Because Writelike is focused on mentor text modelling, we don't explicitly teach spelling and punctuation.
However, tucked away inside Writelike are a couple of activity types called Proofing and Memory, which turn snippets of authentic text into tiny spelling and punctuation drills.
We don't promote them much, but if you're already using Writelike and you have students who struggle with the basics, you might like to give them a try.
How proofing activities work
In a proofing activity, we scramble the spelling and punctuation of half the words in a snippet. Students have to correct them in under 2 minutes, and they can peek at the source for help. Text boxes turn green as soon as each entry is correct.
It's a weirdly absorbing activity and some students take to it because it's inherently gamelike in a simple "beat-the-clock" way.
New proofing lessons
We've made a batch of 12 lessons that are composed entirely of proofreading activities.
Each lesson draws from one of four narrative texts:
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- The Hunger Games
- Burning for Revenge
- All the Light We Cannot See
You'll find them all by scrolling to the bottom of the Browse page (or using search).
Each text has 3 lessons with snippets of increasing length (which make the activity more challenging).
For example, here's a short snippet from Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
A mid-length snippet from The Hunger Games:
And a long snippet from All the Light We Cannot See:
How memory activities work
Memory activities are even simpler than proofing: students retype a snippet from memory (with up to 10 peeks at the source) in under 2 minutes. The text box goes red whenever the student goes off track.
Is this a useful activity? We genuinely don't know! We made it because we thought it might provide helpful keyboarding practice for some students, and it might help students notice how text works in phrase/clause chunks.
New memory lessons
Because we don't know if this a genuinely useful exercise format, we've only made 3 memory lessons using the same Burning for Revenge snippets as the proofing lessons above.
NOTES
These lessons use UK/AU spelling—let us know if you want US
We used British/Australian editions of the books. We can do US versions easily if anyone wants them.
Let us know if you want more of these proofing or memory lessons
These lessons are easy to produce, so if you want more or you want lessons from a specific text or genre, let us know.
AND
On the subject of requests
Writelike used to allow teachers to clone, customise, and create lessons.
We turned those features off because they were hard to maintain and not widely used, but we're considering restoring those capabilities in some way.
As always, feel free to say hi
Your questions and requests are the best way to improve Writelike, so we're always happy to get email.
Or better yet, join our Discord and you can get live tech support and a direct pipeline into our thought processes as we work.