Reading for Evidence, Quill's reading and writing tool, is designed to support students in building both language and reading skills. Students read a nonfiction text and build their comprehension by completing open-ended writing prompts and supporting a claim with evidence from the text. Designed for students in 8th-12th grade, each activity takes 15-20 minutes to complete. Activities are relevant to ELA, social studies, and science, with a particular focus on 21st-century real-world issues.

In each Reading for Evidence activity, students are prompted to read the text, highlight sentences about a key idea, and finally, write 3 sentences using the joining words, because, but, and so. As students submit responses, Quill provides targeted feedback to coach students through improving the accuracy and specificity of their evidence, refining their logic and syntax, and correcting any grammatical or mechanical errors. For each prompt, students have 5 chances to submit a correct response.

In the video below, one of Quill's Professional Learning Managers provides a demonstration of a Reading for Evidence activity.

When students begin a Quill Reading for Evidence activity, they will see four onboarding pages to walk them through the important information that they need to know about the tool. Once a student has completed 3 Reading for Evidence activities, they will no longer see these onboarding pages.

The first onboarding page tells students what they will be doing in a Quill Reading for Evidence activity. They will read and highlight a text, write sentences using what they read, and revise their sentences based on feedback.

Students will click the Next button at the bottom of each onboarding page to go to the next onboarding.

The second onboarding page tells students that the activity is not graded. Quill has chosen not to provide percentage scores for Reading for Evidence activities because we want students to focus on understanding the text and revising their sentences based on feedback instead of focusing on the percentage score they will receive.

Students will click the Next button at the bottom of each onboarding page to go to the next onboarding.

The third onboarding page tells students that they will receive their feedback from a feedback bot. This is our way of explaining to students that the feedback they get in Reading for Evidence activities is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Because the feedback is not provided by a human teacher, the feedback will not always be correct. Please let students know that if they receive feedback that is incorrect, they may click the Report a problem link to share that the feedback is incorrect with Quill.

The fourth and final onboarding page tells students that they have five chances to submit a correct response and that each time that the student submits an incorrect response, they will immediately receive targeted feedback.

Students will click the Start button to start the Reading for Evidence activity.

Before students read the passage, they will see a list of the steps they will take in the activity. Then, students will click the Start button.

Students will see directions to read the passage and highlight two sentences related to a specific key idea. Then, students will click the Got it button to begin reading the passage.

Once students have read the whole passage, they will see that the Read the entire text step will be checked.

If a student tells you that they cannot click the Done button, then they most likely have not yet read and scrolled through the whole passage.

To highlight a sentence in the text, students will click on the sentence in the passage. The sentences that students highlight will appear highlighted in the passage, as well as on the right side of the page within the Highlights section.

Once students have highlighted two sentences in the passage, they will click the Done button.

Then, they will click the Next button.

After students have read and highlighted the passage, they will see the list of steps with the first step checked off. Students will click the Next button to begin completing the first writing prompt.

Students will now be in the heart of the Reading for Evidence activity. They will see the passage on the left side of the page and the writing prompt on the right side of the page.

To complete a writing prompt, students will click in the text box. Then, when they ready to submit their response, they will click the Get feedback button. Just as when they are completing other Quill activities, students will receive targeted feedback for each response that they submit. Quill will first provide feedback on the accuracy and relevance of the evidence that the student used in their response, the use of the conjunction, the quality of paraphrasing (Quill discourages plagiarism.), and the use of opinion (Quill encourages students to only use textual evidence.). Then, students will get feedback on grammatical or mechanical errors.

As much as possible, Quill's feedback will guide the students to make a revision without directly telling them what to do. However, please note that scaffolds will be integrated into the feedback for students if they are struggling. For example, if students are having trouble identifying a relevant piece of evidence, a section of the passage will be highlighted for the student to re-read.

In addition, hints may be provided with the feedback. For example, students may see an annotated exemplar of an effective use of the joining word, because, if they are struggling to provide evidence of a reason for the stem.

If students do not submit a correct, evidence-based response by the fifth attempt, they will see examples of strong responses submitted by other students.

If students do submit a correct, evidence-based sentence by the fifth attempt, they will see a green box with a checkmark.

After students complete the last writing prompt, they will see a reflection page that celebrates their efforts. This reflection page will reiterate to students that they will not see a percentage score for this activity. In addition, on this reflection page, they will see their final responses with 2 exemplar responses for each writing prompt. This is a great page to leverage for class discussion!

Following the reflection page, students can also complete an optional emoji survey on what they thought of the activity. The Quill Team reviews students' responses and revises activities accordingly, so please encourage your students to complete these surveys!

Please click here to see Teacher Center resources to support your implementation of Reading for Evidence.

Please feel free to message us through the green message bubble on the bottom right corner of the screen or email us at support@quill.org.