Self-Evaluation Writing: Empowering Students & Minimizing Grading

Using Student Feedback Forms to Encourage Written Self Evaluation

Tired of spending tons of time grading and giving feedback only for students to push your carefully crafted words into their backpacks, never to be seen again? Yea….I’ve been there. I used to wonder how to make my feedback more effective. The content was good, just students were not seeing anything past the grade on the front cover or in their grade book. *sigh* They didn’t understand how to apply that feedback outside of the context of that one paper, especially if there was no resubmission for a better grade. As such, they put it out of sight and out of mind.  

So I came up with an idea. Well…I Google searched and put a bunch of ideas into one cohesive one. Still, after some trial and error, I figured out a way to give students the responsibility of their own feedback, so that I knew for a fact that they were receiving it and were able to identify where it showed up in future papers. 

Say hello to the self-evaluation! 

Now before we get into how self-evaluation writing helps in building rapport with students and self assessment writing, let's first discuss what reflective writing is and why self-evaluations are important. 

What is Reflective Writing?

Here, I will use self-evaluation writing, reflective writing, and even self-assessment writing interchangeably. There is an aspect of each when it comes to using this type of writing in the classroom, especially when using it to help your effectiveness and limit your grading time.

As such, though reflective writing can include a vast array of different aspects, this article will focus on reflective writing as a way for students to reflect on their own writing, process, rubric requirements, as well as strengths and needs improvement areas. They will be able to self-evaluate their own writing and understand what feedback they most need.

Now, this won’t happen overnight. Like any skill, students will need consistent practice before they are able to accurately pinpoint exact feedback they need. However, they should be able to find parts of the assignment that meet the prompt or rubric requirements as well as discuss what choices they made in their writing in order to help them get to that point. 

Why Self-Evaluations are Important

Self-evaluation skills are important in that they naturally incorporate critical thinking and problem-solving into your classroom. In addition, students are able to use this skill to better their writing and task completion in the future. When students can assess their own work, they are better able to check their work, identify problem areas, revise, and even become more self aware of their own task completion processes. 

By including this extra step for students, they receive implicit instruction to build this skill AND you get insight into how they are learning, what they need help with, and a bright spotlight on where/how they have completed the task requirements. 

For teachers, that last part is more necessary every day. Sometimes it seems like we need a specific system for time management for teachers. There are all of these tips and tricks out there for time management, and yet some do not apply to teachers. 

Here, a self-evaluation helps you two-fold. You help students understand the requirements better and are better able to use your feedback, while also making grading easier for you. 

When you have students highlight parts of the assignment that meet the requirements, you can hone in on that one entity and grade it while still knowing that students were able to understand all the different parts of the assignment. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? An instructional activity that also saves you grading time? Pure magic!

Self-Assessment Writing

Self-Assessment writing can be a rapport builder with students. It not only encourages them to take responsibility for their own learning, but also offers a way for you and the student to get on the same page. You can use self-assessment writing before meeting in conferences with you or even before/after peer review. You have a lot of choices to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of using self-evaluation writing based on your and your students needs. 

But, in order to get to that next step, you first need to set up the self-evaluation structure. Start by having the structure or form ready for students to review at the beginning of the assignment. This encourages students to review the prompt and requirements as they go since they know it will come up before submission as well. 

In this form, include the specific requirements for the assignment as well as a space to identify their strengths and their needs improvement areas. For instance, you might add my rubric at the top in a table, then instruct students to highlight each one in their assignment in different colors followed by a writing space for the reflection. 

You could also have a space for students to write out a short 2-5 sentence paragraph describing how they reached each criteria and what they did to make sure that they show their understanding of a concept. In this version, students are required to be more meta about their work and understand not just where it is, but why and how they crafted their response in the way they did. 

You can also lead up to this. Use a simplified version (like the rubric highlighting above) in the beginning of the year before progressing to more detailed reflection in the second quarter or semester. 

In addition, once you have this information, you can focus on the criteria you are grading on and pin point where students may be faltering in their understanding. You can use this for differentiation, group work, grading conferences, peer review, etc. In general, use self-evaluation writing to identify where students are, encourage a student centered focus, and give yourself some leeway when it comes to grading time. 

Student Feedback Form

Use the Self-Evaluation Form  to get students reflecting on their own work and make your grading a bit easier. The form walks students through the reflection process and offers specific concepts to help them identify their strengths and needs improvement areas, AKA makes it easier for you to both grade and give feedback. 

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