How Short, Low-Stakes Writing Challenges Build More Confident Writers
Using a tech tool that gamifies writing helps students grow together, celebrate each other’s work, and hone their emerging skills.
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Go to My Saved Content.What does writing actually feel like for students in your classroom? It’s a simple question that completely changed how middle school teacher Erin Comninaki approaches writing instruction. After years of teaching, Comninaki realized that despite her best efforts, the writing process could still feel quite formal for students: “Even when I framed it as practice, students focused on getting it right, rather than viewing every writing activity as a chance to grow.” Using a tech tool called WeWillWrite, she says, can help lower the stakes—making writing feel more manageable, less intimidating, and surprisingly engaging.
Low-stakes writing is nothing new inside of an ELA classroom. But WeWillWrite allows teachers to create short gamified writing challenges, where students compete anonymously in small teams to craft the best writing sample. Students write individually in quick, focused bursts of 2-5 minutes—voting on strong examples from their peers in each round, earning points, and receiving immediate feedback on what makes their writing effective. Winning writing samples are highlighted and celebrated in a whole-group teacher-guided discussion after each round, providing models for other students to learn from. The anonymity allows students to build their confidence over time, and the collaborative peer review (a la Think-Pair-Share) encourages students to improve their writing and feedback together.
The platform offers a library of prompts to choose from that invite persuasive, reflective, and creative writing. For example, students might be challenged to use descriptive language and vivid imagery to depict something in detail. Or transported onto the deserted island in Lord of the Flies, with the task of writing a speech that convinces their peers that they alone should be trusted as the new leader. Teachers can also make their own prompts, which Comninaki does to incorporate standards and elements of her scripted curriculum.
This tech tool doesn’t replace paper-based writing in Comninaki’s classroom. Rather, it’s an additional resource she can use to build confidence in her reluctant writers over time, while reminding students to embrace writing as a skill to practice and build—rather than a performance to nail for a final grade.