The Writer’s Stylus Unit Design Tool

Thank you for your interest in the Writer’s Stylus Unit Design Tool developed by Clerestory Learning. This online tool helps writing teachers design instruction that optimizes student learning and writing achievement.

What if, when designing a new writing unit, you did not have to create a new rubric from scratch? What if you could combine and customize pre-designed rubrics for a wide variety of skills and genres at every grade level? What if you had three different Architecture of Learning blueprints* ready for easy and immediate customization? And what if you knew you could save, print, email, and share your customized blueprints and rubrics? Imagine the time you could save when preparing a new unit and the convenience of finding everything in one place, 24/7. We’ve created the online Writer’s Stylus Unit Design Tool so writing teachers can spend more time growing good writers and less time developing or searching for new materials.

To access the Unit Design Tool, go to writersstylus.com, click on Unit Design Tool, and register — it’s free to anyone who has attended the Writer’s Stylus Basic Course. Every registered user can create, save, and edit up to three Writer’s Stylus blueprints and rubrics.

*If you are not familiar with Architecture of Learning Blueprints, we invite you to review details of the Blueprints as introduced in Architecture of Learning, another Clerestory Learning Professional Development program.

Writer’s Stylus Rubrics
Possibly the most appreciated feature of the Unit Design Tool is its extensive list of grade-specific rubrics for skills and genres taught during Writer’s Stylus units. The number of items that can be selected to create a customized rubric is practically unlimited, and additional rows for full customization can be easily added. Rubric lists are viewable by grade or by skill/genre.

Additionally, a rich text editor enables you to format text in every cell with bulleted and numbered lists, indentation, hyperlinks, images, and text styling such as bold, italics, and underlining.

An all-new auto-save feature works behind the scenes to save your work every five seconds. You can work confidently, knowing your blueprints and rubrics will be saved and available for retrieval at any time.