Writing Coach Reflection

 Working with writers to provide feedback has always intimidated me as an educator. I have never been particularly confident in my ability to understand the writing process, much less coach someone else who is learning how to navigate it. I often worry that my feedback is surface-level, unclear, unhelpful, or even unwanted.

Early in my teaching career, I adopted a philosophy of not heavily evaluating grammar, spelling, or sentence structure unless it significantly affected the student’s ability to communicate their ideas. Instead, I focused on whether students were able to convey their learning, message, claims, and reasoning in an organized and compelling way. For a long time, I worried that this approach meant I was overlooking something important about teaching writing.

Throughout this course, however, I have started to realize that my instincts about coaching writing were not that far off. Looking back at some of the feedback I have given students over the years, I can see that much of it already focused on larger conceptual elements like organization, clarity of ideas, and the strength of a writer’s argument. Ward describes a similar shift in writing center tutoring, noting that the goal is not simply to fix surface errors but to focus on the writer and their thinking process rather than just the final text.  This idea helped me rethink my earlier uncertainty and recognize that prioritizing ideas over sentence-level corrections can actually support deeper writing development.

An enlightening moment in this course is learning how important it is to understand what kind of feedback a writer is actually looking for. Segal emphasizes that writers may want different types of feedback depending on where they are in the writing process, whether that is brainstorming, drafting, or editing.  A writer who is still developing their ideas may need someone to ask questions and help them clarify their thinking, while a writer nearing a final draft might be looking for smaller edits or suggestions for clarity. Understanding this distinction can prevent feedback from becoming overwhelming or misaligned with the writer’s needs.

I also strongly believe that peer review plays an essential role in the writing process. When students engage in peer feedback, they are not only receiving comments on their own writing but also practicing the act of evaluating writing itself. This requires them to think more deeply about the writing process, including how ideas are structured, supported, and communicated. In many ways, peer review helps students develop a stronger understanding of writing because they begin to see it from both the writer’s and the reader’s perspective.

Although teachers, peers, and writing coaches all support writers, they tend to play different roles. Teachers often focus on learning goals, expectations, and assessment. They help students understand the purpose of an assignment and how their writing fits within a broader academic context. Peers function more as authentic audiences, offering reactions and perspectives that help writers understand how their ideas are interpreted by others. Writing coaches, however, often operate somewhere in between. Rather than evaluating writing, coaches can help writers talk through ideas, ask clarifying questions, and guide them toward recognizing possibilities for revision.

Despite these differences, all three roles share responsibility for helping writers see writing as a process rather than a one-time performance. When feedback focuses on curiosity, questioning, and idea development, writers are more likely to feel supported and willing to revise their work. For novice writers especially, this kind of environment can make the difference between seeing writing as a frustrating task and seeing it as a skill that grows through practice and reflection.

A source I often share with my writers is pretty boring and obvious, but is Purdue OWL. I work very closely with several students who are currently enrolled in M3 (early college course through MATC and UWM) and they all express great concerns over not knowing how to properly write utilizing the MLA format. Because we have largely adopted a more student focused curriculum at our school (to great benefit), students are not necessarily prepared to write college level academic essays which are often required for their respective majors. I work with these students to navigate the Purdue OWL website and offer tips on how to best harness the many tools out there on the internet to help them format their papers. I do explain it is important for them to understand the fundamentals of MLA or APA formatting opposed to automatically using citation generators because they will save time in the long run (especially in text citations).