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What is Quill?
Quill.org is an online resource created by a non-profit as part of the OER movement. Quill provides diagnostics and both independent and teacher-led exercises on many writing topics, and they have recently added a new type of activity called "Reading for Evidence" for building comprehension skills. Our multilingual students at all levels can benefit from the practice provided by these activities. I will share how I use the free version of Quill with my community college students and how attendees can get started with this innovative resource.

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Getting Started for Teachers | Quill.org Teacher Resources - Questions & Answers

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New to Quill? This collection includes everything from signing up to assigning activities to your students.

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Join me on Zoom during lunch to learn more!

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Join me on Zoom during lunch to learn more!

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About me:
Linda Gannon is a Professor of English at the College of Southern Nevada and a part-time resident of Oregon. She has worked with students from preschool to graduate school for over 25 years in Ohio, South Carolina, California, Oregon, and Nevada. She served on the CATESOL board for several years and is now a member of the NVTESOL Board of Directors.
linda.gannon@csn.edu

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Quill currently has 16 different assessments you can assign to determine which writing skills your students have mastered and where they need additional practice. These assessments will generate follow-up recommended practice activities based on your students' needs.
Table of Contents:

1. Diagnostic Information

2. Skills Assessed on Each Diagnostic

3. Diagnostic Reports

Diagnostic Information

We offer a general and an ELL sequence of baseline and growth diagnostics.

Additionally, we offer baseline writing skills surveys for SpringBoard®, Pre-AP®, and AP ® classes. These writing skills surveys were developed in partnership with CollegeBoard® to identify what skills students are doing well in, where they need additional practice, and to provide follow-up recommended practice activities based on the results of the writing skills survey.

Skills Assessed on Each Diagnostic

Our diagnostics and writing skills surveys assess student knowledge across various skill groups. You can view the skills assessed on the card before you assign the diagnostic.

In the sections below, you will find information about each diagnostic/survey, including who the assessment is designed for, what skills they cover, and how many questions are on it.
Jump to section:

1. Starter Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

2. Intermediate Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

3. Advanced Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

4. ELL Starter Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

5. ELL Intermediate Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

6. ELL Advanced Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

7. SpringBoard® Writing Skills Survey

8. Pre-AP 1® Writing Skills Survey

9. Pre-AP 2® Writing Skills Survey

10. AP® Writing Skills Survey

The Starter Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

Who was it designed for?

Middle or high school students who need a refresher in the basics.

Middle or high school students who are new to Quill or new to sentence combining.

Elementary school students who are learning the basics for the first time.

What skills does it cover?

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

The Intermediate Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

Who was it designed for?

Upper elementary, middle, or high school students who have completed the Starter Diagnostic and the recommended follow-up practice.

Middle or high school students who have mastered the basics (like adverbs, prepositions, and capitalization) and are ready to work on constructing sentences to express relationships.

What skills does it cover?

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

The Advanced Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

Who was it designed for?

Students who have completed the Intermediate Diagnostic and the recommended follow-up practice.

Students who are familiar with sentence combining.

Students who have mastered basic sentence construction like writing compound and complex sentences.

What skills does it cover?

Compound-complex sentences

Relative clauses

Appositive phrases

Participial phrases

Advanced parallel structure

Advanced sentence combining

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

The ELL Starter Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

Who was it designed for?

Quill's ELL Starter Diagnostic is designed specifically for new English Language Learners seeking to build foundational grammar skills.

Directions are available in Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Tagalog (Filipino), Vietnamese, Russian, Thai, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Dari (Eastern Farsi), Arabic, and Hindi to provide extra support; however, the assessment is appropriate for native speakers of any language.

What skills does it cover?

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

The ELL Intermediate Baseline and Growth Diagnostics

Who was it designed for?

English Language Learner students who are comfortable with all of the skills in the ELL Starter Diagnostic.

Directions are available in Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Tagalog (Filipino), Vietnamese, Russian, Thai, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Dari (Eastern Farsi), Arabic, and Hindi to provide extra support; however, the assessment is appropriate for native speakers of any language.

What skills does it cover?

This diagnostic is more difficult than the ELL Starter Diagnostic and covers the skills that tend to be particularly challenging for language learners:

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

The ELL Advanced Baseline and Growth Diagnostic

Who was it designed for?

English Language Learner students who have are comfortable with all of the skills in the ELL Starter Diagnostic and ELL Intermediate Diagnostic.

Directions are available in Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Tagalog (Filipino), Vietnamese, Russian, Thai, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Dari (Eastern Farsi), Arabic, and Hindi to provide extra support; however, the assessment is appropriate for native speakers of any language.

What skills does it cover?

