Obviously, the comments we make on a student paper are highly dependent on context. The tone of our comments is affected by the kind of persona we create in class, the kind of persona the student creates in class, our relationship with the student, the assignment itself, the student's performance, and on and on. As I've perused the comments several . . . instructors have made on student papers, however, I have noticed patterns in the kind of feedback we give. In order to help us all become more conscious about the kinds of feedback we are giving on student papers, I've compiled the following (surely incomplete) list of the kinds of "readers" of student papers we tend to be. Use this list to identify what forms your paper comments take-and consider whether you might try expanding your repertoire of response types.

The naive reader. Playing the "naive reader" can illustrate how the information a paper gives is incomplete or potentially misleading. "Naive reader" comments tend to take the form of questions. ("Do you mean to suggest that everyone who learns to write well succeeds in life? What kind of success do you mean?")

The devil's advocate reader. Closely related to the naive reader. This reader's comments often take the form of questions that make the student aware of counter-arguments. ("But why couldn't this be attributed to the effects of socialization, rather than heredity?")

The encouraging reader. These comments communicate, "I can relate; I've experienced this, too," or "Interesting! I want to hear more of what you think here."

The teacher-reader. These comments are more explicitly straightforward about the teacherly authority they carry. They often take the form of suggestions about content, rhetorical moves and conventions, and audience expectations. They can also take the form of (coy) questions: "Don't you really mean to say such-and-such?" Some teacher-readers tend to pick a strong paragraph or sentence the student has written and highlight it as a model of what the student should be doing throughout--thus avoiding the need to discuss a certain kind of problem each time it occurs in a rough draft.

The grammatically correct reader. A particular kind of teacher-reader. Tags grammar/usage concerns, either with an explicit statement identifying the problem, or with a mark which simply indicates there is a problem. The latter strategy is often used when grammatical problems first crop up; research suggests that a significant number of students can fix at least a portion of their grammar or usage errors once those errors are brought to their attention.

The "deferring" reader. Sometimes composition instructors defer making certain comments on papers. This may occur for a number of reasons. An instructor who wants a student to gain experience in learning how to organize his essays better, for example, may ask the student to try "reverse outlining" (making an outline of what actually appears in the paper), rather than simply telling the student where his organization goes awry. In another case, an instructor may tell a student to go back to her group with a problem, so that the student learns to trust what appears to be a very functional group. An instructor may also decide to defer making certain comments in cases where a student's paper presents an overwhelming number of problems. (Many composition teachers make no more than three substantive directives for revision on any one draft.) Finally, an instructor may wait to give feedback on a paper until setting up a one-on-one conference with the student writer. This may be particularly helpful in cases where a fearful, defensive or otherwise fragile student responds more positively to feedback couched in affirming tones of voice and body language.