Teaching with Writelike ARCHIVED NOV 2023

Once your students can use Writelike independently, you will find there are many different ways you can incorporate the platform into your teaching.

Here are a few suggestions.

Treat Writelike like a gym

You can treat Writelike as daily training that yields steady gains with the occasional breakthrough.

You can make sure your class always has a lesson assigned, and that students submit a couple of responses each day or a lesson a week or some other cadence that suits.

You can use Wrotevote or Peer Review to help make the work rewarding. 

People quit gym training for lack of reinforcement, but they'll stay in a sports team because there's a social game every week, and they enjoy playing with their friends.

Same with Writelike; the training is hard work, but the social performance is rewarding.

Think cross-genre training

What do you do if you can't find a lesson that aligns with the unit you are currently teaching? 

One option is to tell us what you want and we'll see if we can make it for you.

Another option is to think cross-genre. We'd suggest that all Writelike lessons have value because they teach transferable skills. 

You might be doing persuasive writing in class, but a Writelike narrative lesson for homework helps train sensitivity to text patterns, observation, sequencing, connection and many other skills that are used in argument writing, and take time and practice to internalise.

Show students how to apply Writelike-type skills in other contexts

Writelike teaches skills that can be applied in any context, so encourage students to transfer their learning.

• Ask students to keep a notebook of techniques they are learning, expressed in their own words.
• Ask students to analyse and comment on their own writing assignments in Writelike-style terms.
• Ask students to take sample passages from your class readings and explain how they would analyse and model them. How do they think the text works? What would they highlight? How would they apply the pattern?

Writelike is about learning a way of thinking as much as it is about doing writing exercises.

Give students space and time to think

While some Writelike activities are easy, some are challenging, especially in detailed-practice type lessons where students are building complete passages and need to think through the implications of each choice they make.

Part of the reason why we recommend using Writelike as a self-directed homework activity is so that students can have time to read, think and fiddle with their work.