Working from your comprehension or analysis high-level task, create an open-ended, text-based essay task that will invite students to use their quick write as the initial draft of their essay. Planning for the essay should invite students to reflect on their initial thinking about the big ideas in the text and the conversation they’ve had with their peers about those big ideas. Students should then revise or add to their quick write about the big ideas to capture their thinking.

Students should then be asked to expand their quick write into an essay. Success criteria for students' essay might be similar to the following:

• A statement in direct response to a high-level question

• Evidence to support student’s response

• An explanation of how the evidence supports student’s thinking (not just a restatement of the evidence)

Sample Quick Write to Essay Task Sheet

Quick Write to Essay Packet for Teachers

High-Level Writing Tasks

Student Centered Routines Document

Article, "Moving from Quick Write to Essay: Using Student-Centered Routines to Support Writing"

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Narrative writing is foundational to other writing genres. Inviting students to meaningfully engage in a narrative writing task not only helps them build their writing muscles, but gives students the opportunity to disrupt the narratives that get told about them and the communities our students are a part of. Some things to consider as you begin to plan your task:

• Begin planning your narrative writing task with the end in mind. What is the prompt that students will be responding to?

• Plan pre-writing activities that will help students generate ideas for their story and give them an opportunity for receiving peer feedback prior to writing.

• Plan how you will help students work from their pre-writing to generate a quick write

• Plan how you will help students move from their rounds of quick writes and feedback into making decisions about a draft

• Be comfortable with letting go of formulas and templates. Plan for allowing students to "freestyle" with their writing.

• Provide students with an opportunity to reflect on their process and where they are as writers.

Sample Quick Write to Narrative Task Sheet

Online Quick Write to Narrative Task

Student Centered Routines Document

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