Quill.org: How to Simplify Differentiated Grammar Lessons

Quill.org: Easy Class Set Up

As a busy teacher, I’m all for any tool that makes my life easier. Since my district is all-in on Google, I just signed up for Quill with my Google account. It’s one less password for me to remember. 

When I created my class, I imported all my students directly from my Google Classroom. This has been especially helpful when I wanted to create accounts for my writing intervention kids too. You can also sync your student roster with Clever or use an email account. Plus, you can even add a co-teacher to your Quill class, which is nice if you share students or team teach.

From Data to Action: Launching Personalized Learning Paths

After you set up your Quill account and add students to your class, it’s time to have the kids take their first diagnostic test. 

While the assessment itself is fairly short – only about 25 questions long – the data you get back is quite informative and can help you plan out your grammar lessons for the rest of the year. Check out this class summary chart below.

According to this report, my 4th and 5th graders mostly did reasonably well on subject-verb agreement questions, but no one was proficient in possessive nouns or basic proper noun capitalization rules.

Armed with this info, I was able to plan out the next few targeted grammar lessons that my class actually needed, while avoiding wasting time on skills most of the class had already mastered. 

The best part of the diagnostic test is that with one click of a button, you can push out recommended  independent practice lessons for each student. These “personalized learning plans” help students practice only the skills they are lacking, not the skills they already show proficiency in. 

This set-it-and-forget-it kind of system makes Quill ideal for busy teachers who want to maximize every single minute of this class time. Lessons can be completed in class independently while you pull small groups, at home for homework, or on sub days. Not only that, but if you click on a specific student, you can see exactly how that student answered each question, which helps you understand the kinds of mistakes being made. 

The “Done-for-You” Guided Lesson: Scripted, Aligned, and Ready to Launch

My absolute favorite part of Quill.org has to be the guided teacher lessons, which are designed for whole class grammar instruction. As of right now, there are 43 Common-Core aligned lessons to choose from. 

Once you’ve selected a whole class lesson to teach and assigned it, you’ll launch the lesson. Your students will then be asked if they want to join the lesson from their own computer. 

Each lesson itself follows a pretty predictable pacing pattern and includes a script to read from, if need be. This is a really nice feature if you’re a new or substitute teacher, or just a teacher whose grammar knowledge might be a little shaky. 

As you can see from the image above, lessons typically start off with the lesson objective, which students read aloud. Then students are introduced to the targeted grammar skill. Kids will learn the when, the why, and the how to use this particular skill. The concept introduction is typically followed by a teacher modeled writing, then paired practice before moving on to individual practice and the wrap up. 

At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher talks about the skill, then elicits suggestions from students before modeling the skill in action for the students. Warning: The first time you do a whole class lesson, your students will trip out because you are in essence controlling their computers. When you have to type a response into the text box on your screen, it will appear on their screens. And yes, if you make a typing error, everyone will point it out or try to correct you. 

For both the peer collaboration and independent work part of the lesson, the student responses will appear on your teacher computer. This allows you to assess how your students are doing with the skill in real time. There’s even a button you can push to force a student to try their answer again! Personally, that’s my favorite part. 

Didn’t capitalize the first word of the sentence? Restart! 

Lower case i pronouns? Restart! 

Forgot the comma or end punctuation? Restart! 

At first, forcing the kids to restart their submissions felt a little bit mean or petty, but it did force my students to be more mindful and review their work before hitting enter. Many times, the kids will catch their own mistake as soon as they submit and request a restart. And if time permits, I always allow it because the focus is on growth and learning. 

Once all the submissions are in, you can select a few answers to share anonymously with the class. It’s a great time to correct any misconceptions and it always opens up a conversation by encouraging students to really understand the skill and internalize how to correct those errors. 

Once you’ve finished the entire short lesson, you’ll be given the opportunity to push out an independent follow up activity either right away or to be completed later.

Mastering Multiple Skills: Why Quill’s Approach to Practice Works

Aside from the – dare I say – fun teacher guided lessons, you can also curate your own activity packs, a set of one or more activities you select and push out to your students. 

I typically select multiple activities that are all centered around one grammar skill, such as writing compound sentences. As the teacher, you’ll have access to the full range of activities that Quill has to offer; you won’t be limited to just the activities that are in your grade level. 

I find it most effective to pull basic or review activities that start around 2 years below grade level and more challenging activities that are at and above my grade level. Since each lesson is fairly short, students get a taste of success before moving on to the more challenging lessons. 

One thing that makes Quill stand out from programs like No Red Ink is that for each question a student answers, multiple skills are being practiced at the same time. Capitalization, spelling, spacing, punctuation, and typing skills are all required to complete this question below, not to mention the actual targeted grammar skill itself.

If the student misses the mark with their response, they will then receive a quick tip and a skill review to help them review the skill at hand. This means that every single missed question is an opportunity for automatic reteaching or coaching. This instant feedback and reteaching of the skill is like having a bunch of extra aides in the classroom.

When I have a student who still can’t find their error, or who doesn’t understand, I go sit by their side and have them read the tips aloud to me. I’m able to clarify when necessary, but usually, once the student slows down and actually reads for understanding, they figure it out on their own.

Best of all, once a student has completed an activity, their score is color coded. Green means frequently demonstrated the skill. Yellow for sometimes demonstrated the skill. And red for rarely demonstrated. The dark blue with white apples means it was a teacher guided lesson. The light blue means the activity has been started but not finished.

One of my favorite aspects of Quill is that students can redo any lesson as many times as they need in order to get their score to green. As teacher, I can see that this student above completed one of the activities 2 times. While not every skill has been mastered yet, this kiddo is well on their way to being a grammar guru.

While I’m only using the free version of Quill.org at the moment, I still have a good amount of data that I can utilize for my report cards and writing conferences. And the engagement that I see from my students, during the teacher led lessons and the independent practice, is far higher than I would see on a worksheet or DOL.

Final Thoughts

We all know that every minute in the classroom is precious. And, with everything else demanding our attention (like phonics and math), grammar tends to be neglected. Or worse, relegated to boring worksheets that kids rush through or straight up avoid.

Quill.org has changed that for me. It provides the high-quality, “set-it-and-forget-it” system that allows me to focus on what matters most: sitting side-by-side with my writers.

By using Quill.org, I’ve seen my 4th and 5th graders move from guessing to being truly mindful of their sentence construction. It’s no longer about a grade at the top of a page. It’s about that “Aha!” moment when a student catches their own error and requests a restart during a teacher led lesson.

If you’re looking for a way to maximize your instructional minutes and give your students the personalized feedback they deserve, give the diagnostic and one of those fun teacher guided lessons a try. Your future self (and your grading pile) will thank you!