My views about evaluating writing are evolving views. Sometimes I think that I am caught in a revolving door, spinning around and around, not sure what I believe, not sure what I think is most beneficial, not sure what I think is going to contribute most effectively to nurturing confident writers who take pleasure in their writing and know power in their writing. As I recollect memories of my experiences as a student, writer, and teacher of writing, I am aware of the myriad experiences that have contributed to my views about evaluating writing, and, above all, I am uncomfortably aware of how troubling I find the whole question of evaluating writing.

For a long time I recapitulated the practices of writing evaluation, frequently ineffective, even counterproductive, that I had observed in my teachers. I perceived my role as a teacher as the bearer of the red pencil hunting for incomplete sentences and mixed figures of speech and dangling modifiers and faulty parallelism. I taught my students to write in prescribed ways so that their writing read like the writing of everybody else. I encouraged (even compelled) them to suppress their own voices and conceal their own personalities. I wanted none of that witty, sarcastic, punning, self-centered preoccupation that enlivened their conversation.

Now, I understand that evaluation ought to be a way of valuing, of recognizing the value in a writer's words, of respecting the value in a writer.

Two writing teachers: Two teaching styles

I have studied creative writing with two of Canada's finest writers, Robert Gibbs at the University of New Brunswick and Rudy Wiebe at the University of Alberta. The two professors demonstrated diametrically opposed approaches to evaluating writing. Gibbs was genial, warm, encouraging; Wiebe was abrasive, cutting, stern. On a continuum of evaluation approaches or styles, I would place Gibbs at one end and Wiebe at the other. With Gibbs I wrote mostly poetry. In a typical Gibbs class, students read their work, and were then gently encouraged for their successes, and gently directed concerning areas for improvement. Frequently the students met in Gibbs' home where we ate walnut sandwiches made with a recipe from Gibbs' mother. During my year of study with Gibbs I prospered. I wrote a creative thesis under his supervision, and he published my first poems in The Fiddlehead, the literary journal that he edited for many years. Gibbs supported innovation, risk-taking, the power of the word. Under his direction I flourished. I grew in confidence about my writing. I did not leave his class with a sense of arrogant pride in my abilities or an inflated sense of the literary accomplishments I could aspire to. I left Gibbs' class with a sense that I am a writer, that writing is hard work, that writing is satisfying work, that writing is a way of life I can pursue.

With Wiebe I studied fiction writing. In a typical Wiebe class students also read their work, but students attacked instead of supported one another. Wiebe had set the tone in the classes with abrasive and rough criticism, and most students in the class took their lead from him. Each class was conducted like a roast where the goal was to reveal everything that was wrong with the student's story. While the writer's story was attacked and dissected and ridiculed, the writer was required to sit in silence. Only after the victim had been scourged with verbal whips was he or she given the opportunity to reply, to offer a rebuttal or defense. But the opportunity for reply was seldom more than the ugly spectacle of a punch-drunk wrestler flailing wildly at a vigorous tag-team of sneering opponents. I recall only too vividly how I wept on the bus returning home on the nights my writing had been discussed in class. For a year I wrote fiction, and each item was attacked in a way that left me frustrated and hurt and angry. I had no defense. I refused to join the piranha-like atmosphere fueled by the smell of blood, and Wiebe discounted my responses because I was too kind. I understand that Wiebe regards writing as an important enterprise, even a sacred enterprise. I remember his explaining that one of his stories took him three months to write. I remember thinking that his commitment to his craft was painstaking and richly productive. I remember thinking that I could learn much from his example of dedication to writing.

But how has the experience of his writing class affected me? At the end of the course after eight months of abrasive rejection when I was convinced only that my writing was not very good, Wiebe nominated me for the James Folinsbee Prize in Creative Writing and awarded me the highest possible grade. Moreover, several people told me that Wiebe had told them that I was a good writer. I had never heard the words from Weibe himself. I felt a little like the son who waits for the supportive word from his father but never hears it, at least directly from him. Perhaps I should not belly-ache too much about this experience. Wiebe has his way of conducting his writing classes, and he is an accomplished writer and widely regarded as one of Canada's most successful teachers of writing. But I have written almost no fiction for years. I have no confidence. I want to write fiction, but I choke up when I try.

