When I started marking my very first assignments last year, I was full of excellent information from training: how to praise what students do well, how to offer craft-based critiques, how to ask questions and frame suggestions as a way to further their work rather than slam it. When I got to the actual marking, though, I hit a new problem: balance.
Exactly how much critique was I supposed to give? I wanted to identify areas of improvement without crushing students’ souls. What was too much or too little?
After some trial and error, I found what worked for me: three suggestions.
I’ve been trained as an editor, and though that’s a very different role than that as a Creative Writing TA, both require finding that tricky balance between praise (“You did the thing and part of it works! Congrats!”) and critique (“Here’s how to make it even stronger…”).
I learned that for initial letters to writers, you should start with praise, describe five clearly defined areas to improve, and end with praise again. It’s the usual “compliment sandwich,” but having a specific number of suggestions or critiques to offer gives a certain focus to feedback.
For my TA work, I’ve adapted this structure to three critical remarks, which works better with the shorter and higher volume assignments we mark.
Limiting suggestions and critiques to three helps me:
1) Clearly communicate the most important feedback.
If I’m only making three suggestions, these need to be the three most important areas of improvement that would make the biggest impact on the piece. They’re often “bigger picture” kinds of suggestions, like making the conflict clearer or taking another look at the pacing. I usually use bullet points to separate the three suggestions so they’re easy to read and understand. Sometimes I’ll add a fourth suggestion, especially if there’s something smaller I need to address with the rubric, but in general, I try to keep to three larger areas of improvement.
2) Make my feedback “actionable.”
As writers, we know that a huge wall of feedback can be overwhelming and off-putting, even when it’s well-intentioned. Having just three areas to focus on can be more helpful if a writer is looking to revise or simply to improve for the next assignment. They can use that feedback to direct their efforts to the main growth areas of the piece rather than to smaller details with a more limited impact.
3) Make good use of my time while marking.
Three clear suggestions are a lot quicker to produce for each assignment than a list of everything the writer might be able to improve. When you’re marking 55 assignments, that time adds up. I also find that the process just feels faster when you’re ticking off your requirement of three suggestions—you know exactly how much you need and how far along you are.
When I’m actually marking, my process looks something like this:
- Read through the piece a couple times, making notes on areas of strength and weakness.
- Compile the strengths into a short paragraph of what worked in the assignment. I usually create or use a comment bank to reuse many of these compliments across assignments.
- Add three bullet points on the three most important areas of improvement.
- Finish off with a few more encouraging comments.
Of course, I’m also happy to talk to students further about their work in office hours if they want to know more about how to improve. However, I’ve found that limiting to three critical remarks in my written feedback keeps me from getting bogged down in critique and allows me more room to think about what each student has done well—bonus for my mental health and for the student’s confidence!