Being a Heritages of Change mentor may seem intimidating. Mentors may think, “I’m not the teacher – how can I give useful feedback to a student writer?” What Heritages of Change mentors CAN do is give their students an honest reaction as a reader and give advice based on their own experience. It is ultimately up to the writer to decide if they want to make use of the feedback given. If you feel unsure of your ability to give feedback, remember that you are learning from the process. In class, the students will also receive feedback from the instructor.

When your role in mentor review is to give feedback, your job is to help the writer by giving your reaction as a reader to the writing. Think about the kind of feedback you would like to get and also how you would like that feedback to be given. What follows here are some basic rules to follow for responding to someone else’s writing.

First, listen to the writer. What kind of feedback are they asking for? Do they want to know if their thesis is clear? Do they have questions about their content? Make a note about what kind of feedback the writer has requested and keep that in mind as you respond.

Be kind. When you are receiving criticism, isn’t it easier to hear if the person giving the criticism is kind and respectful to you? Do the same for your student.

Comment on the higher order concerns first. That means asking questions about anything that confuses you, checking to see if the writing did what the assignment called for, and considering if the order of the paper makes sense. Sometimes the instructor will give you specific things they want you to comment on; if so, be sure you do so.

Use “I” statements to help stay focused on your reaction to the writing. For example, instead of saying, “You aren’t clear in this paragraph,” try saying, “I’m confused in this paragraph. Did you mean X or Y?”

Be specific. Never say “I liked it” or “It was good” unless you follow up with an explanation of exactly what you liked or thought was good. The same goes for criticism; say exactly what confused you or what was missing.

Ask questions. Use questions to clarify what the writer means, what the resources given are saying, and what the writer is trying to do.

Offer advice based on your own experience. For example, you could say “if this were my paper, the two things I would do next are A and B.” Provide options such as, “If you wanted to expand this, you could do A, B, or C.”

Don’t try to make the writer sound like you. If a word is the wrong word, note that, but if you just think of a word you like better, that’s just a matter of style and voice.

Don’t edit your student’s writing for them. Correcting errors is important at some point, but it makes no sense to spend time editing a paragraph if that paragraph may need to be deleted or changed. Only ask about editing errors if you have trouble understanding the sentence because of the mistakes. Remember that the responsibility for correcting the errors lies with the writer, not with you.

Higher Order vs. Lower Order Concerns

When providing mentor feedback, it can be helpful to have an understanding of higher order and lower order concerns.

Higher Order Concerns

Revising for higher order concerns means changing and revising sections of a paper and working on the organization of ideas.

When revising at the “big picture” stage, the writer is looking at the most important aspects of the writing tasks, and the ones that require the most thought.

Here’s a set of questions concerning these higher order concerns:

• What is the writer’s position (thesis/main point)? Is that position clearly communicated to the reader? Point to places in the text where the position is articulated and argued.
• What evidence does the writer provide to support his/her position? Is the evidence persuasive? Specific enough? Well-documented if from another source? Does the evidence match the point being made?
• How is the piece of writing organized? Does the writer follow a logical sequence to guide the reader through his/her reasoning? Are transitions needed? What about other organizational cues, like headings and subheadings (if called for by the discipline)?
• Think about the overall effectiveness of the piece. Does the writer accomplish his/her goals? If not, point to one or more areas where the writer should focus his/her attention for the next revision.

Lower Order Concerns

Lower order concerns focus on editing and proofreading.

We recommend spending less time on lower order concerns because, though they may be distracting, these are things that typically can be caught in a later draft. If the writer asks for proofreading comments, however, try to pick out the big mistakes rather than picking on every single thing that might be incorrect. Consider also that we don’t all have the same perceptions of what constitutes an error. It could be productive to have a discussion about the errors that tend to be most distracting to the group members and to make a list of these as you go along.

• Are the “mechanics” correct, e.g. sentence structure, sentence syntax (the phrasing and word choice), grammar, punctuation, citations, and, of course, spelling?
• Are there stylistic problems you find distracting? (Like, unclear use of “this” and “it” or wordiness.)

Text Attributions

This section contains material taken and transformed from the chapter “Revising” from The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear and is used under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Other material is taken from George Mason University Writing Center “Providing Feedback to Writers.”