Abstract
Since teacher expectations for good writing, as communicated in responses on student compositions, may influence the nature of student writing and since little is known about how teachers respond to student writing, this study was designed to investigate the responses made by intermediate level teachers to their students' writing. Responses were classified as focusing on content or form of student writing. Classification on another dimension dealt with types of response (evaluation, assessment, instruction, audience response, or moving outside the writing). Findings show that teachers responded overwhelmingly to form. Specific types of responses tended to be of two kinds: (1) evaluation, which was usually of a general nature (e.g., Well written or a mark) and (2) instruction, which usually focused on specific language structures by correcting all mechanical errors.