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Goal

Equip you with 1 writing activity you can use tomorrow to begin improving writing skills in your classroom.

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Session Structure (60 min)

1. Why (5 min)

2. What (5 min)

3. How (30-40 min)

4. Q/A (5-10 min)

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Session Structure

Part 1: Why?

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Writing in 2025

75% of 8th & 12 grade students are unable to write proficiently (NAEP)

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Writing in 2025

  • AI is decreasing writing practice

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Writing in 2025

  • It’s hard to monitor AI’s influence on writing
    • AI is increasingly writing for students (source)
    • AI detection software doesn’t work (source)

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Writing in 2025

  • Motivation
    • Why is a student going to want to learn how to write in a world where AI can write for them?

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Where do we go from here?

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Session Structure

Part 2: What

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Gamified writing activities for

any subject.

🤝

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Short Answer

  • High quality, short-form writing practice for any subject
  • Combines daily formative assessment of content with writing instruction
  • Developed at Stanford and grounded in research shown to 2X learning outcomes

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Built for the age of AI

  • Embeds writing across the curriculum
  • Brings more writing in class
  • Makes writing fun!!!

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EduProtocols

Replacing the hamburger paragraph

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EduProtocols

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EduProtocols

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EduProtocols

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EduProtocols

  • 5 Emoji, one at a time
  • Pursue an idea
  • 5-6 minutes per rep
  • Look for the 3 most common errors
  • Fold in as many standards as possible
  • Final Round = NACHO Paragraph

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Session Structure

Part 3: How

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Short Answer Demo!

Click here

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Session Structure

Part 4: Q/A

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Resources to get started

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4 Tips

Differentiation: Pair-ups, sentence stems, outlines, translation, and extra time (give questions the day before) are useful.

Use open-ended questions: Justify opinions, explain material, articulate thought processes, demonstrate structure, etc.

Growth framing: Competition is fun, but learning is not a competition.

SEL (e.g.): There’s tremendous power & responsibility here. See turnkey lessons here.

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Ways to use Short Answer

  • Other use cases:
    • Use it to “chunk” larger writing assignments
    • Have kids write responses in pairs
    • Reflect on confidence pre/post
    • Revise answers based on feedback
    • “Agree with feedback?” SEL emoji reflection
    • Class co-creation of success criteria

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Keep this conversation going:

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Follow up with the Short Answer Team

@mrsparkstweets

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@myshortanswer

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Let’s talk!

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adam@myshortanswer.com

TeacherTok

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Slides!

Substack

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Goal check

1. Have 1 thing you can use tomorrow to develop writers in your classroom??

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APPENDIX SLIDES

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Short Answer Webinars

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Short Answer in SS

“Write a journal entry as if you are Meriwether Lewis or William Clark. What did you experience today? What are your goals? What are you worried about moving forward?

Feedback criteria: shows historical accuracy, creative response

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Short Answer in ELA

Based on the reading, make an evidence based claim about the motivations of the protagonist. Provide textual evidence to support your claim.

Feedback criteria: clear claim, strong textual evidence, follows perfect paragraph structure

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Short Answer in Science

Why is the stability of an ecosystem impacted if a key species is removed?

Feedback criteria: Strong explanation of structure/function relationships

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Short Answer in Math

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Feedback criteria: accurately and clearly explains error, great explanation of thinking process

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ACJ in 2019

  • Bartholomew | BYU
    • 87% of students said it helped their learning
    • 89% of students made changes to their work based on feedback (!!!!!!)
    • “We see ACJ as a potentially-powerful tool for improving formative assessment pedagogical practices”
  • But…why? (more in appendix!)

Bartholomew, Scott & Strimel, Greg & Garcia Bravo, Esteban & Zhang, Liwei & Yoshikawa, Emily. (2018). Formative Feedback For Improved Student Performance Through Adaptive Comparative Judgment. 10.18260/1-2--30531.

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ACJ - The Why

1. Students are receiving feedback in the moment of learning, directly after meta-cognitive processing. This is (arguably) the best time to receive feedback.

2. Feedback is coming from peers. Teenagers have a heightened interest in peer evaluation.

3. By analyzing several exemplars, students develop clear recipe for future action.

4. The feedback is of the same quality as an expert teacher!

Bartholomew, Scott & Strimel, Greg & Garcia Bravo, Esteban & Zhang, Liwei & Yoshikawa, Emily. (2018). Formative Feedback For Improved Student Performance Through Adaptive Comparative Judgment. 10.18260/1-2--30531.

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“The human mind is not very good at absolute judgment”

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“The human mind is much better at comparative judgment.”

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Our rubric scepticism