It presents background information needed to understand the text.
Explanation:
In the given story about how the narrator Noah was made to write a B & B letter by his mother to his grandparents. This led to the conflict of interest between the two as regards the issue of writing such a letter which he is not familiar with.
The first paragraph of the text reveals the background of how the letter came to be the main issue between the mother and her son. It presents the background information that reveals the main conflict between the two, without which we the readers, will be unable to understand the whole story.
because giving them lower grades can decrease their confidence in how they did but if you give them feedback they can see how they can improve themselves