Thoughts about Feedback Strategies - Mirror

The article from the list that I chose to read was "Be a Mirror." I feel that the idea of the article is both useful when it comes to giving feedback and something I'm already familiar with. In the creative writing class I took a few semesters ago with Professor Brown, he encouraged us to avoid giving feedback that incorporated our own opinions. "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." He wanted us to focus on giving feedback that assessed what the shared writing did or didn't do. So I always kept that in mind when giving feedback. It was also helpful advice since it meant that we could separate ourselves and our own preferences when it comes to genres of writing from the works that we were giving feedback on. So instead of listening to some slice of life writing and thinking "I didn't like it because it was boring and nothing happened," I could produce meaningful advice like "When you wrote blank it helped me understand the motives of blank." The best advice I can give about how to give feedback, is to try and understand what the person was trying to do, and share what helped achieve that and what didn't help, as opposed to telling them what you think they "should have" done. I'm fairly confident in my ability to give meaningful feedback without being harsh or hurting feelings.