Writing comments on student papers is a time-honored and widely accepted practice in writing classrooms in most countries. Teachers offer text-specific advice to each student and communicate to the student writer, among other things, the criteria of good writing. A close look at the teacher's comments, therefore, reveals the criteria with which teachers measure student papers.

This study builds a dialogue between teachers of writing in China and America on what "good writing" is, revealing the fact that "good writing" resides not just with student texts, but with the teachers who read and judge student papers.