Creating an assignment

Title title

One short line. Name the assignment, don't describe it — "Essay 2 — close reading of Beloved" beats "Read Beloved and write a 500-word essay about how it uses imagery."

Students see the title in their dashboard list. Make it scannable.

Instructions instructions

Markdown supported — **bold**, _italic_, lists with - or 1., block quotes with >, links with [text](https://url). The student sees rendered HTML.

The Student preview panel updates live as you type. Use it before publishing.

Assignment type kind

Solo (default) — each student submits their own work.

Group — students collaborate on a shared doc. After save, Red Stet opens the group manager: assign students, optionally designate leads. Each group gets one shared doc with per-block authorship tracking. Provenance recordings stay per-student.

Publish & due dates publishAt · dueAt

Publish on — when the assignment becomes visible. Blank publishes immediately; a future date stages it.

Due — when work is expected. Students see "Due in 3 days." Past-due doesn't lock — students can still submit — but the visual changes to a warning chip.

Style preset stylePreset

Pre-configures the Consistency layer — the in-doc style guide that flags inconsistencies as the student writes (mixing "OK" and "Okay", "Internet" and "internet"). Options:

• Chicago — humanities default; serial comma, em-dashes
• AP — journalism; no serial comma, single quotes for headlines
• APA — social sciences; author-date citations
• MLA — literature; author-page citations
• None — student picks

Submission attempts maxAttempts

Cap on Submit clicks. Unlimited (default) for low-stakes, 1 for high-stakes finals, 2-3 for revision-and-resubmit.

Students see their counter. At the cap, Submit disables.

Attachments attachments

Files the student consults while working — PDF readings, source images, audio lectures. Each carries a kind hint that controls the preview:

• reading — PDF inline, scrollable
• image — rendered in the panel
• audio / video — plays inline
• other — filename + download link

Targets targets

Word count, page count, citations. Students see a live progress strip — "423 / 500-750 words" — and a citations checklist if you require any.

Guidance, not gates. A student can submit under the minimum. The strip turns green at the threshold; it never blocks submit.

Reference links referenceLinks

External URLs — a Wikipedia article, an MLA style guide, a JSTOR source. Each link gets a kind (article / video / audio / document / other) and an optional label.

Students see these as "Related materials" — separate from attachments, which are files you uploaded.

Tags tags

Free-form labels — essay, midterm, draft, q3-2026. Comma-separated.

Tags surface as filter chips in your classroom view and the cross-classroom list. Students don't see them.

Sub-tasks subTasks

Internal milestones — outline → draft → revise. Each carries a title, optional description, optional due date, optional weight.

Students see a checklist; teachers see per-task completion in the submissions list.

Still one submission — sub-tasks are metadata on it.

Rubric rubric

Dimensions you score against. Each criterion has a name (Argument, Evidence, Mechanics) and a one-line descriptor.

Fixed 4-level scale: Beginning · Developing · Proficient · Excellent. Pick a level per criterion after submit. The student sees the scored rubric.

Save reusable rubrics in the Rubric library on the left panel.

Classroom default rubric classrooms.defaultRubric

Set in the classroom's Defaults modal. New assignments open with the rubric editor pre-filled; per-assignment edits stay local.

Behaves like defaultStylePreset and defaultMaxAttempts — a starting point, not a constraint. Changing it doesn't touch past assignments.

Use when the same rubric runs across most of a class — Lit Argument with Argument · Evidence · Structure · Prose; Journalism with Voice · Sourcing · Clarity.

Self-assessment selfAssessmentPrompts

Reflection questions answered at submit. Common: "What was your strongest paragraph?", "What would you change with more time?", "What did you struggle with most?"

Required prompts gate submission. Optional ones don't.

Peer review peerReview

Students review each other's submitted work. Configure:

• Reviewers per submission — classmates per piece. Default 2.
• Review deadline — defaults to the assignment due date.
• Anonymous reviews — reviewer and author hidden from each other. Default on. You always see real names.

After creating, pick reviewers from the Peer review tab. Authors can post a one-shot response to each piece of feedback.

Peer-review grade weight peerReview.gradeWeight

With peer review on, a Grade weight field appears. Percent 0–100, default 0. Ties the reviewer's grade to whether they finished their assigned reviews.

At 0 peer review is formative — grade is the rubric alone. At 20, completing reviews contributes 20% of the reviewer's grade; rubric carries 80%. Skip every review and forfeit that 20%.

Per-assignment, not per-classroom. Set on the high-stakes essay where peer reads shape revision; leave at 0 on low-stakes work.

What's wired, what's coming

gradeWeight and reviewer-completion data are on every peer-review assignment — the weight is correct in submissions as soon as it's set. The in-app grade bar still renders the rubric-only percent until the async hook lands.

Variants — differentiated prompts variants

One assignment, different versions per student, routed automatically. ESL learners need shorter prompts, IEPs need extended time, advanced students need a harder challenge. Without variants, you build three assignments or send the differentiation in a DM.

The model — tags, routing, overrides

1. Enrollment tags. In People, tag students with free-form labels — esl, extended-time, honors, iep. Per (classroom, student): esl in English doesn't apply to math.
2. Variant definitions. Label, target tags, overrides for instructions, starter text, attachments.
3. Routing. Red Stet walks variants in order against the student's tags. First match wins; no match falls back to the base.

Concrete example — three-population class

Standard students, ESL (esl), IEP (extended-time). Build the base for standard, add two variants routing to esl and extended-time. An ESL student sees only the ESL variant.

What students see (and don't)

A pill — "Variant: ESL" — on the panel. Other variants are invisible.

Privacy. Resolution is server-side. The browser receives only the routed variant. Devtools won't reveal the others.

Override semantics

A variant can override:

• Instructions — the markdown body
• Starter text — what pre-fills the doc
• Attachments — the file list

Title, due date, rubric, targets, sub-tasks, peer-review — shared.

Default variants — empty target tags

A variant with empty target tags is the default — applies to anyone unmatched. Inverted setup: put honors in the base, add a "Standard" default. Tagged honors students see the base; everyone else gets Standard.

Why it's useful even if you don't think you need it

Even without IEPs or ESL, differentiation pays off — early finishers, students needing scaffolding, students in a different genre. Variants make it routine.

Starter text starterBody

Pre-fills the student's document on first open. Useful for worksheet-style fill-in-the-blanks. Leave empty for a blank page.

Duplicating an existing assignment assignments.duplicate

Kebab menu → Duplicate spawns a draft copy. Useful for reusing a tuned rubric and prompt set.

Carried over:

• Title (suffixed " (copy)")
• Instructions
• Due date
• Style preset
• Max attempts
• Rubric — full criterion list and descriptors
• Self-assessment prompts — in source shape

Not carried: per-student targets, attachments, submissions, grades. Lands in draft.

Save vs Publish — the lifecycle

Four footer buttons:

• Cancel — discards, closes
• Save as draft — only you see it. Stage a series before publishing.
• Save & add another — saves and reopens blank
• Publish (or Save changes when editing) — visible to students, fires notifications

Scheduled publish. A future publish-on date lands in "scheduled" — invisible until it auto-publishes and notifies on the date.

Version history — editing after publishing

Editing triggers a version snapshot. Substantive changes — instructions, due date, rubric, targets, sub-tasks, peer review, attachments, reference links, max attempts, self-assessment — notify every enrolled student.

Cosmetic edits (title typo, tags) don't notify. Change note and Silent edit override either direction.

Up to 20 versions kept. View version history shows the diff. Students see a "Your teacher updated this assignment" banner; submit is gated until they Acknowledge.