Hi [Student Name],
I've returned your [Assignment Name]. You'll find your grade and comments [in the gradebook / on the paper / in the attached file].
A few quick notes from me:
What you did well: [Specific strength, for example: "Your thesis was clear and well-supported" or "I really liked how you approached problem #3."]
One thing to work on: [Specific, growth-oriented feedback, for example: "Next time, try to include more textual evidence to back up your claims."]
Overall, [brief encouraging close, for example: "this is a strong effort and you should be proud" or "I can see the effort you put in and it shows."]
Questions? Come find me.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
Replace the bracketed placeholders with your own details before sending. Save your finished version somewhere easy to find so you can reuse it next year.
How to use this email
When to send it
Within a day of handing the work back, while the assignment is still live in the student's head. Feedback that lands two weeks later is a grade explanation, not feedback, and by then nobody has plans to revise anything.
One caution about what this email is not. If the student has not yet seen the grade, do not let this be how they find out. Post it, or hand the paper back, and then send this. A number arriving unannounced at eight at night, with no way to ask a question until morning, is a bad night for a kid and a phone call for you.
What to change before you send
- Cut any compliment that would fit any student. "Nice work" and "good effort" do not belong in the strength slot. Name the sentence, the paragraph, the step in problem three. Students can tell the difference between being read and being processed.
- Give the growth note a verb and its own line. The template sandwiches it between two positives, which is fine as long as it survives the sandwich. "Try to include more evidence" is a category. "Quote the text first, then explain it, in every body paragraph" is something they can do on Tuesday.
- Say whether a revision is possible, and by when. Feedback with no path back into the assignment is commentary. If a redo or a retake is on the table, that is one sentence and a date, and it is the sentence most likely to be acted on.
- Do not send this to all 140 students. The moment it becomes a mail merge it loses the one thing that made it work, and students compare emails at lunch. Pick the few for whom a personal note changes something this week.
- Replace "Come find me" with a time you are actually in your room. A student unsure about the grade will not go hunting for you between classes.
What a good reply looks like
Usually "thank you," or nothing at all. Nothing is the norm and it does not mean the email failed.
The reply worth sitting with is the one that pushes back, the student who thinks you misread their argument. That is not disrespect, that is a kid taking their own writing seriously. Ask them to walk you through it in person. Sometimes they are right.
The other good one is "I don't understand what you mean by that." Say it again in plainer words, with an example of what you wanted. If a parent replies instead, the student forwarded it, which usually means the grade landed harder than you knew.