When you use advanced activity setup in Scribo, you have full control over the writing experience you provide for your students, including:
Whether the writing activity is graded, and how it's graded - your rubrics, our rubrics, or our Scribo Score
How much your students should write and the writing style they should use
The level & type of instant AI writing feedback your students receive, if any
Whether they should use a writing plan
Whether their writing is supported by a scaffold
Whether they can see a model text when they hand in their work
... and more.
Being able to switch options on and off allows you to build a writing task which is tailored to your students' specific needs, learning objectives, and skill levels, providing flexibility to create a customized and focused writing experience.
We will take a deeper dive into the options below, but let's start with a quick video to show you where you can find and explore the advanced activity setup.
Creating a New Task in Scribo: Advanced Setup
From your Scribo dashboard, click the + Activity button on the right-hand side. A menu will appear. Choose Create and assign from scratch.
This will open the advanced setup view where you can customize the task using the following tabs:
1. Topic Tab
Define the key details and instructions for the activity. The Topic tab contains all of the mandatory fields we need to create a Scribo writing task which offers student feedback alongside the Scribo Score. If you don't wish to make any changes, you can simply fill in this section and assign the task.
What name would you like to give the activity?: Enter a clear and descriptive name for the task. This is the title students will see in their "To Do" list.
Enter the topic and any instructions here, or generate using AI: Type out the instructions for the activity, or click the AI generation button (purple icon) to generate instructions. You can include videos, images, links, etc.
Which keywords should your students use?: Optional. Use this field to input any keywords you expect students to use in their writing. Scribo will check for the presence of these keywords in the students’ text. This is great for texts where students need to hit certain key points in order to have covered the topic.
How many words & paragraphs should your students write?: Specify the minimum target word count and number of paragraphs for the task.
What writing style should students use?: Select the writing style (e.g., Narrative, Persuasive, Report etc) from the dropdown menu.
Enter the subject and the year: These will default from the class you are assigning the activity to. If the class does not have a clear subject & grade level, change it here.
2. Student Experience Tab
Define the type of experience and feedback students will receive:
Please choose a student experience option: Select how students will interact with the task:
Cold Write: In a cold write, the student receives no writing check feedback at all. It's a great way to check their unassisted writing skills.
Writing check: Choose this to give students access to the writing check. If you are using advanced setup mode, you can also choose which categories students should receive feedback for.
Scriblet: Scriblet opens an avatar based feedback experience for younger writers
Challenge: Challenge mode will point out that there is a grammar or spelling error in the student's text, but the feedback won't tell them what the error is, or give any suggestions about how to fix it.
Feedback Categories: You will see this if you choose any option other than a Cold Write. Click to switch categories off and on, leaving only those you want Scribo to focus on, such as Grammar & Spelling, Vocabulary, Topic Coverage, Cohesion, Sentences, and Writing Clarity. If the category button is blue, it is switched on.
Stop students from pasting text: Toggle this on to prevent students from pasting text into their responses.
Allow students to use speech-to-text: When this option is enabled, students can dictate their responses using Chrome’s built-in speech-to-text functionality. This feature offers significant benefits, especially for certain groups of students:
Dyslexic Writers: Dyslexic students often struggle with the mechanical process of writing, particularly spelling and organizing letters into words. Speech-to-text allows them to focus on content rather than grappling with spelling challenges, ensuring that their ideas are expressed more fluently and without interruption. This feature reduces frustration and boosts their confidence in completing writing tasks.
Students with Low Writing Abilities: For students who have difficulty writing due to cognitive or motor skill challenges, speech-to-text can serve as an essential tool. It allows these students to participate more fully in writing tasks by removing the barriers of typing or handwriting, giving them a more accessible way to express their thoughts.
Improved Fluency and Idea Generation: Speech-to-text can help all students, including those with anxiety or writer's block, to generate ideas more freely. Since speaking is often more fluid than typing or writing, students can get their thoughts out faster, which they can later refine or edit as needed.
Time-Saving and Efficiency: For students who are slow typists or struggle with motor skills, this feature can significantly reduce the time required to complete tasks, ensuring they stay engaged without becoming frustrated by the mechanics of writing.
Model answer (optional): Provide a model answer or use AI to generate one as an example for students. Students will only see the model text once they submit their work to you.
3. Planning Tab
Attach organizational tools for students’ pre-writing & writing process:
Add a Writing Plan for this activity: Select Add writing plan to choose from pre-defined writing plans. Writing plans in Scribo provide structured frameworks for students to plan their writing, tailored to specific genres (e.g., essays, narratives) and structures like PEEL, PEAL, and TEEL. Attach a relevant writing plan to the activity to help students organize their ideas before drafting, ensuring their work meets task requirements.
Add a Writing Scaffold for this activity: Select a scaffold from the dropdown menu, or generate one using AI by clicking the purple button. Effective scaffolds break down the writing task into manageable steps. The scaffold appears alongside the student's editor in Scribo, helping them stay focused while they write. Students can check off each step as they complete it, reducing writing anxiety and making the process less overwhelming. Scaffolding is especially beneficial for English language learners (ELLs) and students with learning disabilities, providing a structured approach to complex tasks.
