Write student feedback they can actually act on

Write student feedback they can actually act on

Friday. There is a stack of student work on your desk you have committed to hand back Monday. You will do the marking. The question is whether the paragraph you write across the top of each piece is any use to the student when they open it, or whether it is the block of teacher-language that gets scanned once and put in a folder.

The failure mode of most AI-generated feedback is not that it is wrong. It is that it is written to the wrong reader. "Demonstrates a thorough understanding of the text's themes though would benefit from further textual elaboration" is a sentence for a report card, not for a fourteen-year-old about to sit down to a redraft. Good written feedback for the student themselves is short, addressed to them, quotes something they actually wrote, and gives them a specific action for the next attempt. This prompt gets you there in about a minute per piece.

The prompt

You are helping me write feedback for one student on one piece of their work in [YEAR LEVEL] [SUBJECT] at an Australian [PRIMARY / SECONDARY / VCE] school. The feedback will be read by the student themselves, and by nobody else. Its only job is to help THIS student make THEIR next draft (or their next piece of work) better.

You are working in the tradition of Dylan Wiliam on formative assessment, Hattie on feedback that is task-specific and forward-looking, and the everyday classroom truth that a paragraph of teacher-language does nothing for a fourteen-year-old with a redraft due Friday. Good written feedback for the student is short, addressed to them by "you", and points forward.

GOOD FEEDBACK ON A PIECE OF WORK HAS FOUR PARTS. All four are non-negotiable.

1. ONE named STRENGTH, quoted from the actual work in front of me, so the student can see the exact words or the exact step that landed. Never a generic compliment. Never "great effort".

2. ONE named NEXT STEP, phrased as an action the student can take on the next draft or the next piece, not a criticism and not a comment on their character. Never "consider adding more evidence". Always "in your next paragraph, quote from page 47 where the character first refuses, and explain in one sentence what that refusal costs him".

3. ONE MODEL LINE, one to two sentences long, written in a plausible student voice at a reading age this student can imitate. It should show what the NEXT STEP action would look like when done well. The student should be able to imitate the move, not paste the sentence.

4. ONE CLOSING sentence that names an EFFORT or a STRATEGY they used (not a trait of the child) and points forward to the next attempt. Never "well done", never "keep it up".

RULES.
- Address the student directly with "you". Do not refer to them in the third person.
- Match a plausible reading age for the year level. No corporate feedback language. No report-comment cliches ("consider", "you may wish to", "there are opportunities for").
- No sandwich structure. No repeat of the mark or grade. No emojis.
- Australian English (realise, colour, analyse).
- Zero em-dashes and zero en-dashes anywhere. Use commas or full stops.
- Total length: 80 to 120 words across all four parts combined.

CONTEXT I WILL PASTE IN.
- The task the student was set, including the success criteria if I have them: [PASTE THE TASK]
- Year level and anything I know about this student's reading age or adjustments: [YEAR LEVEL, PLUS ANY NOTE, e.g. "reads roughly two years below year level", "EAL, arrived in Australia this year", "adjustment for working memory"]
- The student's actual work, typed or pasted: [PASTE THE WORK, OR THE KEY SENTENCES AND ANY WORKING]
- The one NEXT STEP I would like the feedback to prioritise, if I already know what it is (leave blank if you want to choose): [OPTIONAL]

Return the feedback in exactly four labelled parts (STRENGTH / NEXT STEP / MODEL LINE / CLOSING), each on its own labelled line, in that order. No preamble. No summary at the end. No emojis. No mark.

What it does well

Names the strength and the next step from the actual work in front of the student, not a generic one, so the student can see what to keep and what to change on their next attempt. Forces a model line the student can imitate, which is the part most AI-drafted feedback quietly skips.

Where it falls over

Cannot read handwriting. You will type or paste the student's actual sentences (or the key line of working) for the model to have anything real to quote, and that is where the minute per piece goes. The MODEL LINE is a hazard if you show it to the student before they have attempted their own redraft, because they will copy it. Use it as your reference, or share it only after their first attempt.

Try it like this

For Year 5 recount writing: ask for the model line at a reading age of about nine, and paste in three or four sentences of the child's writing rather than the whole piece.

For VCE English text response: paste the relevant VCE Study Design assessment criteria into the task field, and add a rule that the NEXT STEP must reference one specific criterion (for example, "textual analysis" or "the conventions of the selected form").

For a Year 9 maths problem set with working: swap "quote from the work" for "point to the specific step of their working where the error first appears", and let the MODEL LINE be a redone step rather than a redone paragraph.

Do the marking with your coffee. Write the feedback with the prompt. Hand it back Monday, and expect the redraft to actually address what you said.