Marking takes time.

Part of that is down to volume. Part is down to the process of assessment you need to go through. And part is down to the formulation of formative feedback.

You can speed up the last of these by using banks of strengths and targets.

This is where you have a list of ready-made strengths or targets on hand, from which you can pull out relevant ones to use in your feedback.

There’s always scope to tweak and personalise these, of course.

But the benefit comes from the fact that a lot of the work has been done in advance.

Once you have a strengths or target list, you no longer have to formulate every strength or target yourself, each time you write out a piece of feedback.

You can create you own list of targets.

Or you can use mine as a starting point.

Here’s a set of sixty ready-made targets covering the areas of:

• Skills of Argument
• Issues of Content
• Gaining Mastery

They sit alongside another 140 ready-made targets and 200 ready-made strengths you’ll find at the Assessment for Learning Knowledge Base.

Enjoy!

Ready-Made Targets: Skills of Argument

1. Always give reasons to support any claims you make. Reasons use logic to demonstrate why what you say is correct. For example: ‘Ice cream is the best … because it is sweet as well as cool.’
2. Give examples to support the arguments you make. Examples give the audience a real-life situation that demonstrates the truth of what you are saying.
3. Give evidence to support the arguments you make. Evidence means something in the real-world that supports your argument. For example: ‘Eastenders is popular. Evidence to support this includes viewing figures of more than six million.’
4. Try using counter-arguments in your writing. A counter-argument goes against the main argument. By showing why the counter-argument is wrong, you strengthen your own case.
5. Give multiple reasons to support the claims you make. By giving more than one reason, you will make your argument more persuasive.
6. Ensure your argument follows a logical path. Each point should link clearly to the previous one and to the overall argument.
7. Connect together the different reasons you use. Showing how reasons link can make your argument more persuasive.
8. Consider different viewpoints in your writing. Try to show how different people may make different arguments about the same issue.
9. Contrast different viewpoints in your writing. Show how they may be similar and/or different, and explain why this might be the case.
10. In advance, plan the overall structure of your argument. Group together similar points and themes. Only move on when you have written all you wish to write about a particular area.
11. Ensure your introduction is clear and to the point. It should address the question and indicate what you will be writing about.
12. Ensure your conclusion is brief and relevant. It should be a short, evaluative summary that touches on the points you have made without introducing new material.
13. When writing an extended argument, try to use a ‘for and against’ structure. Look first at why people might argue in favour of the proposition and then look at why they might argue against it. This structure promotes clarity.
14. Ensure the conclusions you draw come directly from the reasons you give. If you have a conclusion that does not relate to your reasons or evidence, it is not a valid conclusion. For example: If A, then B. If B then C. Therefore, if A then C. This is a valid conclusion, because it stems directly from what precedes it.
15. Ensure you answer the question throughout. Every paragraph should explicitly answer the question.
16. Before you begin, consider what the main focus of your argument is. This will ensure you think carefully about the position you are putting forward.
17. Write to persuade. Remember, you need to convince people of the truth of your argument. They may not necessarily agree with you.
18. Before you begin, consider all the points you wish to make. Put them in the order you feel is most persuasive. Stick to this plan as you write your answer.
19. Plan your answer in advance. Think about what your argument is, the different points you will make, and the order in which you will make them. Doing this will increase the clarity and persuasiveness of your writing.
20. Evaluate the arguments you make. This means identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Doing this shows that you understand them and have thought critically about them.

