{"id":11496,"date":"2026-07-21T20:12:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11496"},"modified":"2026-08-03T23:36:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T04:36:30","slug":"instructor-feedback-helps-writers-find-their-footing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/instructor-feedback-helps-writers-find-their-footing\/","title":{"rendered":"Instructor feedback helps writers find their footing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time students received instructor feedback on their writing assignments, many were taken aback.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked because there wasn\u2019t a single positive comment,\u201d Ashlyn Wong of Belmont, California, said. \u201cThis was the first time I\u2019d ever experienced this, and it was scary because I was pretty confident in my journalism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Although initially jarring, students quickly found their footing, incorporating the constructive criticism to strengthen their writing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI liked how my instructor’s feedback wasn’t specific to just grammar, but it was \u2018You need to expand more on this\u2019 or \u2018You need to highlight this point of view more,\u2019\u201d Wong said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The emphasis on practical, detailed feedback was echoed by other students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy instructor is a real stickler of repeated words or phrases,” Arden Li of Highland Park, New Jersey, said. “Also, structure, style and clarity. She wants you to have some fun with writing, but also to be very straightforward at the same time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Instructor Peter Slevin said feedback focuses on helping students think like journalists instead of simply correcting mistakes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIs the article clear? Is it understandable? And then, along the way, does it flow smoothly? Would a reader understand what the story is about?\u201d Slevin said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Many students also appreciated that they were not given grades on their assignments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe no-grade philosophy makes you more confident to take chances in your writing,\u201d Emily Hauck of Watchung, New Jersey, said. \u201cIt helps you focus more on what you can improve instead of just trying to get a higher number each time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Slevin said the instructor editing process and no-grade philosophy revolves around helping students grow and gain more individual agency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe want students to feel free to experiment, learn and not be cautious because they were afraid,\u201d Slevin said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the initial shock, constructive criticism gives way to better journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":11752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[670],"class_list":["post-11496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":670,"user_id":303,"is_guest":0,"slug":"du26","display_name":"Sophia Du","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c3fe7e307803b02319c393742325324c8f02fd4037aea47ab5210fb882bc9e52?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Du","first_name":"Sophia","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11496"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13082,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions\/13082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11496"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}