Apr 2024

April is Poetry Month. Dive into the world of poetry with our engaging assignments, including special Taylor Swift-themed prompts to inspire your students' poetry era.

Prepare your students for high-stakes testing with Writable's state assessment practice collections. We now offer practice materials tailored for over 25 states, including Texas (STAAR), California (CAASPP), Florida (FAST), Georgia (GMAS), and many more! Stay tuned as we continue to expand our collection to cover even more states.

Check out new AI tools to optimize your rubric items for improved grading and feedback. In the rubric item editor, you can use AI-suggested descriptors and proficiency levels to tailor the language for the optimized AI-generated feedback and scoring. Generate Spanish translations for your rubric to better support diverse language needs.

Whether you're a seasoned Writable user or just getting started, we have new best practices to help you make the most out of our platform. Try using AI to generate engaging assignments for your students or explore AI-generated feedback in a demo class. It's easier than ever to harness the power of technology to support your writing instruction.

As always, If you have any questions or need assistance, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team at support@writable.com.

Feb 2024

Today marks an exciting milestone for Writable as we proudly announce that Writable will join Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), the leading K12 learning technology company! 🥳 Our mission continues unchanged to work with you to grow great writers through supporting authentic feedback that drives deeper understanding and revision.

In addition to continuing to build and grow Writable, the team will form HMH Labs, a new incubator focused on the development and customer experience of emerging technologies, including generative AI.

If you have any questions about this transition please email us at hmh@writable.com.

Feb 2024

With 'Import Student Work' teachers can access AI-suggested feedback on any past or current piece of student work, including Word Docs and Google Classroom assignments, in just a few minutes. Simply import your file, choose a rubric, and see AI feedback that is aligned with your instruction.

Check out our detailed tutorials below:

Aug 2023

The Writable team has been working hard this summer to create features and content that will support our educators. We hope that this school year you’ll be able to save even more time, find inspiration, and reach more students in the moment with targeted feedback!

In this update:

Writable is excited to introduce new AI-powered tools that will support teachers in every aspect of their writing instruction.

Have a topic in mind but need help creating your perfect assignment? Try the new AI-Assisted Assignment wizard in the 'Create' menu to generate an assignment with questions and sections instantly, then personalize it with any final edits or instructions.

The AI-Assisted Assignment wizard lets you start with any topic alongside a set of question types, such as multiple choice, short response, or extended response, then watch as AI instantly creates the first draft of your entire assignment! This is perfect for teachers who find it easier to make final edits to an assignment that’s already in place.

Providing timely, targeted, and actionable feedback is the research-backed key to improving writing skills, but we know how hard it is to find the time to give as much feedback as you’d like. Writable’s AI Suggested Comments make it possible to get skill-aligned and editable comments on both the entire submission and each rubric item. Powerful feedback can now take only seconds to give!

Teachers can now view and request AI Suggested comments from the 'Guide and Grade' page or the grading stack – most importantly, it's easy to edit the suggested comments before they are sent. Simply send the comment(s) with the push of a button and support your students when it matters most: as they write!

For the first time, 100% of Writable prompts and assignments (including teacher-created assignments) can use GradeAssist without any setup needed! These AI-generated draft scores allow teachers to save time and boost their own learning about student work as they grade and guide.

Writable’s GradeAssist has been re-built using OpenAI to generate draft scores: each student writing submission receives a Draft Score from GradeAssist, at both the paper and rubric item level. As always, Writable believes in a teacher-guided approach when it comes to AI, allowing teachers to choose how and when to adjust scores and feedback before students receive it.

Continue to protect authentic learning moments in your classroom with the most comprehensive suite of tools available to ensure originality. In addition to having Originality Check, powered by Turnitin, we’ve now added Turnitin’s new AI Writing indicator to give you insight into how much of a student’s submission has originated from AI technologies like ChatGPT. And, this AI Writing Indicator is 98% accurate!

Writable’s new Authorship Alerts will also help teachers spot trends in drafting, revising, and editing patterns that may indicate the writing originated from an AI source.

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New alerts and dashboard views make it easier for teachers and students to notice and act on feedback. Along with AI Suggested Comments, these feedback improvements foster student engagement and learning in the moment.

New homepage feedback alerts let students know when they have comments and scores so they can go back and revise their writing.

Additionally, the revamped student dashboard also brings feedback to students' attention with easy-to-see comments at the assignment level. Students can click on a comment to go straight to their writing.

