Written loosely
Shows some reflection.“There is reflection here.” True, and useless — there is nothing in the descriptor to aim at.
For teachers
Your criteria decide what it says. You decide what she reads.
Four things a teacher wants to know before trusting any of this: how a descriptor becomes a comment, how the voice stays yours, what your student actually sees, and what a class of drafts can honestly tell you. The loop itself is on the main page.
Feedback is only as good as the descriptor
TA39 reads your criteria — not a general idea of good writing. Every comment it drafts is tied to a criterion and a level, which is also why a loose descriptor produces a loose comment.
Your criteria
Criterion C · Reflection
Personal narrative7–8Explores why the experience mattered and what changed as a result.
5–6Explains the significance of an experience, not only that it was significant.Where this comment points
3–4Names a feeling or a hesitation but leaves the reason implied.Maya’s draft matched here
1–2Recounts events with little reflection.
Your own criteria, your own wording. TA39 does not rewrite them and does not add criteria you did not set.The same criterion, written two ways
Written precisely
Explains why an experience mattered, not only that it did.“You tell us counting was easier than thinking. Level 5 asks you to say why it was easier.”
This is the one place your effort compounds. Tighten a descriptor once and every comment on that criterion improves — for every class, every year.
The presets are where you start, not where you end
The structures come from the research and the presets come from us. Everything after that is yours — tone, length, what you refuse to comment on, how much of it the AI writes at all. Change anything below and watch the comment on Maya’s sentence follow.
Try:
Maya wrote
That day I counted my steps instead. I got to four hundred before I stopped, because counting felt easier than thinking about what I would say.
Feed-forward · warm
You have set this up beautifully. Your next step is to add one sentence after this that names what you were afraid to say. Come find me Thursday if you want to talk it through first.
The template you just wrote
structure: Feed-forward voice: warm length: standard priorities: as the work requires teacher instructions: (none yet — presets only)These are the actual instructions sent with every piece of work on the assignment. Nothing is hidden from you, and nothing is fixed.
A teacher who has been doing this for twenty years does not need our presets. They need somewhere to put what they already know — and the assurance that it will be applied the same way on the hundred-and-fiftieth essay as on the first.
What Maya sees
Her view is deliberately smaller than yours. She sees the comments you released, attributed to you, and one question asking what she plans to do about them.
Maya’s viewFeedback released
The gravel crunched under my shoes like it was chewing on my thoughts. Every afternoon I told myself today would be the day.
I am not sure yet
What she never sees
She cannot ask it to write for her. If you switch it on for an assignment, Maya can ask what a comment means — that is the whole of it. Off by default, and your switch either way.
She is not being managed by software. She is answering her teacher.If you switch it on, you get to read the argument
A student who disagrees with a grade usually says nothing. Where the conversation is on, Maya can put her case — strictly about her own feedback, and it does not write for her — and the thread comes back to you.
Why did I only get a 3 on reflection? I did say what I was avoiding.
You named it in draft 2 — that you already knew what she would say. Criterion C at level 5 also asks why counting was easier than saying it. Where do you think the piece answers that?
I don't think it does. I just stopped at four hundred.
That is worth taking to Ms. Rivera. It is one sentence, and you already know what it says.
What it told Ms. Rivera
A shared difficulty is a question, not a verdict
Nobody reads thirty sets of feedback looking for a pattern. TA39 groups comparable evidence as each student works, and keeps what you confirmed separate from what it has only suggested.
Evidence integration is the pattern here. It might mean reteaching. It might also mean the feedback was unclear, or the task never really asked for the skill, or the descriptor asked for something else. The count tells you where to look, not what to conclude.
30 students · 18 with comparable evidence
You reviewed 12 of them
Evidence integrationQuotations placed but not explained7 confirmed4 suggested, unreviewed
Counter-argumentAcknowledged, not answered4 confirmed2 suggested, unreviewed
Thesis clarityChanged since round 11 confirmednone
StructureNo comparable evidence this round—not comparable
Before you plan Tuesday: read the writing, the task, the descriptor and your own feedback together, and see whether the pattern still holds.
Use the evidence responsibly
Teachers
Start with one assignment
Bring your criteria and a set of drafts you already have. Short guides take you from there to returned feedback.
Get in touchOr read first — the learning paths and teaching resources.
Schools
What IT needs, before anything is installed
What the software does and cannot do, where a teacher decides, and the security documentation a privacy review asks for.
Review security documentation
What it produced
Reflection · Criterion C · level 3–4You tell us counting was easier than thinking. Level 5 asks you to say why it was easier — one sentence, right after this one.