Helping Student Writers Deal with Feedback

Hi, teachers! We all know that to grow as a writer, you need feedback on your writing. But feedback’s a hard part of the writing process for many people–of all ages.

Here’s how I think about feedback and rejection.

If I’m writing to express myself creatively, and I get negative feedback, I might feed sad or frustrated. That’s mostly because what I wrote brings me joy, and I want it to bring others joy too. Criticism means I’m not reaching the reader in quite the way I hope to. But you can’t please everyone! Maybe I want to write in poems, and the person giving me feedback hates poetry. I’m not going to change their mind. And that’s okay. Or maybe they’re bored by a topic I’m passionate about, so I’m not going to get a gung ho reaction. Again, that’s okay. My goal is to get as much useful information from them about what they think I’m saying. Sometimes what I think is clear is not at all clear to the reader! And also which specific bits they felt were the strongest. I listen carefully to all the feedback and sit with it for a bit. Then I decide which pieces I want to accept and act on–and which pieces I want to ignore. That’s important. When you’re writing for self-expression, you get to make all the choices. I welcome feedback so I can make my writing better! But I ignore whatever doesn’t feel right to me.

But sometimes I’m writing to please a specific person–not myself. It might be an editor or a client, and their feedback matters a lot. If I strongly object to a suggestion, I might push back a bit and try to convince them why my way works :>) But I’ll accept almost all of their suggestions and try to incorporate them the best I can. I feel a little more distant from that writing. It’s not as personal. But that also means negative feedback doesn’t hurt as much! The key thing I remind myself is that I’m not writing for me. I’m writing toward a goal–publication, payment, a good grade … For your students, the person they’re likely trying to please is you. They want you to be proud and give them an A. And you want them to learn strong writing skills.

I still get frustrated with feedback sometimes. But keeping in mind the two distinct purposes for writing helps me figure out how much weight to give the feedback. And it always helps me avoid feeling shame! Maybe this distinction could help your students too.  

We’re individuals, and we all have vastly different opinions about creative writing! I know not everybody will connect with what I’m writing. That’s life. Heck, there are many award-winning titles out there that do absolutely nothing for me! It’s lucky so many books are published and we can all find something we love.

[My Classroom Connections posts share a way to connect one of my books or poems to a classroom topic–often something timely that you might be covering in the next month or so. Please share this post if you have educator friends who might be interested–thanks!]