A writing activity in Scribo is a 'context' in which teachers and students come together to improve writing.

Write an essay on "The Spanish Flu".

Write an essay on "The Life of Pi and how a story can carry such intensity and sadness".

There are no limits on writing topics and interests. One thing is certain though – the objective of each sentence is to make you want to read the next one.

Writing is arguably the single most important skill a person can have after the ability to read.

The CONTEXT of an Activity in Scribo defines parameters of engagement around:

• The expectation of targets, type and style

• How it is planned to be used – formative or summative

• How it will be supported with resources and scaffolds

• How students engage in writing – integrated or solo, Google or Cold Writing?

• How feedback will work – revisions, live monitoring

• How collaboration inside the cohort will work

• How it is graded and how feedback is handed back

• How it is analysed to identify growth and target specific skill gaps

The pedagogical objectives behind Planning and Organising Writing

Where are they found?

Scaffolds are created from the Scribo Main Menu. They are linked to Activities to add context to what you are trying to do and how you are supporting students.

Scaffolds differentiate learning support

The level of support you give to students as they work can be adjusted by a scaffold. Scaffolds that give much, or little, advice and guidance to students can be linked at student level when the scaffold is assigned.

• Maybe you have ESL Students that need more support with additional videos and images, or some bi-lingual support?

• Maybe you have resources in Google and Web links that you can add for some students.

• Maybe you want to set up a WEB Quest (a bit old fashioned) that lets students follow along a pathway in Google Docs or Word. Scaffolds come through in the Google Doc Add-in and Word.

• Remember you can share Scaffolds across the school.

• Make Scaffolds public and share them across the District.

Scaffolds offer much flexibility to help students

• Scaffolds are super flexible. If you can format a page of text, you can build a Scaffold.

  • Cut and paste

  • Build the scaffold on screen

  • Add Checklists!

• Scaffolds are shared across three levels.

  • Private (My Scaffolds)

  • Community Scaffolds

  • Public Scaffolds

• You can copy any scaffold and make it yours

• You can share yours with the Community

• Tag the Scaffold so people can find it

  • Name – Give it a good name

  • Type – We have a drop down menu

  • Subject – What subject uses this type of Scaffold?

  • Years – What years does it apply to?

• Scaffolds save as you work – just like Google

• Use Emojis to make it look cool (Windows Key plus)

Connecting and differentiating Scaffold support for students

Manage Scaffolds

1. Scaffolds are managed from the main Scribo menu.

Assign different Scaffolds to different students

1. Go into the Activity you want to assign.

2. Go to the Student Experience Section – select Setup Scaffold.

3. Link the Scaffold you want to be the DEFAULT ONE FOR ALL STUDENTS for this Activity.

4. View and make sure you have the right one.

5. If there are students that need more/less/different Scaffolds, then select the Scaffold for each of these students individually.

How does a student see a Scaffold?

When a student goes into Scribo and opens the Activity, the Scaffold forms part of their context. Differentiated scaffolds, if set up, launch for different students.

Topic – Stimulus

The writing stimulus can be anything at all. The stimulus is set up in the Activity Context and is seen by students via TOPIC.

A Writing Stimulus can include :

• A picture, or series of pictures

• Writing prompts to get ideas for writing underway

• Videos to watch

Writing Plans

Writing Plans / Essay Planners are scaffolds that prompt and guide students in planning a response to the question.

Where are they attached to an Activity?

Essay Plans are linked to an Activity Context. If you want students to access an Essay Plan or Writing Plan, attach a Plan to the Activity for them.

Essay Plans are attached in Activity setup.

Essay Planners have pre-set formats that can include prompts and pre-loaded advice

Rules and Features

Essay Plans are set up by Literatu (though in the future you will be able to add your own plans). We add the framework headings if we don't have one that suits.

1. Plans are attached to an Activity.

2. The same plan goes out to each student who is assigned the Activity.

3. You can "pre-load some suggestions" in Plans. These suggestions inside the Plan framework go to the students when the Activity is assigned.

