Writing Macros to Aid Written Feedback

The Problem

I was running into problems with printers and students. For some reason, students keep thinking that it was okay to not turn in their work on time giving the excuse that they don't have a printer, or the school printer was down. This would lead to getting the writing emailed to me. It was then on me to print out the essay. I got a little upset about it.

This lead to using a site like Edmodo so collect student essays. They send it to you this way and you don't have to get your personal email involved.  Plus, it is just really nice to have it all organized for you. This worked well but I kept running into the time issue: too much feedback. I was writing endless comments and a lot of them ended up being similar, or the same idea.

So I started making comment macros for Microsoft word. 

The Idea

So the idea is a make a comment that you use often, highlight the problem, and click a button; BAM! There is your comment already written out. 

Comments vary from "Can you think of another example?" to "Make sure the subject agrees with the verb. Example:They is...->They are...". Students are questioned about there work, mistakes pointed out, and good work is praised. This saves time as well as makes your comments consistent. Students can become more aware of the types of mistakes they make and how to fix it.

It is a little work to set up, but here is how. This set up is for Microsoft 2007 or later, though it may be easier with earlier versions.

Cheat!

If you want to download my macro script with what I already set up, here it is. Though you need to troubleshoot it and set it up. Ignore this if you don't know what I'm talking about.

What to do

1. Write your comments

It works best to get all your comments written out first so that you can just work on making the macro later. I have my comments go into two groups, content and grammar.  I also tend to have the students write two drafts of essays. I give the content feedback first and after they correct it, I give grammar feedback. I find it works well.

Here is a list of my comments (The grammar ones are mine, the content ones are borrowed/adapted from this excellent article on feedback). It may be easier to do this with this information directly in a word document.

2. Make a Macro

First, you need to "Record" a macro. What this does is save all the subsequent things you do (clicking, typing, backspaces, forward spaces, everything) until you hit the stop recording button. So first, highlight something (it can be anything, but for me, it will be the comment I want to make).

Next, you need to name your macro. Use something you will remember, otherwise you won't know what it does until you click it. Click okay.

Now you click "New Comment" and type, don't copy and paste, your comment.

When finished, go back and stop recording your macro.
Now go through and do this for each comment.

*Complicated Time Saver

If you don't want to retype each comment, you can go through and edit each comment after words. Just Name all your macros without highlighting anything. When you finished just naming macros, click "View Macros" and then Click "Edit". You then have the macro editor. Under the title of your macro copy this script:


Selection.Comments.Add Range:=Selection.Range
    Selection.TypeText Text:="The comment you wish to make."

In the macro editor then, you can actually go through and copy and paste what you want to say.

3. Create Buttons

Now right click anywhere on the top part of Word, the thing called the "ribbon". Click "Customize the Ribbon" (Or go to File, Options, Customize Ribbon).

It brings you to this window where you can then make a new "Ribbon". Call it whatever you want, but this is where you customize how you want it to work.

Create a "New Tab" by clicking on the bottom. This will be your work space for making comments.

Right Click to edit the name of the tab. I like "Proof Reading. Edit the group for the type of comments you want, e.g. "Comments", "Content Comments" and "Grammar Comments". Add new group under your tab to get these groups. This starts to get messy, you may want a separate tab for different types of comments.

Start to add your macros by:

1. Select "Macros" from the "Choose commands from"
2. Select the macro you want to add
3. Select the group you want it in
4. Click Add

I now looks a little messy and hard to pick the one you want. At this point you can rename the macro from something like "Normal.NewMacros.clear_thesis" to "Clear Thesis". When you rename something, you also can change the icon the macro is associated with. This makes it easier to use later on.

You may also like to have a command to just make a regular comment on this tab, so go back to "Choose Commands from" and click "popular" then find the comment button.

Now you have a customized tab that looks something like this:

4. Profit!

If you did all this work, all you have to do now is highlight the student work, click the button, there is your comment. Happy grading!

Improvements

What would be great would be websites with grammar lessons and exercises that students could follow up with either linked into the comments, or as a comment sheet added to it. Same thing with the content. A real example to go along with it would be great. Any thoughts? I'd love to hear.