Where to Go From Here? A Study of Elementary Teachers' "Feed Forward" During Writing Instruction

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: From Hybridized Audiences to Feeding Forward: Approaches to Writing Assessment and Feedback

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners agree that feedback is central to learning. Providing specific future direction (or feed forward) is one of the key components of effective feedback. However, there are many aspects of a writing task to which teachers can attend, and we know relatively little about the extent to which teachers provide feed forward in writing instruction, the focus of the feed forward, and the ways it may frame the task of writing. This qualitative study of four elementary teachers’ feed forward during argumentative writing instruction finds that the focus of feed forward varied greatly and shaped the task of writing and the work students, as writers, had available to them. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Author

• Lorien Chambers Schuldt, Fort Lewis College