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

After students complete the ELL Advanced Diagnostic and recommended practice activities, they will be ready to move on to the Quill Starter Diagnostic (with vocabulary help as necessary).

SpringBoard® Writing Skills Survey

Who was it designed for?

Students in SpringBoard ELA grades 6-8.

Keep in mind that you may want ELL students in Pre-AP, AP, or SpringBoard courses to begin with an ELL Diagnostic.

What skills does it cover?

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

Which Quill diagnostic is this survey similar to?

Pre-AP® Writing Skills Survey 1

Who was it designed for?

Students in Pre-AP English 1, Pre-AP English 2, and SpringBoard ELA grades 9 and 10.

Keep in mind that you may want ELL students in Pre-AP, AP, or SpringBoard courses to begin with an ELL Diagnostic.

Please note: We recommend you first assign Pre-AP® Writing Skills Survey 1 to your 9th or 10th graders. Survey 1 is the recommendation for BOTH 9th and 10th graders to ensure that no skill is glossed over.

What skills does it cover?

Subject-verb agreement

Pronoun-antecedent agreement

Compound subjects, objects, and predicates

Compound sentences

Complex sentences

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

Which Quill diagnostic is this survey similar to?

Pre-AP® Writing Skills Survey 2

Who was it designed for?

What skills does it cover?

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

Which Quill diagnostic is this survey similar to?

AP® Writing Skills Survey

What skills does it cover?

Who was it designed for?

Students in AP (any subject) and SpringBoard ELA grades 11-12.

You may also want to consider assigning this survey to students who have completed Pre-AP Writing Skills Survey 1 and 2 and all its recommended follow-up practice.

Keep in mind that you may want ELL students in Pre-AP, AP, or SpringBoard courses to begin with an ELL Diagnostic.

How many questions are there and how long will it take students to complete?

Which Quill diagnostic is this survey similar to?
AP®, Pre-AP®, and SpringBoard® are registered trademarks of College Board.
Diagnostic Reports

After students complete a diagnostic or survey, you will be able to see the following information on the diagnostic report:

Class-wide results in each skill group

Individual student results in each skill group

Follow-up practice recommendations

Student responses to each question

Class-wide percent correct on each question

The recommendations report will suggest a series of activity packs to assign each student based on their individual performance on the assessment. Each recommended pack contains about 4 to 7 activities (this varies), which are designed to take 10-15 minutes to complete.

Each recommended pack provides scaffolded, sequenced practice on one of the skills addressed in the diagnostic/survey. You can assign all of the packs in one click, or you can pick and choose, revisiting the recommendations report to assign more packs as needed. Check out our article on how to assign recommended packs.

Have more questions?

Please feel free to live chat with us through the green message bubble on the bottom right corner of the screen or email us at hello@quill.org.

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What assessments (Diagnostics and Skills Surveys) are available on Quill and who are they for?

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Quill currently has 16 different assessments you can assign to determine which writing skills your students have mastered and where they need additional practice. These assessments will generate follow-up recommended practice activities based on your students' needs. Table of Contents: Diagnostic Information Skills Assessed on Each Diagnostic Diagnostic Reports We offer a general and an ELL sequence of baseline and growth diagnostics.

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Explore featured activity packs that are created by our teachers

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PROS:
-free version available
-lots of teaching tips from the user community
-frequent training webinars offered
-integrates well with Google classroom and other tech
-can be individualized for students

CHALLENGES:
-longer wait-times for support during peak usage periods (ex: first week of school)
-oriented to K-12, so does not feel "collegiate" for students
-updates are sometimes made without notification (ex: name changes of exercises)

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Browser extensions to help our students:

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Browser extensions to help our students:

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Chrome extensions can be installed on the student's Chrome browser to provide them with additional support. To learn how to install Chrome extensions, check out this guide. Here is a list of extensions that integrate with Quill:

Low Vision and Color Blindness

ReadAloud extension demo:
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Students click the ReadAloud icon on Chrome to listen to the entire page or select a portion of text and click the ReadAloud icon to hear it.

ImTranslator extension demo:
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Students double-click any word on the page and choose a language to read or hear the translation (over 100 languages available).

InstantDictionary extension demo:
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Students double-click any word on the page to read the definition and synonyms, hear the word, and more.

OpenDyslexic extension demo:
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This extension changes the font to the OpenDyslexic font and formats Quill pages to be more easily readable.

Have more questions?

Please feel free to send a message to the Quill team using the green message bubble on the bottom right corner of the screen or email us at support@quill.org.

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Free Extensions for Students with Accommodations (IEP, ELL) | Quill.org Teacher Resources - Questions & Answers

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Quill fully integrates with many browser extensions such as ReadAloud and Open Dyslexic to help you provide accommodations.