The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the influence of teacher feedback that was provided to two third grade writers during individual conferences. Research questions for this study focused on how the teacher feedback given to the students during individual reading conferences affected subsequent drafts of the students’ narrative writing pieces. Specifically, the researcher sought to determine whether any patterns would emerge in the students’ application of teacher feedback to their written texts as a result of suggestions made during frequent individual student-teacher writing conferences.
The study was guided by the following research questions:
1)What is the impact, if any, of teacher feedback delivered through individual conferencing on the narrative text composition of two third grade students?
2)What similarities and/ or differences, emerge in the response to teacher feedback of these two students?
It was concluded that while at least some of each kind (reminder, scaffolded, example) of prompt was taken by each student, the patterns that emerged from the feedback showed that the students internalized the feedback they took differently. While it can be said that teacher feedback affects student writing, it should also be noted that student use of teacher feedback appears to be specific to the individual writer.