Y08W33WR What Good Feedback on My Writing Looks Like

Part 1

How to Write

Informative – Informative piece

An informative piece shares knowledge or experience on a topic with readers who need clear, practical understanding. It is written for an audience who expects the writer to know the subject and present it helpfully. The tone is knowledgeable, direct and accessible — not academic or detached.

  • Ideas & content: Choose what is most useful for your reader. If drawing on personal experience, focus on what is specific and real rather than general observations.
  • Structure & cohesion: Organise ideas into a clear flow — an opening that establishes the topic, a middle that develops it with specific detail, and a close that leaves the reader with something useful.
  • Voice & audience: Write as someone who genuinely knows this topic. Stay consistent in tone — confident but not preachy, clear but not simplistic.
  • Language choices: Use vocabulary that is precise without being unnecessarily formal. Write in the present tense for ongoing truths and anchor abstract ideas with specific examples.
  • Conventions: Spell key terms accurately. Use punctuation to control sentence rhythm — commas and full stops are your most useful tools.

Common pitfalls: Staying too general — specific detail is what makes an informative piece actually useful. Repeating the same point in different words rather than adding new information.

Part 2

Your Task Plan for Today

The brief

Question: Write an informative piece explaining what good feedback on your writing actually looks like, based on your own experience. What kind of feedback helps you improve? What kind discourages you? What makes feedback genuinely useful vs. just making you feel good or bad?

Stimulus: Your school’s English faculty is reviewing the way it gives feedback on student writing. The faculty wants to hear from students about what feedback actually helps them improve. Your piece will inform how teachers give feedback going forward.

Task Analysis: This task asks you to explain what good feedback on writing actually looks like, based on your own experience. You must show what makes feedback genuinely useful rather than just making you feel good or bad. A strong response uses concrete examples of feedback that has actually improved your writing.

Quick Plan

Before you write, plan:

  • What helps you improve — specific characteristics of useful feedback
  • What discourages you — unhelpful feedback patterns
  • Specific examples of feedback that changed how you write
  • Why the difference matters

Specificity

Use concrete examples of feedback you have received. Show rather than tell what makes feedback useful.

Examples that teach

Show specific moments when feedback helped and when it did not. Help the reader understand through examples.

Paragraph focus

Organise your piece clearly — perhaps what helps, what does not, and what makes the difference.

Tone & voice

Write honestly about your experience. Your voice and genuine experience is the point.

Closing insight

End with your insight about what good feedback requires. What would teachers need to know to give better feedback?