The article talks a lot about making meaning in one’s writing, which I think is a bit obvious, but even though it is obvious how is it really applied? This is something that has been harped on for forever, but what techniques are effective? If someone asked me right now how to apply making one’s writing meaningful it is not something that I could riddle off in two seconds. And this is just me rambling now, but maybe that is the point, maybe we should not be able to say “hey this is how you make something meaningful” and instead search for it on our own and realize it is on an individual basis.

At the end of the red pen article it goes on about how teachers should not go and break their red pens and half, but they should keep that technique, but also find other approaches. It also says that teachers need choices and a range of approaches to find out what a writer needs to know, so my question in a roundabout way would be: when grading the same piece for a group of students could you have different approaches on an individual basis. For example if Sally does better with the red pen and Bob does better with a one-on-one conference could you do that even if it is for the same paper?