Extensive Writing with Feedback

Learners write regularly across genres; teacher provides corrective feedback; learners revise and track errors.

Procedure

1. Learners write weekly on varied topics and genres (personal, academic, professional, creative).
2. Teacher provides written corrective feedback using consistent symbols.
3. Learners correct errors and revise.
4. Hold brief individual conferences to clarify feedback and set goals.
5. Track errors per 100 words on a progress graph over time.

Tips

• Separate feedback-for-learning from graded assessments -- grades distract from the comments.
• Focus first on high-frequency, rule-based errors (subject-verb agreement, tense, articles) since these respond best to correction.
• Train learners in self-checking procedures; these alone can eliminate many careless and rule-based errors.
• Expect rapid initial improvement, then a plateau around 3-4 errors per 100 words as remaining errors become word-based rather than rule-based.