Specific Positive Feedback to

Support Students
How can I use teacher
language to empower
students in the classroom?
Two people, my practicum teacher, Miss. Cegielski
and Peter Johnston, inspired my teacher research
question. I first got the idea about empowering
students by noticing ways Miss. Cegielski was
accomplishing this in her classroom. I saw her
empowering students in a variety of ways such as
allowing students to lead their daily math review
and by giving students the responsibility of
facilitating morning meeting. From observing this, I
decided that I wanted to focus on how I could
empower students in the classroom. My other
inspiration came from Peter Johnston and his work
on teacher language. After reading Opening Minds
and Choice Words, I was able to understand the
importance of teacher language and how it affects
students. I took these two ideas to form my teacher
research question of how can I use teacher
language to empower students in the classroom.
The teacher language that I decided to focus on
was specific positive feedback. During writers
workshop, I would ask students to share a piece of
writing and then I would give the student specific
positive feedback. I used the teacher language of
specific positive feedback to help empower
students in the classroom.

The most important piece is to

confirm what has been successful
(so it will be repeated) and
simultaneously assert the
learners competence so they will
have the confidence to consider
new learning
~Peter Johnston, Choice Words

Choose words
that communicate
respect for the
student and the
work
~Susan M. Brookhart, How to Give
Effective Feedback to Your Students

What is an
empowered student?
Empowerment can be defined as bringing
into a state of belief ones ability to act
effectively. Teachers play a crucial role in
the process of empowering students by the
initiation and facilitation of an effective
relationship between teacher and student.
An empowered student is a student that
feels
Confident
The student feels confident with themselves
and their work. The student feels they have
the ability to be successful in the classroom.
Successful
The student is able to notice their strengths.
The student feels that they can excel.
Competent
The student feels they are qualified and
capable of performing the work in the
classroom.
Motivated
The student has a drive to learn and
participate.
Ownership
The student feels that the classroom is theirs
too. The student feels proud of their work.
Impactful
The student feels that their work matters and
is important. The student believes their work
makes a difference.
Respected
The student feels accepted for who they are
and the work that they do. They have a voice
in the classroom that is valued and
appreciated.

Teacher Research
Tryouts
I listened to a piece of writing from a student, used specific positive
feedback, and then had the student respond to how it made them feel.

Myself: Look at how in the beginning you were very

descriptive by describing the character. I know thats a
technique you learned when writing an introduction. It
helps me visualize the character and know what the
character is like.
Student: It makes me happy. It makes me feel like my
writing matters and means something. It helps me get
more writing done and its encouraging me to write and
write more to have better stories ~Sascha

Myself: Look at how you really described the fruit by

It makes
me feel like
my writing
matters
~Sascha

using words like ripe and juices and how you described
what it feels like in your mouth when you eat the fruit. It
helps me understand as a reader why you like those fruits
and how those fruits look and taste.
Student: It inspires me to do more stuff like that. It
makes me feel happy and it encourages me to write more
stuff like that. It shows that the teacher cares because the
teacher really listens to me reading it and really listens to
me. ~Raki

Myself: You used a lot of dialogue in your writing. It

really helped me understand how the characters were
feeling.
Student: It shows me what they like and it makes me
keep up with the work. It makes me feel good. ~Nathan

Myself: I noticed how you included illustrations. It helps

me imagine what youre thinking and helps me visualize
the characters you wrote about.
Student: If I get a compliment about my writing, it makes
me feel happy and I will do more of that same thing. It
makes me feel that what I do in the class is important.
~Lucas

Motivated

Impactful

Confident

Claim: By using teacher

language, it impacted the
students by motivating
and encouraging them to
write more.
I know this to be true
because when talking to my
students they told me how
the positive feedback
encouraged them to write
more and write more of what
they did well. An
empowered student is
motivated and has a drive to
keep participating and
working in the classroom.

Claim: When I used

specific positive feedback,
it made the students feel
impactful and that their
work matters.
I know this to be true
because some of my
students had stated that it
made them feel like their
writing matters and is
important. An empowered
student feels they are
impactful because they feel
like the work they
accomplish in the classroom
is meaningful.

