Assessment
How do I give feedback on student writing without rewriting it for them?
Give writing feedback by picking the 2–3 highest-leverage issues, naming what's working, and asking questions or pointing to patterns instead of correcting every error — so the student does the revising, not you.
The trap with writing feedback is doing the thinking for the student. Mark everything and they fix nothing; they just transcribe your corrections.
- Read the whole piece first. Your first impression tells you the single most important thing to address — usually it's organization or clarity, not commas.
- Pick 2–3 issues, max. Comprehensive markup rarely produces comprehensive improvement. Choose the ones that, if fixed, most improve the piece.
- Name a strength specifically so they keep doing it: "Your second paragraph has a clear claim and real evidence — that's the move."
- Point to patterns, ask questions. "You shift tense here a few times — can you find them?" makes the student do the editing. "This paragraph — what's the one idea?" beats rewriting it.
Save line-editing for the things that actually block meaning. A feedback tool can draft strength-based, skill-targeted comments on a piece of student work so you spend your time deciding what matters, not typing it 30 times.
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