4. Keywords really help the planning process. Keywords are set up in the Activity.

5. You can change the target word counts that default with each plan.

6. You can speak to the Plan to record suggestions – use the microphone if you have Chrome.

7. You can add and delete paragraphs to the Plan before it is assigned.

8. You can rename Paragraph Sections to suit your intent and terminology.

Rubric Features

Background

Rubrics are one of the most powerful tools for helping students develop their writing skills. Used before writing takes place, rubrics provide a roadmap to guide students along defined criteria. Used for self-evaluation before submitting their work, rubrics engage students in reflecting on their strengths and where they can improve, thus encouraging ownership of their capabilities. Finally, when teachers use rubrics to assess students, feedback is clear, defined and usually shows where further growth can occur. Using rubrics in Scribo is easy, streamlined and effective.

Using Another’s Rubric

You might be using Scribo where another teacher has shared a rubric, or one is available from a library (eg. the NAPLAN library). In this case, all you have to do is choose a rubric while in the Activity Setup screen.

How to add an Existing Rubric to your Activity

1. Simply scroll to the lower section of the Activity Setup screen and choose a rubric from the list. For a rubric to appear in the list, you must either load it or it is available for the community (see below).

2. Use the Preview icon to see the rubric’s criteria and descriptors.

   Here is an animation showing this:

How to upload a Rubric

1. Find or create a rubric in either a table or spreadsheet. Notice that two heading rows are needed. One for descriptor and one for value.

2. Copy the rubric by dragging across/highlighting each section, then choose Copy from the menu, mouse or keyboard commands.

3. Navigate to the Rubric screen – Scribo main, Rubrics (left menu), then look for the down arrow in the green “Add Rubric” button. Click this arrow.

4. A Pop-up window will appear. Simply “Paste” the copied rubric and watch it magically appear in the pop-up window.

5. Name the Rubric.

6. Notice the important message that opens. This is letting you know that you should make sure your criteria either align with pre-selected criteria or you should choose your own. This “mapping” is very helpful because it groups similar criteria together so that, for instance, if three people use slightly different headings for paragraphs (e.g., “paragraph,” “paragraphing,” “paragraphs”) instead of three separate categories for the same thing, you only have one. This is very useful when tracking growth across the criteria.

7. Finally, add values so that Scribo can automatically generate a score from your feedback based on your rubric.

Sharing a Rubric across your Community

By importing your rubric as above, you can now use it with your students. Rubrics are even more powerful when they are shared. This means people are saving time, which is great of course, but by sharing rubrics, you and your colleagues are also working more systemically. Thus the criteria you set can be used across year levels, stages or subject areas. By doing this, students are encouraged to work to consistent standards that are supported across the school, not just one teacher.

How to share a Rubric

1. From the main Rubric screen, you may likely see only the new rubric you’ve just uploaded. Notice there are no rubrics in the Community tab.

2. If you try to share your rubric, you get a message asking you to add a year and subject.

3. After doing this, you can now share the rubric. It is immediately available to any teachers in your community.

Keywords

Ideally, each question should have keywords which –

1. Help Scribo check if students have answered the question, built a thesis statement

2. Help to highlight repetition in answers

3. Help students look for synonyms

Students see Keywords in the Student Writing Check

Writing Styles

Scribo supports the identification of 22 writing styles across student writing.

Points to Note

1. Scribo picks up Writing Styles from the question. Styles are typically VERBS that we identify, match and activate. If they are not selected automatically, along with Keywords, you can select the most appropriate ones yourself.

2. Each Style is linked to rhetorical language transitions – a bunch of simple, advanced and complex transitional phrases. When they are used in writing they enact directional changes, pivot language and hopefully answer the question.

3. When students check their writing, Scribo tags all of the rhetorical transitions used to Compare, Contrast etc. These highlights are identified in the text, colour coded and tagged for easy identification.

4. If students have been asked to compare and contrast a view or opinion, they can see quickly where their transitions have or have not answered the question. For some reason, there is always more compare than contrast!