The Scriblit Approach

Social writing activities and targeted skill builders form an ongoing cycle that develops skilled writers.

Intro

Scriblit combines research based best practices in formative assessment and writing instruction to improve writing outcomes for 3rd-12th grade students. Our theory of change below explains how Scriblit actualizes this research. This theory guides the development of Scriblit and impact measurement in our efficacy portfolio.

See our full efficacy portfolio

Social Writing Activities

Scriblit enables a variety of social writing activities in which students construct original responses, compare examples of student writing, give and receive feedback from peers and AI, and reflect on their own understanding and growth. These activities combine best practices in formative assessment and writing instruction to enable high quality writing practice across the curriculum.

Formative assessment

Eliciting student understanding to adjust instruction is one of the most effective teaching strategies for improving student achievement (Black & Wiliam, 2009; Wiliam, 2011). Scriblit amplifies teachers’ ability to elicit student understanding by actualizing the five key strategies of formative assessment identified by Black and Wiliam (2009):

1. Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success

Teachers monitor student responses in Scriblit and lead discussions to create a shared understanding.

2. Engineering effective classroom discussions & other learning tasks that elicit evidence of student understanding

Discussion and debate of peer-constructed responses and feedback are central to all Scriblit activities, all of which are based on recall of content and construction of understanding through writing.

3. Providing feedback that moves learners forward

Students receive immediate, actionable peer and/or AI feedback grounded in the research of Dylan Wiliam (2011) in that it dedicates class time for students to think about and use feedback, offers specific suggestions for future action and improvement rather than only focusing on what was done wrong, and encourages discussion of what makes for strong understanding.

4. Activating students as instructional resources for one another

Students learn by both receiving and giving feedback to others in Scriblit. A wide array of research describes the positive impacts of peer feedback on student learning, especially when scaffolded through comparative judgment:

Students feel motivated to talk about evaluations of peer work because the experience of evaluation is enjoyable.¹⁰
Peer feedback can lead to students making more revisions on their work.⁵
Frequently participating in peer feedback activities improves performance on assessments.⁹

5. Activating students as the owners of their own learning

Self-rated confidence scores before and after Scriblit activities enable students to reflect on their own comprehension and calibrate their learning.

Comparative Judgement

Recent research suggests that comparative judgment (CJ), the process of choosing one submission over another within a series of pairs, is a “powerful tool for improving formative assessment pedagogical practices” (Bartholomew et al., 2019). In one study, 89% of middle school students reported implementing changes to their work based on the peer feedback provided as a result of CJ (Bartholomew et al., 2019). The analysis of worked examples helps students learn by seeing how classmates approached the same task, with teachers who use Scriblit reporting that this gives a clear “recipe for future action” for students.

Authentic Audience

Learners show an increased level of effort in the presence of others (Chib et al., 2018). Students are more motivated to write to the best of their ability when they know peers are going to see and discuss their writing and responses to class questions. The emphasis on viewing student-constructed work in a peer audience engages students while pushing them to put forth their best effort. One of the most commonly cited learning benefits from teachers who use Scriblit is increased motivation and engagement with writing as a result of an authentic peer audience. This actualizes WWC guidance on best practices in K–12 writing instruction by contributing to an engaged community of writers (Graham et al., 2012; Graham et al., 2016).

Writing across subjects and contexts

Writing about content improves learning across content areas and grade levels (Graham et al., 2020). In addition to improving content understanding, writing across the curriculum creates more opportunities for students to practice writing throughout the school day, consistent with leading guidance on effective K–12 writing instruction (Graham et al., 2012; Graham et al., 2016).

Research suggests that elementary students need a minimum of one hour per day devoted to writing (Graham et al., 2012). This is challenging given the time constraints educators face. Using writing to augment instruction across content areas is a meaningful way to increase writing practice while also deepening students’ understanding of content (Graham et al., 2012; Graham et al., 2020).

Scriblit does this in two ways. First, students write to demonstrate understanding of class content, such as explaining a science concept, analyzing a historical event, justifying a mathematical idea, responding to a text, or reflecting on their understanding. Second, as described in the section below, Scriblit’s Skill Builders help students practice the specific writing skills that emerge from these authentic writing tasks. AI enables this writing practice to be generated automatically, decreasing the time burden on teachers while enabling skill practice to be embedded within class content.

Together, these features create a cycle of writing across the curriculum: students write about class content and receive feedback, then practice targeted skills based on that writing, and then apply those skills in future writing. This cycle, represented by the helix shape of our Theory of Change above, deepens content understanding while building skilled writers.

Writing across the curriculum has always been important, but we believe it has become even more critical in a world in which AI is increasingly automating writing processes. As AI assumes a greater role in producing written work, students may have fewer opportunities to engage in the writing practice necessary to develop as writers. For this reason, we believe writing across the curriculum is an increasingly important intervention for responding to the challenges AI presents to literacy.

