How do teachers situate themselves in their roles as assessors of student work? How do they maintain high standards and provide critical feedback while also doing their best not to shame students who fail to meet those standards? The purpose of this article is to propose a relational approach to assessment. This approach calls on faculty to consider the relational context and their relational presence when assessing student work. The author proposes that assessment is not simply a one-way act in which teachers deliver feedback to students, but rather an exchange between educators and learners involving relational dynamics, emotion, and degrees of receptivity.