Writing Workshop gives teachers an easy way to assign writing activities that help students organize their ideas, practice writing, and improve through feedback. Teachers can choose from eight activity types, customize prompts and word goals, and assign work to an entire class or selected students. Students receive guidance as they write, then turn in their work for teacher review and revision.
How do I assign it?
Open Classes.
Select a class and expand it.
Go to its Assignments section and click Create Assignment. (Note: You must have Writing Workshop assigned to your class as a curriculum already).
Under “Who is this for?”, select Entire class, Specific students, or Multiple classes.
Under “What lesson?”, select Writing Workshop from the Curriculum dropdown.
Under Lesson, choose a mode—for example, Quick Write, Opinion Response, or Paragraph Builder. Here is what each entails:
Give it a title and a prompt. The title names the assignment, such as Should students have longer recess? The Writing prompt tells students what to write. A default prompt appears, which the teacher can change.
Adjust the writing expectations. Set the word goal and instructions. Open More writing options for additional settings, such as sentence starters and writing supports. The grade band comes automatically from the class.
Choose when students receive it. Under “When?”, choose Publish now and a due date, or Schedule for a later date. When a due date is set, the teacher can also select Lock editing after due date.
Click Publish Assignment.
What will my students see?
When students log in, they will find your writing assignment under Base Camp. They can click the play button to begin.
Within the Writing Workshop space, students can view the Builder (in which they get prompted questions to procure an outline), and Write Freely (the rich-text editor).
The Writing Guide is the panel beside the student’s writing page. It keeps the assignment directions, writing steps, goals, and help tools together.
In the bottom right hand corner, Penny (or Sadie, depending on grade level) acts as your built-in tutor who respond to the student’s progress—for example, “Start by sharing your opinion,” “Add another reason,” or “You hit your goals! Tap Check My Work.”
When students submit their document, they can hit that blue Submit button, and will be prompted then to score their own work:
Once they hit Turn It In, they will then be prompted to type their own passage to complete the lesson:
How do I grade it?
Go to Classes, expand the class, and select Assignments.
Click View Results beside the writing assignment to open its Writing Workshop review screen.
Select the student. In Review & Score, use the Turned in by dropdown to choose the student’s submission.
Read the submission.
Review the student’s response against the prompt and the descriptions shown for each rubric area.Score all four areas.
Select a rating for Ideas, Organization, Conventions (spelling, grammar, and punctuation), and Completion:1 — Beginning
2 — Developing
3 — Proficient
4 — Advanced
The total updates automatically, with a maximum of 16 points. The student’s self-ratings appear where available to help you compare their assessment with yours.
Add feedback.
Write overall feedback in Comment to student, or select a suggested feedback phrase. To comment on a specific passage, highlight it, click Comment on selection, enter your feedback, and click Add comment.Choose whether to request revision.
Check Return to student for revision if you want the student to make changes and resubmit. Leave it unchecked if you are finished reviewing the work.Click Save Score.
Wait for the confirmation that the score was saved before moving to another submission.