Learn about Quick Writes

What are Quick Writes?

NoRedInk Quick Writes are a lightweight exercise that makes creating, organizing, and grading assignments a breeze! In addition to building skills and fluency in writing, Quick Writes can also be used to assess course content understanding. 

They can help make it easy to get your students writing more often by providing them with a prompt and a few areas of focus. They are also great for journaling and bell-ringers!

Assigning a Quick Write

When creating a Quick write, teachers can choose from our collection of prompts, including skill-building prompts, text-based prompts, fun prompts to get students thinking, and so much more. You can even customize a Quick Write by adding your own prompts and sources. Ready to assign? You can check out this article to learn how to create a Quick Write!

Just like our Guided Drafts, you can also customize the Quick Write's rubric items, providing additional lessons and tips to students to help guide their writing around areas you’d like them to focus on. To learn more, review our article about how to customize your rubric!

Student Experience

Students will be presented with the prompt and instructions on how to navigate the assignment. While writing, students can view a progress bar at the top of their screen, allowing them to track how far along they are toward meeting the assignment's minimum length.

Curious about what your students see during this assignment? Check out our article about what students experience while writing a Quick Write to learn more.

Grading a Quick Write

Once students have submitted their work, you’ll be able to leave feedback on their writing, submit a grade or even request additional revision by sending it back to the student.

Want a deeper dive into the grading experience? Read this article to learn more about grading a Quick Write!

Best practices and tips

• Use Quick Writes as a diagnostic. This allows teachers to have a sample of student writing focused on a particular skill, informing how they may pre-teach skills in class before assigning practice in NoRedInk.
• Use Quick Writes as a formative assessment. Once students have completed NoRedInk practice, create a Quick Write and add focus points that require students to apply their new skills to their own writing. Check out our Daily Lesson Plans for inspiration!
• Check for student understanding. Tired of collecting journals or half-sheets of paper at the end of each class? Have students write responses to bellringers or exit tickets in NoRedInk as a way to keep their writing in one place and assess class retention. 

Additional Resources

1. Adding prompts and passages to writing assignments
2. Using Quick Writes to Build Writing Skills
3. Using Quick Writes to Approach Sensitive Topics