“One Row at a Time”: Empowering EL Writers Through Teacher Response

Teacher feedback is among the most powerful influences on student learning. Feedback that responds sensitively to students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds is especially important for English learners (ELs), yet teachers report feeling underprepared to respond to EL writers and often have few models of teacher feedback beyond their own experiences as student writers. This chapter presents a case study of linguistically responsive feedback by a US middle-school teacher whose students represented 17 different language backgrounds. Ms. Ghanem consistently provided feedback that accounted for her students' growing English proficiency and furthered their writing development. The authors present examples of Ms. Ghanem's feedback, unpack how and why it exemplifies linguistically responsive teaching, and offer guiding questions for teachers and teacher educators to similarly empower ELs with their written feedback. They situate these examples, which they have used in teacher-education courses, in reactions from preservice teachers that illustrate common assumptions, pitfalls, and potentials.