Teachers can combine NoRedInk's assignments in a variety of ways to meet different learning objectives. This guide will help you create purposeful sequences, known as Units, that support your students' writing development from start to finish!
What are Units?
NoRedInk's grammar and writing skills unit cycle empowers you to make efficient, data-driven decisions that support student learning and guide your teaching instruction.
You’ll choose the topics and pathways you want students to learn and build your units using the following activities:
Assign a Planning Diagnostic within a unit (optional)
If you're not sure which skills topics you'd like students to work on, a Planning Diagnostic is a great place to start! Planning Diagnostics are adaptive assessments that gather broad-stroke data about your students' strengths and weaknesses so that you can make a long-term plan. To learn more, check out the following resources to explore Planning Diagnostics:
- Learn about Planning Diagnostics
- How to Create and Assign a Planning Diagnostic
- Pre-made Planning Diagnostics
View Planning Diagnostic results to begin a unit
Once your students have completed their Planning Diagnostic, you'll be able to view their results, which group students into performance bands based on their performance. You can quickly reference students’ performance levels and use those to help differentiate new assignments within a unit for students based on their needs!
After you review the results data and decide which pathway you would like to teach, you will select Start Unit to assign students a Unit Diagnostic that assesses for topics within that pathway.
Step 1: Assign a Unit Diagnostic within a unit
Unit Diagnostics are targeted pre-assessments intended to give you a sense of what students know at the start of a unit. They are structured like a quiz, such that you can select specific skills to assess, and students will receive a percentage grade upon completion. To learn more, check out the following resources to explore Unit Diagnostics:
💡 If you've previously assigned a Planning Diagnostic, you can create a Unit Diagnostic directly from the assignment's results page by selecting Start unit next to the pathway you want students to work on!
View Unit Diagnostic results to begin a unit
Once your students have completed their Unit Diagnostic, you'll be able to view their results, which group students into performance bands based on their performance. You can quickly reference students’ performance levels and use those levels to help group students with similar strengths and weaknesses. You can then differentiate new assignments within a unit based on their needs!
💡 You can also use these results to inform how you pre-teach skills before assigning Practice. Check out this article to learn how to show students example questions and lessons!
Based on the results of your Unit Diagnostic, you'll assign targeted Practice assignments to your students to help them focus on which skills they should improve.
Step 2: Assign a Practice within a unit
Based on the results of your Unit Diagnostic, you can start creating Practice activities in the unit so that students can practice and master specific skills! Our Practice assignment allows students to master writing and grammar skills to apply in their writing. Students answer questions that target specific skills or topics. To learn more, check out the following resources to explore Practice assignments:
Rather than assigning a specific number of questions, you’ll assign a set of topics to work on! Students of different levels may require more or fewer questions to prove mastery. You'll select Continue unit either on the My Assignments page next to the Unit Diagnostic or on the diagnostic's results page.
💡 We recommend assigning skills in meaningful chunks that build off one another!
Track and view Practice results to determine next steps
As students progress through their Practice assignment, you'll be able to track their results and use those results to inform flexible groups, additional instruction, and pre-teaching of concepts. You can add on more practice activities as your students progress, using their diagnostic and practice performance data to determine what to assign next.
When assigning a new Practice assignment as part of a unit, you'll select Continue unit next to the first Practice of the unit. You can reference students' current levels of performance for the practice topics, enabling you to easily adjust assignments.
💡 Consider removing topics based on student needs or grouping students based on performance. Then assign specific assignments to these groups of students to challenge them at their current levels!
Step 3: Assign a Growth Quiz within a unit
To assess students’ learning during or at the end of a unit cycle, you'll assign students a Growth Quiz. Growth Quizzes allow teachers to create a quiz, which can then be compared to an earlier Unit Diagnostic. You can learn more about Growth Quizzes in the following article:
You'll select Continue unit on the My Assignments page next to the latest assignment in the unit. The Growth Quiz asks the same number of questions on the same concepts as the Unit Diagnostic, but uses entirely new questions.
View Growth Quiz results and celebrate growth!
Once your students have completed their Growth Quiz, you'll be able to view their results, which once again groups students into performance bands based on their performance. You'll then be able to compare the results with the original Unit Diagnostic and/or any other Growth Quizzes within the unit.
These performance bands will allow you to determine which students are still struggling and hone in on those challenging topics. You can provide additional instruction and support for those students. You can also share results with the class, using the option to hide names. Celebrate your students' accomplishments!
Step 4: Build another unit!
You can refer back to the results of your original Planning Diagnostic to build a new unit focused on another pathway's topics!
Additional Tips
- We've created a sample 6-week unit plan that includes an initial Planning Diagnostic and transitions into a complete unit! You can access the unit plan here.
- In addition to Practice and Assessment activities, don't forget to incorporate NoRedInk's applied Writing activities in your writing instruction! For example, a Quick Write is a lightweight exercise to get students writing more and applying the skills they're practicing.
You'll find even more examples of how to combine skills-focused practice and applied writing in the next section!
Ready-made Writing Units and Lesson Plans
To build more cohesive writing units, you can combine the grammar and writing skills practice activities with NoRedInk's applied writing activities: Guided Essays and Short Responses, Self Reviews, Peer Reviews, and Quick Writes.
To get started with writing units, check out this article to find a list of our pre-made units and lesson plans! Simply select any assignment to review, customize, and assign it to your students. You can adapt any plan to meet your and your students' needs, or simply use them for inspiration as you create your own writing units.
💡Check out this PDF with all of our ready-made writing units!