Character analysis is one of the most common assignments paired with Callum McBride, and it is also one of the easiest to do badly. Students list traits such as brave, smart, or curious and consider the job finished. Feedback is what moves them from adjectives to interpretation, and the quality of that feedback determines whether the second draft is any better than the first.

Riding gives readers two very different protagonists, which makes the novel useful for teaching analysis. Callum begins as a bored twelve-year-old who is startled by an ability he does not understand, while Emma arrives with sharp technical skills and a blunt way of speaking. Students can build strong essays by tracking how each character responds to pressure and how their differences shape the friendship.

The first feedback move is to ask for a claim about change or conflict rather than a description. A sentence like "Callum is nervous" is a trait, but "Callum starts out hiding his ability and gradually learns to rely on someone else" is an arguable idea. Teachers can model this upgrade on the board with a single student sentence before sending drafts back.

Feedback comments that actually help

Vague comments such as "dig deeper" or "more analysis" leave students guessing, and most of them respond by adding another plot detail. Better comments name the missing step and ask a question the student can answer. For example, "You quote Emma here, but what does this line tell us about how she handles trust?" gives the writer a clear next sentence to compose.

• Point to one specific sentence and say what it does well before naming a gap
• Ask a why or how question tied directly to the quotation the student chose
• Suggest a stronger verb than "shows" or "is" for the student's analysis sentences
• Flag any paragraph that describes a trait without a scene to support it
• Limit each draft to two or three priorities so revision feels manageable

Comparing the two protagonists fairly

Many students write about Callum and treat Emma as a sidekick, which is a missed opportunity for balanced analysis. Ask students to give both characters equal paragraph space and to identify a moment where each one makes a difficult choice. This structure forces them to compare motives and prevents the essay from becoming a one-character summary.

Teachers should also watch for essays that rely on stereotypes when discussing Emma's personality. The strongest responses ground every claim in what she actually says and does in the text, not in assumptions about how a certain kind of person behaves. Feedback that asks, "Which line in the book supports this?" keeps the focus on evidence and models careful, respectful reading.

Using revision to build skill

A single round of feedback rarely changes a writer, but a short revision cycle can. Give students a specific task such as rewriting one body paragraph so that each quotation is followed by two sentences of explanation. Then grade only that paragraph on the second pass, which keeps your workload realistic and tells students that revision is a skill, not a punishment.

Track patterns across the class as well. If twenty students are all stuck on the same step, such as explaining a quotation, that is a lesson for tomorrow rather than twenty separate comments. Tools that summarize common feedback themes across a class set can help teachers spot those patterns quickly and plan the next mini-lesson around real evidence.

Balancing speed with specificity

The challenge with character essays is that specific feedback takes time, and a teacher with five sections cannot write a paragraph to every student. A workable approach is to prepare a small set of high-quality comment templates tied to the rubric, then personalize each one with a detail from the student's own paper. That personalization is what makes a comment feel like it was written for that writer.

AI-assisted feedback can handle the first pass by flagging unexplained quotations or trait-only paragraphs, leaving the teacher to review and adjust the tone. The key is that a human still decides what the student sees, because a teacher knows which writers need encouragement and which need a firmer push. Used that way, the technology protects time for the conversations that matter most.