my hope is that this workshop will help prepare you for that important (and often edifying) task. If you work in other fields, you will likely also need to provide others with feedback on their writing and/or other work they produce. This class will help you learn to provide the sort of feedback that is helpful and well-received by those you’re sharing it with.
The sort of feedback we’re looking for points out the things that work, the things that confuse you, and the things that could work better. Make sure you address all three in your feedback and that you keep a respectful and constructive tone throughout. Your aim is to provide the writer with possibilities for improving their work and with a sense of what is already working.
You should write feedback as you go by using track changes. At the end of the piece, please also answer the following questions:
1. What do you think is the piece’s thesis/driving force/main point?
2. What worked well?
3. What confused you?
4. What could work better?
5. Do you have any ideas/comments/possibilities you want to share that are not covered by the questions above?
For digital media, you will not be able to use track changes. Provide feedback in a separate document and make sure to let the writer know which area/section you’re talking about by providing time codes or page locations.
Assignment Delivery
You’re responsible for providing feedback for all pieces we’re workshopping each week. Every week you will go to the course’s Google Drive folder titled “Workshops” and find the writers for the section we’re workshopping that day. Find the Google folder titled under the name of each writer being workshopped that week.
If a writer provided a Word document, download the piece and save it as the writer’s name and by your own last name, i.e., Author’s Last Name Your Last Name. Upload that document to the folder titled “Feedback” inside the writer’s workshop folder. If the writer provided a link to their digital piece, create a new Word document and write your comments. Save it as the writer’s last name, followed by your own last name, i.e. Author’s Last Name Your Last Name. Upload that document to the folder titled “Feedback” inside the writer’s workshop folder.
All feedback must by uploaded by class time on the day we’re discussing each piece.