How to Writelike is a lesson that introduces Writelike's philosophy and mechanics to students. However, it’s worth skimming if you’re a teacher because it will give you a quick sense of what this platform is about.
If you like what you see in How to Writelike, then Teaching with Writelike answers more in-depth pedagogical and administrative questions about Writelike. It will help you create a class, assign lessons, invite students, and use features such as peer feedback and Wrotevote.
Writelike lessons are not explicitly differentiated by grade or year level.
Our approach is to create lessons that would suit a grade 7-9 audience with moderate scaffolding from a teacher and could then be adapted to other grade bands with more or less scaffolding.
Roughly speaking, we'd suggest:
- Grades 7-9: Teacher models first few pages of each lesson in class, makes sure everyone gets the idea, then assigns as homework to be completed over 1-2 weeks.
- Grades 5-6: Teacher works through all pages in class, providing additional scaffolding as needed, and perhaps uses during rotations.
- Grades 10-12: Teacher assigns lessons as homework/independent learning.
But every classroom is different!
We want Writelike to be accessible to everyone, but we also need to make it sustainable, so we let everyone freely access the lesson content but charge for interactive features.
So if you want to use Writelike as a middle-grade friendly, mentor-text modelling writing reference text, it’s completely free. You can browse the lessons, put content on screen and work through it in class, encourage your students to refer to and submit exercises to you, and so on.
But if you want to use our peer feedback tools like in-page reactions and Wrotevote, or you want to be able to record and monitor student work on Writelike itself, then we have a simple, affordable subscription model.
Better yet, Writelike comes bundled with Frankenstories Pro, so you not only get a content-rich interactive workbook, but you also get to use our powerful collaborative writing game.
Yes, but at the moment it is only accessible on the Frankenstories site. (This is an accident of history. We will separate it out in the near future.)
The school account is not a “whole school subscription”; it's simply a place to centrally purchase, monitor, assign, and re-assign multiple Writelike & Frankenstories Pro subscriptions.
You can find detailed instructions here and video explainers on this page.
The instructions focus on Frankenstories but everything you do will be reflected in Writelike.
Not exactly, but we get why you’re asking. If you’re a homeschool teacher, you can use the coupon code HOMESCHOOL50 at checkout for 50% off on 365-day subscriptions.
The terms of this discount are that homeschool subscribers have a maximum of 5 students.
We don’t enforce that student limit automatically in the system (so you actually have some wiggle room), but we will keep an eye on it and reserve the right to revoke accounts with no refund if we feel a subscriber is violating the terms of the discount.
Writelike and Frankenstories are related services, where Writelike is older and more mature and Frankenstories is younger and more free-wheeling.
- Writelike is an interactive mentor-text modelling textbook with scaffolded lessons.
- Frankenstories is a fast-paced, browser-based, multi-player creative writing game.
- Where Writelike is like training in the gym, Frankenstories is like playing on the field.
The two platforms share a user account system:
- If you have an email login on Writelike, you can use it to log in to Frankenstories, and vice versa.
- If you create a class in Writelike, that class will also be created in Frankenstories, and vice versa.
- If a student has a student code, they can use it to access both Writelike and Frankenstories (and they will see their relevant classes).
However, your Writelike lessons, Frankenstories games, and related student replies are only visible on the relevant platform:
- Writelike lessons and associated student responses are only visible on Writelike.
- Frankenstories games and associated student responses are only visible on Frankenstories.
Writelike subscriptions and Frankenstories Pro subscriptions are bundled, so if you pay for one you get bonus access to the other.
If you have a Writelike/Frankenstories account but do not have a paid subscription, you won’t be able to save content in Writelike, but you will be able to play casual games in Frankenstories for free.
Probably—we collect almost no personally identifying information, we have good security practices, our products don’t have ads, and we don’t sell user data.
(We do reserve the right to share anonymised user-generated content for the purposes of improving & promoting Writelike/Frankenstories and aiding academic research.)
Most states/districts have a compliance team, and we’re happy to provide further info or complete documentation as required.
Writelike will store your writing in your browser until you click Complete Page, at which point it saves it to the website.
That means you can close Writelike, then come back, and you'll find your draft writing on the page (so long as you're using the same browser and device).
It also means that nobody else can see your writing (including teacher and peers) until you have clicked Complete Page.
You can change writing after you've clicked Complete Page.
- On Mac: Hold down Shift + Option and then type a hyphen - .
- On PC desktop: Hold Alt and type 0150 on your number pad.
- On PC laptop: Hold Alt and type 0150 on your number pad. Alternatively, hold the Fn key and select the key for em dash, usually shown in blue (on selective laptops).
Send us an email at support @ writelike.org. We’d love to hear from you!