I am not blaming Wiebe or the experience of his writing course for my lack of confidence. There are many factors that have contributed to my lack of confidence, but, nevertheless, I am convinced that I am a writer who will not prosper under a kind of boot camp, whip-the-private-into-shape approach to teaching writing. Perhaps I have had too many bad experiences with unsupportive responses to my writing. Perhaps I am too thin-skinned. Perhaps I am one of those writers who cannot thrive on wholesale abusive criticism. I take writing seriously. It is my way of life. I regard my writing as personal, as an extension of who I am and who I am becoming and who I might become. I understand my words as inextricably connected to my value as a person, as a human be/com/ing. I want to publish and I want to be read and I want to win literary prizes and I want to be invited to public readings, but above all I want my writing to flourish as a manifestation of who I am. My words are the most precious gift I have to offer others. If those words are rejected, I have nothing else.

Perhaps different people need different kinds of approaches. Perhaps some people need more rigorous criticism than others. What I attempt to do now is invite my students to coach me about the kind of responses that they think are most useful to them at different times. In other words, if a student wants me to focus on punctuation, I will. Or if a student wants me to approach his or her writing with a scalpel, I will. One student, Eve, complained that I praised her writing too much.

It can be argued that the student writer doesn't always know what he or she wants or needs, but I am convinced that the only way a writer improves is by growing self-reflective about writing. The writer owns the writing, and the writer must accept responsibility for caring about the writing sufficiently to want to make it good and effective. Then other writers can respond in ways that support the writer, and not tear him or her down. I agree with Jo Phenix's perspective:

For evaluation to be of any use to the learner, it must come as an integral part of any learning experience. You need to know how you are doing while you are doing it, not later. Then you have a chance to figure out how to do it better. When I am learning something new, what I need is someone to understand what I am trying to do, and help me do it better, then get out of the way while I practice on my own. I don't need a critic, I need a coach. (1990, p. 98)

Response-ability and students' writing

I spend hours responding to students' writing. I write copious notes in response to their texts. When I devote my attention to careful reading of my students' writing, I acknowledge the value of their writing. I demonstrate that I am willing to invest time in reading as they have invested time in writing. I indicate when I am moved by their writing. I respond with my stories. I question and challenge them. I encourage them to write more.

I know that by committing myself to spending time with my students' writing, I will spend less time with my partner and my children, less time reading books, less time at the local weightlifting gym, less time writing essays about evaluating writing, but by spending time with my students I am doing what I think I most need to do as a teacher. For me, teaching is about human connection and community. Teaching is about affirming other people as people. Teaching is about examining and interrogating our lived experiences through our word-making. If my students write narratives and poetry and essays, and I respond with a few cursory comments about correct usage and structure, and perhaps a mild compliment like "Well-done" or "Good work" or "A pleasure to read," and a grade, am I doing more than confirming the common assumption that writing done in school is not real writing, just a practice, a simulation, a test run, preparation for real writing in the real world?

I also encourage peer responding. And I present myself as a peer responder, too. By spending time with my students' writing, I model the kind of responses that I want them to provide one another. My model for writing and responding is the model of a Shaker furniture draftsperson who knows that only time can bring out the grain of the wood, and make the joint that fits snugly for years. In other words, the response is offered, not out of duty, or out of a sense of putting people in their places, or out of a desire to find everything that is wrong in the picture, but out of affection and connection.

Can we know our influence on others?