93%

of teachers in a ‘25-’26 case study reported that Scriblit improved their insights into student writing ability.

See case study

Scriblit theory of change: students construct, compare and give feedback, reflect, and develop stronger writing skills while teachers gain insights to guide instruction.

See our full efficacy portfolio

Targeted Skill Builders

Students need explicit, developmentally appropriate instruction and practice in sentence- and paragraph-level writing skills to improve their writing (Graham et al., 2012; Graham et al., 2016). Scriblit Skill Builders enable this instruction and practice. Skill Builders span grades 3–12. For elementary students transitioning from “learning to read” to “reading to learn,” Skill Builders emphasize the foundations of effective writing: writing frequently, engaging in the writing process, developing fluency with sentence construction and conventions, writing for varied purposes, and collaborating in a community of developing writers (Graham et al., 2012). For secondary students developing as writers, Skill Builders emphasize organization, sentence variety, word choice, voice, conventions, audience, purpose, and genre-specific writing moves (Graham et al., 2016).

Sentence construction, typing, and word processing

Foundational writing skills need to become increasingly fluent so students can devote more cognitive resources to communicating their understanding and ideas. Research on best practices in writing instruction suggests that instruction should therefore focus on helping students construct strong sentences that communicate their intended meaning and engage readers. Students should learn how sentence structure, syntax, mechanics, and word choice work together while developing the ability to use a variety of increasingly complex sentence structures. Importantly, sentences should be evaluated not only for grammatical correctness but also for meaning, clarity, style, and appropriateness for the intended audience. Effective instruction gives students opportunities to construct, expand, combine, compare, discuss, and revise sentences, embedding this practice as much as possible in students’ own compositions rather than isolated exercises (Graham et al., 2012).

Scriblit Skill Builders provide students with repeated opportunities to practice sentence construction in this way. Rather than just identifying errors or selecting a correct sentence from predetermined choices, students type and construct their own sentences using a targeted writing skill. Open-ended responses allow students to experiment with different ways of constructing sentences and receive feedback on clarity, meaning, style, and their use of the targeted skill. Students can also encounter and discuss classmates’ approaches to the same task, reinforcing that strong sentences can take multiple forms. In this way, Skill Builders connect targeted sentence-level practice with original composition, evaluation, feedback, and revision.

Spaced retrieval and next item correct mastery

There is a difference between learning and performance. Learning refers to relatively permanent changes in knowledge or skills that support long-term retention and transfer, whereas performance reflects what a student can demonstrate on a particular task at a particular point in time (Soderstrom & Bjork, 2015). Research on retrieval practice, spaced learning, and long-term retention suggests that students retain knowledge and skills more effectively when they successfully retrieve and apply them across multiple opportunities over time rather than in a single learning event (Karpicke et al., 2009; Soderstrom & Bjork, 2015). For this reason, Scriblit measures proficiency in specific writing skills based on performance patterns over time rather than isolated results. Students must demonstrate proficiency on multiple occasions before mastery is awarded. By requiring repeated success over time, Scriblit provides a more reliable indicator of skill mastery.

Relatedly, Scriblit Skill Builders base mastery evidence on students’ ability to apply what they have learned independently on a subsequent item. Recent research on “next item correct” measures distinguishes between successfully completing a task with support and transferring that learning to a new opportunity without support (Udeshi et al., 2026). In Skill Builders, students must independently apply skills in subsequent writing. Success on these later opportunities provides evidence of the ability to apply learning to a new task requiring the same underlying skill (Perkins & Salomon, 1992), providing stronger evidence of learning than performance on the original, supported task.

Supportive, social writing environments

For both elementary and secondary students, creating an environment in which students work together to write, revise, and discuss their work can improve writing quality (Graham et al., 2012; Graham et al., 2016). Students benefit from participating in a community of writers.

Scriblit is designed to help teachers create this type of writing community, first through the aforementioned authentic audience of peers in Social Writing Experiences, and second through the team-based environment of Skill Builders. With Skill Builders, students practice writing skills alongside classmates, compare examples, discuss effective use of targeted skills, and receive immediate feedback focused on specific areas for growth. This transforms skill practice from an isolated exercise into a collaborative learning experience. In line with the formative assessment research above, these experiences activate students as instructional resources for one another (Black & Wiliam, 2009; Wiliam, 2011). Students learn not only from feedback they receive, but also from discussing peer work and working toward shared goals in a team-based environment. Over time, this can help establish a supportive classroom culture in which writing becomes a shared social activity.

Students begin to write better, together.

91%

of teachers in a ‘25-’26 case study reported improvements in student writing ability as a result of using Scriblit regularly in their classroom.