In “Of Other Spaces,” Michel Foucault defines his “heterotopia of compensation” as a space created to compensate for the flaws inherent in the two oppositional sites on either side of the heterotopic space.

We propose that audio commentary is such a space, positioned between two very real, but very different sites: the margins of students’ papers where professors place handwritten comments (or other writing sites: emails, letters, endnotes, etc.), and the faculty office where professors meet in face-to-face conferences with students to discuss their writing.

These two oppositional sites present very different problems and, perhaps, benefits for both student and professor. We contend that audio commentary compensates for these problems and maximizes their benefits, allowing the two polar sites to come together in what we believe is a new and better space for commentary to occur.

Our individual and joint research on the use of audio commentary in composition classes suggests that the method merges key elements of the oppositional sites: it offers text-specific commentary on student writing in more substantive and affective detail than would ever be possible in the small space provided by a paper’s margins or even the larger space of a letter or email. In addition, it conjures up for both parties the moment of a face-to-face conference without the problems inherent in such a meeting.

Perhaps, then, the site created by audio commentary becomes a more balanced one for both professor and student. Less intimidating and frustrating than the conference, more “human” than the margin note, audio commentary possesses the potential to become a space where real teaching and learning can emerge in the midst of feedback.