The difficulty of writing-intensive courses and the sting of honest feedback can leave students questioning their ability as writers and dissuade them from continuing to improve their writing. But we can work to avoid this outcome by helping our students develop a "growth mindset" about their learning. By encouraging students to adopt the right mindset in our courses, we can help them thrive and motivate them to keep challenging themselves well after the semester ends.

A "growth mindset" is the belief that our abilities are malleable and that we can gain knowledge and improve our skills over time with hard work and focused effort. The growth mindset (correctly) sees the brain as an adaptable body part that responds to challenges—just like a muscle that gets stronger through strenuous exercise (Yeager et al., 2019). The opposite is a "fixed mindset"—the belief that our intelligence and abilities are largely innate and can’t be changed much, no matter how hard we try (Dweck, 2016).

Providing written feedback on students’ writing is one of the most important—and time-consuming—parts of any instructor’s job (Grearson, 2002). But even the most thorough, helpful feedback can fall flat if it’s delivered in the wrong tone. Feedback written in a productive tone is more likely to be understood, appreciated, and acted upon, whereas the wrong tone can prevent students from hearing and implementing your guidance (Fink, 2013; Gottschalk & Hjortshoj, 2004; Rupiper Taggart & Laughlin, 2017). Particularly harsh comments can demoralize students, dissuade them from further writing experiences, and even haunt them years later (Ferris, 2018).

What exactly is the “right” tone? The precise tone you want to convey depends on various factors—including your relationship with your students, the level of students involved, the length and type of assignment, the point in the semester, and your personality. But, generally speaking, students tend to respond best to feedback that’s candid, empathetic, supportive, encouraging, constructive, and respectful (Enquist, 1996; Fink, 2013; Gottschalk & Hjortshoj, 2004). By contrast, students respond worse to feedback that’s interpreted as sarcastic, cruel, accusatory, condescending, disrespectful, pessimistic, or patronizing (Enquist, 1999; Rupiper Taggart & Laughlin, 2017).

Fortunately, there are many strategies to help you strike the right tone in your writing feedback.

Providing feedback on students’ writing is the single most valuable part of a writing-centric course. It’s also the most time-intensive part of teaching. So it’s understandable that many instructors balk at giving more feedback—the thought of sitting alone with a giant stack of papers, scribbling dozens of small notes on each one is just too much to take. But feedback doesn’t have to look like that. There are many ways to give effective feedback more efficiently. And when done correctly, these techniques can lead to students getting more and better feedback overall.

Too often, writing instructors feel compelled to point out every issue—however large or small—that we see in a piece of student writing: a weak topic sentence at the start of the paragraph, a flawed use of evidence a few sentences later, a typo in that same sentence, and a citation error at the paragraph’s end. We sometimes measure our feedback’s value by the pound; each mark we make on the page is valuable, and more is better. But, much of the time, feedback fails not because students are getting too little feedback—but, rather, too much (Grearson, 2002).