Stay on top of your students’ messages in each assignment with the new Inbox, accessible on every Assignment Dashboard. Use filters to manage your messages by choosing specific assignments, classes, learners, and/or unread chats. Monitor your feedback with side-by-side chat and To-Dos, and use saved comments and voice notes to speed up your conferencing.

The Manage Assignment features a new 'Recent Activity' area to help teachers see student progress and where to take action across their classes. Clicking an alert will take you to the chats or grading page so you can efficiently respond and provide feedback.

Also know at-a-glance when students have messaged you with new, unread message alerts on the ‘My Assignments’ list. These yellow alerts prevent messages from being missed, helping you reply quickly when students request feedback or support.
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Writable has always given students the ability to use text-to-speech to hear reading passages read aloud to them. Now teachers can disable or enable this support for an assignment or enable/disable it for individual learners to accommodate their needs.

Multilingual learners are now supported with: Spanish characters anytime they type, the ability to record a voice or video response on any assignment, and the ability to use a Spanish rubric when teachers assign one! AI suggested comments that teachers send to students also now appear in Spanish when students write in Spanish, allowing a more bilingual experience during both the writing and feedback processes.

One student support that is temporarily unavailable in Writable is RevisionAid. This student-facing support provided on-demand feedback on the structure and organization of a piece of writing and allowed students to decide when and how to revise their work. With the rise of OpenAI, and the ability to deliver more targeted, skill-aligned feedback, Team Writable is revamping RevisionAid to be even better, and it will be back soon! In the meantime, we encourage you to use our teacher-selected AI-suggested comments and scores to provide students with powerful support as they write.
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Writable now offers 100% of our 1,000+ rubrics and rubric items in English and Spanish, allowing any assignment to be edited or created with bilingual speakers in mind.

Writable Skills Mini-Lessons are available in both Spanish and English in grades 3-8. Grammar Mini-Lessons are available in both languages in grades 3-5. Time for Kids articles and several HMH programs are also available in Writable in both languages, including Arriba La Lectura and parts of HMH Social Studies. Follow our growing list of Spanish content & features.

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We’ve expanded and updated our state-specific reading and writing practice so that teachers can assign practice or create common assessments around common skills emphasized in each state. Each collection contains original reading passages and state-aligned rubrics, and many states include student peer review practice and teacher calibration assignments that can be used with Team Grade across a school or district.

Recently updated states include Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, and Georgia. Stay tuned soon for Virginia, South Carolina, New York, Tennessee, Missouri, California and Nevada! Want your state on the updated collection list? Email us at schools@writable.com.

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Because Writable is used across both practice and assessment assignments, scoring preferences and proficiency bands can vary! In response, Writable has made all our assignments align to a common set of proficiency values, allowing more scoring uniformity, whether you’re using a High Five Quick Write or an assessment.
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As always, score settings and values can be adjusted for each assignment by going to ‘Edit’ and choosing Points, Percentage, or Numeric scoring, then choosing how students and graders view the rubric expectations.

April 2023

The Originality Checker report now includes Turnitin's AI Writing Detection indicator. Teachers can use this indicator to get an overall percentage of student work that's been generated by AI, including ChatGPT.

April 2023

Writable offers many strategies and supports for multi-lingual learners including full rubric Spanish translations, and writing skills mini-lessons with English and Spanish options. Rubric translations include all rubric statements, performance levels and comment stems and can be added to any assignment.

January 2023

AI Prompt Suggestions allows teachers to input a few keywords or phrases, and return high 5 quick write, or assignment writing prompts for their chosen topic. AI Prompt Suggestions uses ChatGPT for results, and can even provide writing prompts for specific texts. For more information, click here.

January 2023

Assignment settings now allow you to choose between showing stars or score values for extended response rubric proficiency levels. Your chosen review interface will show during peer and self review, and while grading. Showing score values for rubric proficiencies allows greater transparency into how scores are calculated. For more information, click here.

July 2022

Writable’s new Journeys help teachers guide students in daily writing practice through skill-aligned assignments. In Writable Journeys you will have students start from the simplest quick write and work towards a cumulative writing task, seeing quick data insights along the way.

As always, Writable supports a responsive approach to writing practice. We make it easy for you to tailor your Journey with your own assignments, resources, readings, rubrics, and more.

Writable Journeys cover a wide range of writing genres and skills, including:

Check out the new Writable Journeys by visiting the Explore page and using the drop-down to choose a journey.

You’ll find all the resources you need to learn how to best support your students and grow great writers on Writable Academy. Be sure to check back regularly for new resources and events!