QUICK WRITE GUIDE
Teaching it
- Give the students a few minutes to write in response to a prompt or set of prompts.
- In one way or another, have the students share what they wrote.
- Consider collecting the students’ responses for assessment purposes.
Pair share: Have the students share what they wrote with a nearby classmate.
Small group discussion: Put the students in small groups (or allow them to form their own) and have them discuss what they wrote.
Call and response: Call on students to share what they wrote.
Online form: Have the students share their responses via an online form. This option allows you and/or your students to read each other’s responses as they are submitted.
Assignment: Have the students turn in their written work without sharing it with their classmates. In some cases, you may want to allow the students to finish their responses outside of class.
ASSESSING IT
The quick write exercise may be used to gauge students’ familiarity with certain topics and skills prior to completing a lesson or lesson activity. Collecting this kind of information can help you fine tune your activities to different students’ needs.
The quick write exercise may be used to measure students’ mastery of the knowledge and/or skills they were meant to obtain during a lesson or lesson activity.
Content-based criteria for specific quick write activities can be found within the Protecting Our Waters lesson plans.
In some cases, you may want to repeat the same quick write exercise multiple times. For example, you may have students write in response to the same prompt both before and after completing an activity (to highlight how their thoughts have/haven’t changed). You may also use recurring quick writes to measure improvement over time, or to ensure that students retain learned knowledge and skills.
Writing prompt: Choose one democratic principle and explain how the structure of America’s government reflects that principle.
Assessment criteria:
- Did the student demonstrate a basic familiarity with the structure of America’s government?
- Did the student provide multiple examples of how a given democratic principle is reflected in the structure of America’s government?
- Did the student make a strong argument backed by reasons/evidence?