Critiquing Students ’ Writing: Providing Effective Feedback

• “[E]xperts agree that providing written individual feedback on law students ’ papers is [perhaps] the most important … teaching moment legal writing professors have. Consequently, it is critical that new legal writing professors begin their careers with the best information available on how to go about critiquing student papers.”1 • “[S]tudies of how expertise develops … are unanimous in emphasizing the importance of feedback as the key means by which teachers and learners can improve performance.”2 • In its recently published Educating Lawyers, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching described legal writing instruction as a welcome “form of simulated practice ” and praised it for helping law graduates “transition into practice.”3 The Foundation was “impressed by how often students raised the topic of legal writing. One student’s comment summed up many others. She noted, ‘It is the feedback you receive from the teachers, as opposed to just so much reading ’ in … doctrinal courses that made the writing course so important ….”