Ready-Made Targets: Issues of Content

1. Increase the level of detail in your work. Including more information and ideas will help you to think more carefully about the topic.
2. When answering questions or completing tasks, ensure you are accurate in your use of language. Practice using subject-specific language correctly. Use a glossary, dictionary or thesaurus to help.
3. When answering questions or completing tasks, ensure you are precise. If you are being asked about a certain area of the topic, stick to that area in your answer.
4. Use evidence to demonstrate what it is you are saying or writing. For example, if you make a claim about the topic, give evidence to support that claim.
5. Ensure your work consistently connects to the topic. You should be able to connect everything you mention to the topic we are focussing on.
6. Practice using the keywords, ideas and concepts we look at. Make sure you are familiar with their definitions. This will help you to use them correctly.
7. Go back over what we have been studying and revise the content. Create flashcards to help you. Do this until you are more confident in your understanding of the material.
8. Work with a friend or a family member. Ask them to test your knowledge of what we are studying. Go over any material you are struggling with until you are successful every time.
9. Ensure you consistently evaluate the information we look at. Highlight its strengths and weaknesses, as well as how it connects to other things you know about.
10. Ensure you consistently analyse the content we look at. This means you break down the content and examine the different aspects of it, as well as how these connect to one another.
11. When you have finished a piece of work, go back through it and check your use of keywords, ideas and information. Ask yourself whether you have used these correctly – check with a partner, dictionary or textbook if you can.
12. Practice using the knowledge you get in lessons in everyday life. Search for opportunities to do this at home, in school, or when you are out and about.
13. Learn the definitions of keywords and key concepts off by heart. Ask a friend or a family member to test you. Or, write the word on one side of a card and the definition on another. You can then use these to test yourself.
14. From lesson to lesson, try to identify the similarities and differences between topic areas. Include these comparisons in your answers. It will demonstrate a broad understanding of the topic.
15. Consider the relationships between different concepts we study. Try to demonstrate some of these connections in your work. Show how these different concepts influence or affect one another.
16. Before you start writing, think carefully about the purpose of the writing and who the audience is. Select your content accordingly. Different purposes and different audiences may require different content.
17. Create a glossary at the back of your book. Every time you come across a new word, write it down, along with its definition, in your glossary.
18. Every time you encounter a new word, aim to use it three times in the next couple of lessons. This will help you to get familiar with the meaning of the word and the contexts in which it can be used.
19. When you finish a piece of work, swap books with a partner. Go through and assess whether they have used subject-specific language correctly. If they have not, give examples of how they can improve.
20. Try to make connections between the content we look at in our lessons, and what you do in other subjects. Where possible, draw out these connections in your work.

Ready-Made Targets: Gaining Mastery

1. When you have finished a piece of work, go through it and identify how you can improve it. Redo the work taking account of the improvements. Then, if you have time, repeat the process to further refine your work.
2. Choose an aspect of the subject that you find difficult. Practice this aspect regularly, both in and out of lessons. Look for opportunities to engage with it. Doing so repeatedly will help you to come to terms with it.
3. Repeat skill X over and over. Each time, reflect on your efforts. Find ways you can improve with each repetition.
4. Repeat question/task type X over and over. Each time, examine how your response is related to the question/task. Through this process, you will come to understand the demands of the question/task more clearly.
5. Every lesson, reflect on what it is you have learned and the way you have learned it. Keep a diary of your thoughts. Use these to analyse how you are learning and, in turn, how you can maximise your learning.
6. Take time to reflect on how the work you produce relates to the learning you do in lessons. Critically examine the relationship between the two: analyse how one leads to the other. By understanding this, you will be in a better position to direct your own learning.
7. Reflect on how you are using the learning you do in lessons. Are you thinking carefully about it? Are you giving consideration to how, when and why it ought to be used? Are you aware of how your work is (or is not) making use of the new learning?
8. When you finish a piece of work, look back over it and highlight where you have used new learning from the lesson. Then, identify how you might develop this further in the future.
9. How might our learning concerning the topic be influenced or altered by the context in which we put it to use? In your future work, consider the influence of context on the skills you are using.
10. Try to demonstrate how the concepts and ideas we look at can have different meanings or uses depending on context. Develop your ideas through your future work.
11. Develop your understanding of the ideas we are studying by comparing and contrasting their use and meaning within different contexts. Make these contrasts explicit in your work.
12. Test the ideas we study by pushing them into different or unlikely contexts and seeing whether their meanings still hold. Make these experiments explicit in your work (including appropriate explanations).
13. Compare your own work concerning the ideas and information we are studying with ‘model examples’, for instance those in textbooks. Analyse how they differ and identify what you can do to get closer to the ‘model examples’.
14. Find ‘model examples’ of individuals using the ideas that are central to our subject (for example, in textbooks, books or journals). Take copies of these and use them as a standard to aim for in your own work.
15. When you complete a piece of work, go back over it and identify two or three ways it could be improved. Instead of making the improvements, write out a rationale of why the improvements would be a good thing. This will help you think actively about what success in the subject requires.
16. When you complete a piece of work, go back over it and identify all the new ideas or information you have used. Assess your usage. Identify what you have done well and how you can improve your use of the ideas and information.
17. Identify what success criteria relate to our subject. What is your work being judged against? Once you have identified these, use them to plan your work.
18. Use what you know about the subject, along with the evidence of your previous targets and the strengths that have been pointed out about your work, to identify what it is that the subject requires. Once you have picked these out, work towards them.
19. Search for examples of expert use of the concepts we are studying (for example: in textbooks, journals or on educational TV programmes). Keep these close at hand and try to mimic them when using the same concepts.
20. When you finish a piece of work, go through it and try to identify a series of minor adjustments you could make that would lead to an overall improvement. Repeat this process three or four times for each piece of work.