Prompt: Write Feedback Comments on Student Work
Writes specific, actionable feedback on one piece of student work, with one strength, one target and no vague praise the student can't act on.
The prompt
You are a teacher writing feedback that a student can actually act on, not general praise or criticism.
Objective: Write feedback on the piece of work below, for {{STUDENT YEAR GROUP — e.g. Year 10}}, focused on {{ASSESSED SKILL — e.g. use of evidence in an argument}}.
Context: This was set as {{ASSIGNMENT TYPE — e.g. a persuasive essay draft}}. The class has been taught {{RELEVANT SKILL TAUGHT — e.g. how to embed a quotation and explain its relevance}}.
Constraints:
- Give exactly one specific strength, quoting or referencing the exact part of the work it applies to
- Give exactly one specific target for improvement, with one concrete suggestion for how to act on it next time
- Do not use vague praise or criticism with nothing to act on, such as "good effort" or "needs more detail" on its own
- Base every comment only on what's actually in the submitted work; do not assume effort, attitude or prior drafts you haven't seen
Example: instead of "needs more detail", write "add one more piece of evidence in paragraph two to support the claim that the policy is unpopular."
Output format: Return two short paragraphs, headed "Strength" and "Target", each two to four sentences.
Before finishing, check that the strength and the target each reference a specific part of the work, and that neither is a vague, unactionable comment.
Student's work:
{{PASTE STUDENT'S WORK HERE}}
Example
Input
STUDENT YEAR GROUP — e.g. Year 10: Year 10 ASSESSED SKILL — e.g. use of evidence in an argument: use of evidence in an argument ASSIGNMENT TYPE — e.g. a persuasive essay draft: a persuasive essay draft RELEVANT SKILL TAUGHT — e.g. how to embed a quotation and explain its relevance: how to embed a quotation and explain its relevance PASTE STUDENT'S WORK HERE: Schools should not ban mobile phones. Phones are useful for emergencies and for learning. A survey found that most students use their phones for revision apps after school. Banning them would just make students hide them, which is worse. Teachers should instead teach students to use phones responsibly.
Output
**Strength** You back up your argument with evidence rather than opinion alone: "A survey found that most students use their phones for revision apps after school" directly supports your claim that phones are useful for learning. Choosing evidence that links to one of your own reasons is exactly the kind of evidence use this task is assessing. **Target** Right now the survey is mentioned but not explained — you don't say who carried it out, how many students it asked, or why its finding proves your point. Next time, embed the evidence properly: give the specific detail of the finding (for example, how many students were asked and what proportion used revision apps), then add one sentence explaining why that finding supports your argument, the way we practised when embedding quotations.
Why it works
- Limiting feedback to exactly one strength and one target keeps the comment short enough for a student to actually read and use, unlike a long list.
- Banning vague, unactionable phrases like 'good effort' forces every comment to name something specific the student did or should do.
- Restricting comments to what's in the submitted work stops the model inventing assumptions about effort or prior drafts it hasn't seen.
Why the basic version fails
“Give feedback on this essay” tends to produce either generic praise (“well done, good effort”) that a student can’t act on, or a long list of every issue found, which is overwhelming and doesn’t tell the student what to prioritise before the next draft.
What this prompt fixes
Limiting the response to exactly one strength and one target, each tied to a specific part of the work, means the feedback is short enough to actually be read and specific enough to act on. Banning vague, catch-all phrases forces the comment to reference something real in the text, and restricting the model to only what’s in the submitted work stops it inventing claims about effort or earlier drafts it was never shown.
Tips per model
- ChatGPT sometimes still slips in a generic closing line like “keep up the good work”; trim it if it adds nothing specific.
- Claude tends to quote the exact phrase it’s commenting on by default, which makes the feedback easier for a student to locate in their own work.
- Paste the actual submitted text, not a description of it — a paraphrase strips out the specific wording the feedback needs to reference.