Quill Lessons enable teachers to lead writing instruction with whole classes or small groups of students. Teachers control interactive slides that contain writing prompts, to which students will respond. Each Quill Lessons activity includes a Quill Lesson plan, writing prompts, discussion topics, and a follow-up independent-practice activity.
Table of Contents
Watch a video about Quill Lessons
This video provides a brief introduction to Quill Lessons.
Assign a Quill Lesson
To assign a Quill Lesson, please navigate to the Assign Activities page and click the Explore all activities in our activity library card.
In Quill's activity library, check the Whole Class Instruction filter to only see Quill Lessons.
From there, you can search for keywords in the Search for concepts, activities, and more field or check additional filters to find the Quill Lesson that you would like to assign. Once you find a Quill Lesson you would like to assign, you can preview the Quill Lesson to see what your students will be doing during the Quill Lesson. Then, you may assign the Quill Lesson to your classes.
Review a Quill Lesson plan
Every Quill Lesson has an associated plan that can be downloaded as a PDF. The plan lists each prompt that your students will see during the Quill Lesson and suggested discussion prompts that you may use during the Quill Lesson. Please click here to see a sample of a Quill Lesson plan, and please read below to see the two different ways to access a Quill Lesson plan.
On the Overview page in the Home tab...
On the Overview page in the Home tab, scroll to the Present a live lesson section and click the ellipsis icon to the far right of the Quill Lesson's name.
Then, click Download lesson plan.
On the Launch Lessons page in the Manage Activities tab
On the Launch Lessons page in the Manage Activities tab, hover over and click the Download Lesson Plan icon to the far right of the Quill Lesson's name.
Launch and implement a Quill Lesson
Please read below to see some steps and tips for launching and implementing a Quill Lesson.
Launch a Quill Lesson
In order to implement a Quill Lesson with your students, you must launch the Quill Lesson. To launch a Quill Lesson, please navigate to the Launch Lessons page in the Manage Activities tab.
Use the dropdown menu in the upper left corner of the page to select the class to which the Quill Lesson is assigned. Then, find the Quill Lesson that you would like to launch and click the Launch Lesson button to the far right of the Quill Lesson's name.
Guide students to join a Quill Lesson
Once you launch the Quill Lesson, students will be able to click the Join the lesson button that appears in their Quill accounts.
You can see how many of your students have joined the Quill Lesson on the Title Slide in the teacher view. The names of students who have joined will be highlighted in green.
Anonymously display student responses
For each student practice slide, you can select and anonymously display student responses to encourage your students to discuss and better understand the relevant writing skill.
Prompt students to retry a prompt
After displaying and discussing some student responses, if some students did not correctly use the relevant writing skill, you may click the circular arrow icon in the Have Student Retry column to the far right of their names to prompt them to submit a new response.
Flag students
During a Quill Lesson, you may notice that a few students may benefit from practicing the relevant writing skill further. If you would like to flag a student for further practice, please click the flag icon in the Flag column. Please note that students will not be notified if you flag them.
Throughout the Quill Lesson, you may hover over the flag icon in the upper right corner to easily see the students whom you have flagged.
Complete a Quill Lesson and view the Quill Lesson report
Please read below to see the methods that you can use to complete a Quill Lesson and view the Quill Lesson report.
Choose what students will do after the Quill Lesson
At the end of a Quill Lesson, you will be presented with the following options.
Choose Small Group Instruction and Independent Practice to pull your flagged students into a small group discussion and direct the rest of your students to complete a follow-up independent-practice activity.
With the small group, walk through the process of writing responses to a few of the prompts from the Quill Lesson and engage the small group in a discussion about improving their responses. You can use the I do/We do/You do model with your small group. Model how to use the relevant writing skill, prompt students to work on the relevant writing skill together, and prompt students to independently work on the relevant writing skill before beginning the follow-up independent-practice activity.
Choose All Students Practice Now to direct all students to immediately begin the follow-up independent-practice activity.
Choose All Students Practice Later to assign the follow-up independent practice activity so that students may complete it at a later time.
Choose No Follow Up Practice to not assign the follow-up independent-practice activity.
Select the option that you would like to use and click the button that corresponds with your selection at the bottom of the page. After you select an option, you will see the page below, and the Quill Lesson will automatically be marked as complete.
Then, you can click the Exit Lesson | View Report button to view the Activity Analysis report for the Quill Lesson.
Click the Mark As Complete button on the Launch Lessons page
If you exited the Quill Lesson before choosing what students will do after the Quill Lesson, you can mark the Quill Lesson as complete by navigating to Launch Lessons page in the Manage Activities tab.
Then, find the Quill Lesson that you would like to mark complete and click the Mark As Complete link to the right of the Quill Lesson's name.
Once you mark a Quill Lesson as complete, you can view the Activity Analysis report by clicking the View Report button that appears to the right of the Quill Lesson's name.
See a checklist for implementing a Quill Lesson
Find a Quill Lessons activity in the activity library using the search bar and filters.
Assign a Quill Lesson to your classes.
Review the Quill Lesson plan PDF.
Customize the Quill Lesson slides. (Optional)
Launch the Quill Lesson from the Overview page in the Home tab or Launch Lessons page in the Manage Activities tab.
Use the Teacher Model slides to demonstrate the writing skill.
Anonymously share student responses during the Quill Lesson.
Have students retry responses after discussion.
Flag students for small-group instruction.
Assign the follow-up independent-practice activities.
Mark the Quill Lesson as complete.
View student responses in the Activity Analysis report for the Quill Lesson.
See some prompts to guide discussion during the Quill Lesson
Some general prompts
What is the relationship between the parts of this sentence?
What are all the joining words we could use to connect these ideas?
How are the sentences you see different from one another? How are they the same?
Some prompts to analyze strong responses
Which of these responses would you use in your writing? Why?
What might change your choice?
How does the sentence structure change the meaning?
Some prompts to suggest revisions to responses
How could I correct this response?
How could I improve this response?
What rule could we write to prevent this writer from making this error again?
Some prompts to discuss the writing style used in responses
Which of these responses sounds better when you read it out loud?
What vocabulary would you change to make this sentence your own?
What is the writer communicating with their word choices?
Have more questions?
Please feel free to send a message to the Quill team using the green message bubble on the bottom right corner of the screen or email us at support@quill.org.