Mark the pile, write one sheet

Whole-class feedback flips the economics of marking: read the pile with a notepad instead of a pen, and produce one sheet: common strengths, the three recurring errors with examples, one exemplary anonymous excerpt, and the improvement task everyone does next lesson. Given the thin evidence that individual written comments at volume justify their hours (Elliott et al., 2016), the one-sheet approach spends the saved time where it pays: on the redo.

In practice

• While reading, tally errors and clip quotes. The sheet is four sections and fits one page: liked, common fixes, exemplar, your next task.
• Students self-mark against the sheet: find which of the three errors is yours, then do the improvement task (see "Budget lesson time for acting on feedback").
• Reserve individual comments for the few pieces that genuinely diverge from the pattern, which is what makes those comments land harder.