Research Essay Follow-Up
Objectives
As part of VIC159H1S (Special Topics Seminar: Zombies, Vampires and the Bible), a first-year seminar at Victoria College, the Research Essay Follow-Up asked students to engage directly and personally with instructor feedback on their graded essay. Rather than simply receiving a mark, students are required to read their comments carefully, make targeted corrections, and write a substantive response to specific feedback – explaining how they would revise their argument, strengthen their writing, or address gaps in their analysis.
Because each student’s feedback is unique to their own paper and their own thinking, the assignment creates conditions where engaging authentically with one’s own work is more meaningful – and more useful – than turning to generative AI. The goal is not to rewrite the essay from scratch, but to close the feedback loop, turning the assignment into a genuine learning moment, where students build capacity to reflect on and improve their own work.
Process
The activity was designed as a structured, low-stakes response task that follows the submission and grading of a full research essay. Because each step builds directly on personalized instructor feedback, the assignment creates space for students to engage honestly and reflectively with their own thinking and writing – making authentic engagement more valuable than outsourcing the task. The steps included:
Step 1: Graded Essay Returned with Individualized Comments
- The instructor provides written feedback throughout each student’s essay, including a general comment and specific items labelled “follow-up” that detail exactly what each student should address.
- Follow-up tasks are tailored to the student’s grade and the nature of their paper – ranging from fixing citation formatting to rewriting an introduction to responding to comments about argument structure. The highly individualized nature of the feedback means that a genuine response requires the student to sit with their own work.
Step 2: Student Reviews Feedback and Plans Response
- Students read through all instructor comments on their graded essay before beginning the follow-up.
- The instructor specifies that the task should take approximately one hour and explicitly instructs students not to rewrite the entire paper, keeping the scope focused and manageable.
Step 3: Student Completes Corrections and Written Response
- Depending on their individualized instructions, students may make direct corrections to the original document (using track changes) or submit a new document with clearly marked revisions.
- Other students are asked to write a short response to one or more comments — explaining what changes they would make and why, or how the feedback has shifted their thinking about their argument. The value of this reflection grows directly from the student’s own intellectual engagement with their work, creating conditions where honest, personal reflection is the most meaningful path forward.
Step 4: Submission and Assessment
- Students submit their follow-up document to Quercus by the end-of-term deadline.
- The assignment is graded out of 5 points on a rubric that rewards thoroughness, engagement with the feedback, and clear demonstration of how the paper could be improved – not perfection.
Future-Focused Skill Development
This activity supports future-ready learning by aligning with principles from the University of Calgary’s STRIVE model. It supports Student-Centered Learning by giving students autonomy over how they engage with feedback – each response is self-directed, shaped by the student’s own understanding of their work and their instructor’s comments, rather than a standardized task with a single correct answer.
It also supports Integrity by creating space for deeply personal intellectual engagement: because the follow-up is grounded in individualized comments about a specific argument, particular paragraphs, and the student’s own reasoning, it creates conditions where engaging authentically with one’s own thinking is more meaningful – and more useful – than turning to generative AI.
Student Feedback
Professor LaFosse shares: “Students noted that the tailored feedback helped them to consider what specifics aspects of their essay could be improved such as clarification of ideas or a more direct introduction or strengthening a thesis statement. By articulating what they would change in their own words, they could see what improvements were possible and beneficial, thus moving their writing skills forward.”
One student’s comments: “I have gone over all the notes you have provided me, both in the general and the specific notes provided [within] the essay and have rewritten/revised those portions, focusing on how my message is conveyed, my sources, and my wording. Thank you for the feedback! It has given me a specific guide for how to improve going forward.”