Introducing Skills Activities for Personalized Learning & Curriculum

Meet Skills Activities, Writable’s newest collection of assignments! These skills assignments can be used together as a curriculum to help students build up a specific set of skills for argument, information, and narrative writing genres as well as for state-specific assessment skills (coming soon). The Skills Activities can also be used as individual assignments to personalize learning based on a student’s data in Writable. If a student is struggling with a specific skill, or you’d like to focus on one skill for your entire class, the Skills Activities collection makes it easy to find and locate an assignment to support the needs of your students.

Each genre of writing and state-assessment features 6 assignments, and are themed to engage students. Themes hold the units together and bring a common purpose to the included readings. For instance, you’ll find Skills Activities on the animal kingdom, making a difference, modern history, inventions, and more!

When should you use Skills Activities?

Curriculum for Whole Class Instruction

Teachers can the Skills Activities collection to teach, model, and have students practice all key skills within a genre. Teachers can use the Skills Activities collection as main or supplementary instruction to lead their whole class in writing instruction for a particular genre. They may use the writing lessons in their textbook for their main instruction and use Writable skill assignments for supplementary practice, or they may use Writable Skills Activities for their entire instruction, modeling, and practice for a genre.

Individual Practice and/or Remediation

Teachers use individual Skills Activities assignments with small groups or individual students. In this case, a teacher will decide that a student or group requires extra practice or remedial instruction in a particular skill and work with the student or group on this skill in isolation.

A teacher might discover a student or group of students is in need of support after a formal or informal assessment, or by exploring the growth dashboard in Writable. Skills Activities can also be used for English Language Learners. These students can use the highly scaffolded instruction in the Skill Activities to practice planning and writing, with a focus on a particular skill.

State Assessment Practice & Prep

Teachers can assign a pre- and post-benchmark assessment before the state test. Depending on student performance, teachers assign state-specific Skills Activities assignments for practice throughout the fall and spring, as preparation for the state assessment.