A unit on It's Raining in Mango typically includes several pieces of writing, and each one serves a different purpose. Some are meant to help students practice and improve, while others are meant to measure what they have learned. Confusing these purposes leads to feedback that is either too heavy for low-stakes work or too thin for high-stakes assessment.

Formative feedback is designed to guide learning in progress. It focuses on what the student can do next, rather than on justifying a grade. In a novel unit, this might include comments on a short paragraph about irony or a draft thesis statement, with an emphasis on one or two key improvements.

Summative feedback, by contrast, evaluates the final product against the criteria. It explains how the grade was determined and highlights strengths and areas for development. Because it comes at the end of a task, its value lies in helping students understand their overall standing and in informing future work rather than in revising the same piece.

Planning feedback across the unit

A well-planned unit places formative tasks early and frequently, with summative assessment at the end. Early writing tasks should be short and focused on specific skills, such as embedding evidence or explaining effect, so that feedback can target one issue at a time. By the time students reach the final essay, they have practiced each skill separately and received guidance on each.

• Short paragraph tasks with comments on one key skill
• Draft thesis statements with quick feedback before full essays
• Peer review sessions focused on a single concern
• A full draft with detailed feedback and no grade attached
• A final essay with summative marking against the full rubric

Avoiding the over-marking trap

Teachers sometimes try to give comprehensive feedback on every draft, which can overwhelm both the marker and the student. A draft covered in comments may result in the student fixing small errors without addressing larger issues. Limiting formative feedback to the most important two or three points keeps it digestible and makes revision more purposeful.

Grades on formative work can also undermine learning. When students see a mark, they tend to focus on it and skim the comments. Withholding grades on drafts, or using brief descriptors instead, encourages students to read the feedback and use it.

Making frequent feedback sustainable

The challenge of formative feedback is that it must be frequent to be effective, which multiplies the marking workload. Teachers can manage this by sampling, giving detailed comments on a subset of drafts each round and rotating through the class. Peer review and self-assessment can also distribute the effort.

AI-assisted feedback tools offer another option by providing quick, criterion-based comments on drafts, which the teacher can review and refine. This allows every student to receive timely feedback without requiring the teacher to write each comment from scratch. The time saved can be invested in the final summative assessment, where detailed professional judgment is most valuable.