I last taught high school in 1990. Armed with three graduate degrees in creative writing, English curriculum and instruction, and rhetoric and composition, I taught a course in expository writing to a grade ten class. I had last taught high school four years earlier, and I was eager to serve my students well with my newfound expertise and enthusiasm. During the school year I did everything but play spoons to invite my students into the pleasures of writing. I used numerous prewriting exercises designed to prime the pump. Natalie Goldberg and Peter Elbow and Donald Murray and Nancie Atwell and Donald Graves and Tom Romano were part of the chorus of writers and teachers of writing that I invited into that grade ten class. I sought to make writing relevant and real and riveting. I wanted to create a writer's workshop where students kept journals and engaged in the process of writing with peer editing and conferencing, every

body working on different projects at their own paces. I encouraged writing for audiences that we wanted to write to. I invited writing about subjects and issues that meant something to us. So, when some students complained that there were too few recreational facilities for young people in our small town, we wrote to the mayor to discuss the concerns with him. We wrote about gun control and divorce and drugs. I explained that the conventions of standard English usage were important, and frequently interjected mini-lessons on grammar into our writing workshops, but I always insisted that correctness was not the heart of writing because the heart of writing pulses with desire for word-weaving and word-connecting with other word-weavers.

But in spite of my committed efforts I limped through my experience in that grade ten class with a sense of growing disillusionment and frustration. From September to June most of the students showed almost no progress. Many of them continued to write as if they were writing schoolwriting, that bland, listless prose that students write for the teacher's red pencil. Most of them wrote only enough to satisfy what they perceived were my expectations even though I tried to link my expectations to their desires. Most of them engaged in peer editing and conferencing as if it were some bizarre ceremony that I had invented to bore and embarrass them. Most of them continued to ignore the mini-lessons in grammar and repeated the same errors of usage over and over. In the end I felt wounded and bruised and defeated. I had tried my best, and my best did not meet with much success. I wondered if perhaps I should have been more traditional, even tougher, in my approaches, more directive, more demanding, more dictatorial.

Then on the last day of the school year, Virginia, one of the students, stopped me in the hallway, and said, "I have a gift for you." She gave me copies of the writing she had done during the year and a note which concluded with the following words: "You really got me feeling good about my writing. I thank you for that." I realized that I had done okay. I did not know who had benefited in their own quiet ways. I did not know who had grown in confidence about their writing. Perhaps I wanted to be SuperTeacher with a bright capital ST embroidered on my chest, but what I had done was offer my students an experience with writing that they had seldom, if ever, known. Few of them were prepared or able to accept the opportunity in the ways that I had hoped, but some grew, and I am hopeful that none were actually impaired by my efforts.

Some practical advice for evaluating writing

As a writer and a writing teacher, I continue to view and review the snapshots of my practice, always eager to reject what does not work and to embrace what serves well. In drawing this remembering and reflecting to a close, I offer the following advice for evaluating writing as a way to acknowledge the value in writers and their writing:

• Focus on something positive in the writer's work.
• Temper criticism with praise and helpful suggestions.
• Read the writing carefully before responding.
• Explain what is being evaluated.
• Don't point out every error.
• Be personal in your responses.
• Respect the writing of others.
• Encourage peer responding.
• Provide a second chance.
• Follow up on evaluation.
• Explain comments and be specific in your responses.
• Approach each writing assignment as unique.
• Respond to content and effort first.
• Use a variety of evaluation methods: letter and numerical grades, no grades, formative and summative evaluation, portfolio assessment, peer evaluation, and self-evaluation.
• Conference with students.
• Invite the writer to point out specific areas that you can respond to.
• Consider the evaluation tools to be used, such as red ink or purple ink, post-it notes, response sheets.
• Be flexible.
• Encourage experimentation and risk-taking in writing.
• Don't share another's writing without the permission of the writer.
• Never prejudge or judge too quickly the ability of writers. Be sensitive to students' feelings and opinions.
• Don't concentrate on mechanics as if writing is only correctness.
• Avoid comparing one writer to another.
• Don't make writing an exercise done for evaluation alone.
• Use evaluation as a means to growth, not a barrier to growth.
• Be a mentor.
• Remember that the author is the final authority and must take responsibility for the writing.

Phenix, Jo. (1990). Teaching writing: the nuts and bolts of running a day-to-day writing program. Markham: Pembroke