Formative assessment and feedback connected to learning has been seen as core tools in teaching since the 1990s (Black & William, 2009; Hattie, 2007; Jonson, Lundahl & Holmgren, 2015). A critical discussion among scholars, however, has emerged (Ekercrantz, 2016; Skourdoumbios & Gale, 2013; Sadler, 2010; Biesta, 2005). There is a growing awareness of the needs to further investigate the functions and definitions of these aspects of communication in the classroom (Joughin, 2008; Sadler, 2010; Benyamine, 2015). In this study, I examine formative assessment and feedback in the form of comments and clarifications as aspects of communication in the drama classroom. The task for participants in the course examined was to stage a play. The process is understood through Arendts conceptualisation of power as a possibility and a way to keep “the potential space of appearance between acting and speaking men, in existence” (Arendt, 1958). The aim of the study is to add a perspective on the process of feedback and formative assessment in the drama classroom and to contribute to the discussion on production and meaning in the classroom.
Using video recordings of classroom activity in the arts program at an upper secondary school in Sweden, the communication process is studied across how different semiotic resources are used by teachers and students and how these resources recurrently evolve as embodied responses to the artistic assignment given (Kress 2010, Sadler, 2010).  By analysing short video clips in detail the study underlines how participant’s attention on different semiotic resources shapes the design of the actions in the drama classroom. Design is understood as a dynamic communicative process where, together, the participants show and shape the affordance of the resources available for the development of artistic choices and qualities. The analysis emphasizes the common and communicative aspect in the situation and also the choices and interests of the participants. That is, the sign by the sign-maker is not arbitrary, it always motivated (Kress, 2010, cf. Arendt, 1958, p.182). The drama classroom is, thus, defined as a site where power relations as possibilities are expressed in different interests and as a “space of appearance” (Arendt, 1958). The research question is: What kind of semiotic resources are used and what qualities are in the centre of attention in the artistic choices that are put forward by the participants?
The issue of assessing artistic actions and processes in arts education can be examined from different perspective which reflect different assumptions about assessment and art (Cannatella, 2001, Eisner & Day, 2004, Stake & Munson, 2008, Orr & Bloxham, 2013). For instance, one could understand formative assessment as a way to correct in order to improve student's performance and thus, as a production and reproduction of knowledge and values (Säfström, 2015, Kress, 2010). In that perspective feedback and formative assessment can be regarded as a criterion-driven process where the knowledge is predetermined, and/or as a value-driven process where comparisons with others is in focus. In this study comments and clarifications are seen not only as transfer of knowledge and values, but also as a communicative and embodied process. The encounter between the teacher and the students is understood as a tool to explore how different meanings and interests are shown and shaped in the situation and how the contingent and disappearing character of the communication is a prerequisite for the participants to distinguish different actions as artistic choices and qualities (Arendt, 1958, cf. Laclau, 1990).
Detailed analyses of interactions in the drama classroom can shed light on how teachers and students together elaborates ideas, questions, topics and the text they are working with and tries to embody.

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