Quick Writes & Daily Review, unpacked

Writing is like reading: students get better at it by doing a lot of it. But in many classrooms, writing happens in long blocks a few times a week, often as whole texts that take days to finish. In between, some students barely write at all.

Students don't need to write a whole text every day to grow as writers. Five focused minutes, every day, adds up quickly. Short, regular writing builds writing fluency (getting ideas down without stalling), stamina (keeping going for longer) and confidence, especially for reluctant writers who freeze in front of a blank page.

Because it's short and low pressure, a Quick Write is also the perfect place for students to try out new vocabulary and sentence skills in their own writing.

Ready-made. In the Quick Write mini units, every prompt comes with its three vocabulary words and sentence starter already chosen. They're linked to the week's theme, so there's nothing to prepare.

Co-constructed. In the Quick Write prompt collections, the spaces for the vocabulary words and sentence starter are left blank. Before writing, you fill them in together with your class: observe the image, choose three words, write a sentence starter together, then write.

Co-construction lets you revisit recent vocabulary, target the grammar or writing focus you're teaching right now, and adjust the support for your class. As students grow more confident, you can leave the spaces blank and let them build their own.

Whichever you use, finish by inviting a few students to share a sentence they're proud of. It takes a minute and shows the whole class what good writing sounds like.

A skill taught once, in one week, often fades by the end of the term. Students might use apostrophes correctly during the apostrophe lesson, then forget them a month later.

Spiralled review returns to skills regularly over time. Each time students retrieve and apply a skill, it becomes more secure. Mixing several skills in one short session also helps students learn to recognise which skill a task needs, just as they have to in their own writing.

Two things make it work in the classroom: keep it short, so it happens every day, and keep the format the same, so the thinking goes into the skills. Immediate feedback and a weekly chance to use the skills in their own writing help them transfer.