4. Researching Tab
In the Researching tab, you can set up options to help students gather and cite relevant resources for their writing tasks. Here’s how to set up this section, if required:
Enable Haelo GPT: Slide to choose a Haelo AI you have set up.
You will only see this option if your school is running the Haelo AI module. Haelo allows you to set up a trusted AI which students can use to research as they write. A trained Haelo AI will only answer questions which references information you have provided. That way, students are in a safe, focused environment while using AI.
We make all of the questions asked by students available to you, mapped against Blooms taxonomy. This way, you can keep track of the types and complexities of questions being asked by students. This AI-driven assistance can provide useful information or guidance as students work on their writing.Choose an AI Collection: Select an AI collection collection you have created or create a new one by clicking the plus sign (+). This collection will serve as the topic for the AI to pull information from, guiding students as they complete their work.
Citations (References): If you would like your students to formally use citations in their text, choose a citation format from the dropdown. This ensures students format their references correctly based on the chosen academic standard.
Number of Citations Required: Enter the number of citations or references students must include in their work. Scribo will warn students if they do not meet this target, and will deduct points from their Scribo score. This ensures students engage in proper research and attribution of sources.
5. Grading & Feedback Tab
To assign the activity with no scoring, switch off the Scribo Score and do not select a rubric.
The Grading & Feedback tab allows you to configure how the activity will be assessed and how feedback will be provided to students. Here's how to set it up:
Grade Automatically and Assign a Scribo Score: This is the default for new activities. You can find more information about the Scribo Score here.
Do you want to grade this activity using a rubric?: If you prefer to grade using your own rubric, select Yes and choose the appropriate rubric from the dropdown menu. Rubrics allow for more detailed, criterion-based evaluation of student work. You can find out more about rubrics here.
Allow students to self-evaluate using the rubric: Toggle this option on to allow students to assess their own work using the same rubric. This encourages reflection and self-assessment skills. You will be able to see how they have scored themselves, and they will be able to see how you score them.
Students can AI-grade their own work against the rubric: Toggle this option if you want to allow students to trigger AI-based grading against the rubric. This provides instant grades and feedback to them, on demand.
Provide feedback based on Writing Goals: Turn this on to provide students with feedback based on pre-defined writing goals. This type of feedback focuses on specific aspects of the writing process and can help target improvement areas.
You can find more information about writing goals here.
Allow students to generate Writing Goals feedback: Writing goals are generated by teachers by default, so thay you can view and edit the feedback if required. However, you can allow students to generate their own goals. If enabled, students can request feedback on their writing goals as they work, helping them understand where they need improvement.
Writing Goal Category: Select a feedback category from the dropdown to see the writing goals available for that category. For example, in Overall Feedback you will find:
Glow 'n Grow: Highlights strengths and provides constructive feedback on ideas, organization, and language use.
3 Ways to Improve: Suggests three areas of improvement for the text.
Best Paragraph: Identifies the best paragraph in the writing and explains why it stands out.
Scaffold Comparison Feedback: Evaluates the essay against the scaffold provided and delivers constructive feedback based on that comparison.
You can select up to five goals to guide feedback on student submissions.
6. Standards Tab
Instead of using a rubric or the Scribo score, you may specifically wish to use standards via the Standards tab. Scribo’s AI will evaluate student work against the selected standards, providing indication of whether the student is meeting the standard based on their writing. You will always have the option to review and override the AI's grade as needed.
Check against Standards: Switch this on to link the activity to standards.
Select Standards:
Use the dropdown menus to select the relevant State, Subject, Grade, and Year. This will filter the standards to match your activity requirements.
Choose the appropriate standards from the list by ticking the boxes next to each one.
Assign Tab
The Assign tab is where you make the activity available to the students in your class and set deadlines. The class that the activity is being assigned to will appear at the top of the screen.
Start Date (Optional): You can optionally use the calendar icon to set a Start Date for the activity. Students won't be able to open the activity until the allocated date & time.
Due Date: Set a due date for when the task must be completed. Click the calendar icon to select the date. The due date helps students manage their time and ensures timely submission of the activity. Note: By default, nothing happens on the due date - students can still submit their work after this date.
Enforce Due Date: Toggle this option on to ensure that students cannot submit their work after the due date. If left off, students can still submit their writing after the due date has passed.
What would you like to do with this activity?
Assign: This option immediately assigns the activity to the selected class. Once clicked, the task will be available for students to view and complete based on the settings you've applied.
Save as draft: Choose this option to save your activity in your activity library, in draft mode. The task will not be assigned to students yet, allowing you to revisit and make further adjustments before finalizing.
Save to my Library: Use this option to save the activity to your personal library. This allows you to reuse or modify the task later without immediately assigning it to students. It’s a good way to build a collection of tasks you can deploy at any time.
Save to School Library: This option saves the activity to the shared School Library, making it accessible to other teachers in your school. This is useful for creating standardized activities that other teachers can use or adapt for their classes.
These options give you flexibility in how and when you want to share the activity with students or colleagues.