Alexander Pascual - IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #1

 Alexander Pascual

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #1

Quill (https://www.quill.org/) is a free, open-source literacy tool designed to help engage students with writing and grammar instruction online. This website is pre-loaded with numerous writing and grammar lessons or activities aligned to the Common Core State Standards, each ranging from grades 1-12. Examples of topics that Quill covers include foundational skills such as determining the different parts of speech, capitalization, and punctuation. Moreover, Quill also offers more complex writing activities such as parallel structure, thesis statements, and proofreading. With a vast library of lessons such as this, Quill makes it easy to peruse through with the function to filter topics depending on concepts, readability level, and standards according to the CCSS.

An added benefit to Quill is that the activities and lessons provided on its site can easily be administered as an assignment in Google Classroom when used as an LMS. Teachers can simply import a class roster from their Classroom, pick and choose one or several relevant writing activities from the vast library of lessons, set a time and due date, and click “assign.” Students will then receive a link to the assigned tasks and report as “complete” when they have successfully acquired the skill.

Most notably, the pivotal feature that Quill provides as a literacy service is its ability to formulate student diagnostics with its Analysis Report functions. This is especially useful for schools or classrooms that have adopted the Standards-Based Grading framework for student assessment. Depending on the performance of the student on any given writing activity, Quill will either determine if a student is “proficient,” “nearly proficient,” or “not yet proficient.” If a student performs at the latter two levels, they are presented with the option to try the writing task again until they achieve proficiency.

Additionally, Quill is also partnered with CollegeBoard, a nonprofit organization driven to help students gain access to higher education. Through this partnership, Quill provides its users access to writing activities that aid in the acquisition of Pre-AP or AP skills found on the tests of each respective level.