Claim: When I used the

teacher language of
specific positive feedback,
it made the students feel
confident about their
writing abilities.
I know this to be true
because my students all felt
happy and had a positive
feeling towards themselves
and their work. An
empowered student is
confident and has positive
feelings towards oneself.
They feel they possess the
ability to be successful.

Literacy Actions
Throughout the semester, I had the honor of working with my focal child, Sascha. During our time together, I worked with her in reading and
I planned strategic instructions for Sascha based on the literacy goal I developed for her.

Reading Goal For Sascha

I developed my goal for Sascha in a variety of ways.
From my initial assessment, I knew Sascha was able
to decode words and understand the text well. I did
notice she used chunking as a strategy for unknown
words. From her teacher, I knew that even though
Sascha was at grade level, she tested below reading
standards. I also discovered that she liked non-fiction
texts. From this information I decided that my reading
goal for Sascha was to teach Sascha reading
strategies that would deepen her understanding of
non-fiction texts. Sascha really challenged my as a
teacher in thinking of how you can find ways to help a
student continue to improve in reading when the
student is a proficient reader. She showed me that
there is always something to improve on and this
taught me more strategies I can use to help readers.

Teacher Language and Literacy

Actions

What Sascha Learned

While working on both teacher research and literacy

actions, I noticed the impact my teacher research was
having on Sascha and myself. I found myself using
teacher language while working on my literacy
actions with Sascha. While conferring with Sascha,
she was struggling on the word commotion and she
chunked the word to help her. I proceeded by asking
her Do you know what commotion means? Her
response was Well I think its like the word ruckus
and I asked her how she knew that. She said that she
had used the information of what happened before to
figure it out. I responded by saying I liked how you
used the context clues to figure out the meaning and
how you related the word to a term you already know
to help you understand. I was using specific positive
feedback in my literacy actions. This was allowing me
as a teacher to continue practicing using teacher
language. By using it, it helped Sascha better
understand what she was doing well and why.

One of the pictures above shows an article about the

Titanic, which we read during one of my mini lessons. My
teaching point was about how when reading a non-fiction
text, readers come up with a question to help them decide
what information is important. Sascha learned this strategy,
but also during the mini lesson, Sascha started asking even
more questions about the Titanic. She was wondering,
Why did they not have enough lifeboats? and Who got to
go one the lifeboats first and why. These were all great
questions! Sascha was going beyond my expectations by
inquiring about the Titanic and noticing that she could
discover the answers by doing more research.
Also, during my final assessment with Sascha, I had her
read a non-fiction text as shown above. During the
assessment she was able to highlight what the important
information was from the text and how she knew that. We
had worked on what characteristics are seen in non-fiction
texts and why. She was able to show me what she learned
on the final assessment.

Its when you look back and youve learned how much youve grown and changed
~Stephen quoted by Peter Johnston, Opening Minds

New Wonderings

What Ive Learned

Through doing my teacher research, I have

developed new questions that came about from
interactions I had between two students.
While working with a student, Andrea, on her
writing, she said to me it made me feel good
because you were smiling. This made me think
about non-verbal language. Another question I
have, is what role does non-verbal language play
in teacher language? This student opened up my
eyes to the importance of non-verbal language.
Another student Eli said to me after I gave him
specific positive feedback it made me shy and
nervous which is not empowering. I wonder how
can I adjust my teacher language to empower Eli
as a student? Would writing specific positive
feedback make Eli feel more empowered?

Throughout my semester, I have learned a lot as a

teacher. By doing teacher research and literacy
actions, Ive learned more about the power of
language and the effects it has on students. It can
help students deepen their understanding and
encourage them to continue their work in class.
Having the opportunity to confer, do a small group
and whole group lesson has allowed me as a
learner to experience how these situations feel and
how they are important to a students growth in
reading. Ive seen that by doings these actions, I
can help guide students towards their goals in any
subject. It has been amazing to see the impact Ive
had on students in a short amount of time. Im
excited to continue my learning and growing as a
teacher!