Teaching with Writelike

• Create a class. Keep the default settings. (You can edit them later if you wish.)
• Assign How to Writelike to the class.
• In your class' Assigned Lessons view, click on How to Writelike and disable comments just for that lesson.

• In class, tell your students to register for Writelike with the class code.
  • Refresh the Members list in your class view to see students as they join.
• Once everyone is in, complete How to Writelike together. 
  • It should take about ~40 minutes.
  • At the end of the lesson, students should all have a short, punchy checkpoint piece.
• Play Wrotevote at the end of this lesson or the start of the next lesson, depending on available time.
  • For short checkpoint pieces, Wrotevote should take ~5 minutes.
  • This should give students a sense of closure and some motivational feedback.
  • However, you should discuss the experience with your class and assess whether or not they value it. (Most do, but responses can vary.)

Once you've completed How to Writelike, complete at least one other lesson as a group, in class.

For the first writing activity in your lesson, we suggest you do the following, regardless of age or ability level of the class:

Show students how to analyse snippets and worked examples

• Ask students to read the snippet aloud, then discuss what they notice and predict our highlighting.
• Reveal our highlighting and discuss whether students agree with each other and/or with us.
• Repeat with any worked examples.

Show students how to write and analyse a response

• Demonstrate how you would write a response. Apply highlighters and ask students for feedback.
• Jointly construct an alternative response, calling on different students for each highlighter.
• Ask students to write individual versions then share & discuss as a group to ensure everyone agrees on standards.
• If you're using a projector or screen share, you could show student responses in the response feed on the page, or the Responses screen in your class view.

Repeat until you have confidence in the class

At this point, you'll need to judge whether to continue working as a group or allow students to proceed with individual work at their own pace.

• For younger, less skilled, or less engaged students, you might need to teach all Writelike lessons this way until the process clicks. (Frankenstories is a powerful way to build enthusiasm and stamina, and increase effort in Writelike.)
• More skilled or engaged students should be able to work independently, though you should also find that this kind of group work is a great opportunity for metacognitive discussion.

Skip lesson pages as needed

Writelike lessons are like textbook chapters in that their length is determined by content rather than time.

So feel free to tell your students to skip pages as needed, especially if you are working slowly as a group.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Writelike exercises are generally open-ended, so it's important to show your students how to approach them before you assign Writelike as independent work.

It might be worth repeating this whenever you move to a different topic e.g. if you move from narrative basics to narrative skills or functional grammar.

Assuming you've left comments enabled for lessons in this class, you'll probably find that students quickly take to commenting on each other's work.

However, the comments aren't always constructive or relevant!

Before you finish your first "real" lesson, review page comments with the class and discuss your expectations for how students comment on each other's work.

For example:

• Comments should be relevant; random noise will get the feed turned off for everyone.
• General encouragement is fine, although specific emotional or craft responses are better.
• Don't only comment on your friends' responses; spread the attention.
• Focus on responses you like; let the teacher handle any negative feedback.

Assuming your students enjoy Wrotevote, you should discuss when you want students to play it.

Wrotevote becomes playable once 3 students have completed the lesson.

• Do you want students to play as soon as it is playable, even though it means the earliest players will only have a partial pool of responses to read?
• Or do you want students to wait until you tell them to play (e.g. when you can see that a certain number of students have completed the lesson)?

Repeat this process until your students are confident and engaged, and then you should be able to assign lessons as ongoing background work.