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40 positive comments that aren't 'great job'

Praise works when it carries information: what exactly was good, and why it mattered. 'Great job' evaporates on contact. These 40 name the move the student made, so the praise teaches the move. Each has a slot for the specific, and the specific is non-negotiable.

Praising the thinking

• "Your claim in [spot] is one a reader could disagree with, which is exactly what makes it worth arguing."
• "You chose the harder example in [spot] and made it work; the easy one would have proved less."
• "The question you asked in [discussion/draft] reframed the problem for the whole class."
• "You noticed the exception, [detail], and dealt with it instead of hoping I would not see it. That is intellectual honesty."
• "Your explanation of why the method works, not just how, in [spot] is the difference between using math and understanding it."
• "You connected [text/idea A] to [text/idea B] without being prompted, and the connection holds."
• "You changed your mind in [spot] because the evidence pushed back. That is the whole point of evidence."
• "The counterargument you raised against your own thesis made the essay stronger, not weaker."
• "You found the pattern in [data/text] before anyone pointed at it."
• "Your 'what if' in [spot] is a genuinely open question; I do not know the answer either, and that is a compliment."

Praising the craft

• "This transition, [quote], is how paragraphs should hand off to each other. Do it on purpose from now on."
• "You cut the padding from your last draft; this version says the same thing in two thirds of the words, and every one of them earns its place."
• "The verb choice in [quote] does the work an adjective was doing before. That is revision at the word level."
• "Your opening sentence makes a promise, and your last sentence keeps it."
• "The diagram in [spot] carries information a paragraph would have buried."
• "Your quotation is trimmed to exactly the words that matter, and your sentence around it does the explaining."
• "The dialogue in [spot] sounds like a person, which is harder than it looks."
• "You varied sentence length deliberately in [spot], and the short one lands like a period at the end of an argument."
• "Your labels and units are complete on every figure, which is craft, not clerical work."
• "The structure you chose, [structure], fits this argument better than the assigned default would have. Good call."

Praising effort and growth

• "Compare this to your [earlier piece]: [specific change]. That distance is yours; you walked it."
• "You used every comment from the last draft, and the paper shows each one. This is what feedback is for."
• "You attempted the hardest problem on the page instead of orbiting it. The attempt is where the learning happened."
• "Three drafts of the opening until it worked. Nobody sees that in the final version except you and me, so I am saying it here."
• "You asked for help on [skill] at exactly the right time, before it compounded. That is a skill in itself."
• "This is the first [assignment type] you have finished start to finish, and it will not be the last."
• "The error you found in your own work, [error], is one most students need a grader to catch."
• "You came back from a rough start in [unit] and the last three scores prove it."
• "You practiced [skill] until it stopped being the hard part. It shows."
• "Your revision changed ideas, not just words. That is the rarer and better kind."

Praising the habits

• "You cited as you drafted instead of retrofitting sources at midnight, and the bibliography shows it."
• "Your annotations are a real thinking record, questions and objections, not decoration."
• "You restated [classmate]'s point fairly before disagreeing with it, and the discussion got better because you did."
• "Your group's log shows you delivered every piece on the day you promised it. Teams are built on people like that."
• "You started this assignment the week it was assigned, and the extra drafts are visible in the quality."
• "You brought the draft to conference with questions already written. That is how professionals use an editor."
• "Your notebook is organized so well you studied from it, which is the entire purpose of a notebook."
• "You proofread aloud, caught [error type], and fixed it before I ever saw it."
• "You helped [classmate] by asking questions instead of giving answers. That is teaching."
• "You met the deadline in a week when that was clearly hard. Reliability under pressure is worth naming."

The one rule

Fill the bracket every time. Praise with a specific inside it gets reread and repeated; praise without one gets politely ignored, and the students who most need real praise are precisely the ones who can tell the difference.