Four printable writing activities. Students write about themselves, you learn how they write, and nobody hand grades a stack of paper.
No prep, no devices, no accounts. Students write by hand.
Interests first, standards second. The room gets talking.
Upload the class set. CoGrader scores it against a rubric.
Four activities, one per genre
Build Your Algorithm 
Start a Channel, Feed, or Mini-Series 
Best Day Ever? 
Principal for a Day 
Start with the warm-up on day one, then one genre a week. Free PDFs, no email.
Warm-up, interests and voice · 20 to 30 minutes
“If a list of YouTube videos was designed specifically for you, what would it recommend?”
Six recommendation cards, then one paragraph introducing the page.
What it tells you Who they are, and whether they can develop an idea past one sentence.
Get this activityPersonal explanatory writing · 35 to 50 minutes
“Choose something you know, enjoy, collect, play, make, follow, or do, and build a channel around it.”
They name a channel and audience, plan three episodes, script the featured one.
What it tells you Whether they can explain something they know to someone who does not.
Get this activityNarrative writing · 40 to 55 minutes
“Plan a day that begins exactly as you want it to, until an unexpected turn changes the goal, the setting, or the people involved.”
They pick a plan, a companion, an object, and a twist from a menu, then write it.
What it tells you Sequencing, pacing, and detail. The menu means nobody stalls on a blank page.
Get this activityArgument writing · 35 to 55 minutes
“The principal is out sick and the school has asked you to take over for one day. What is one change you would make?”
A claim, two reasons with examples, an objection answered, and an ask.
What it tells you Whether they can tie a reason back to a claim and handle a counterargument.
Get this activityEach activity is scored against the Common Core writing standard for its genre: W.2 for informative and explanatory writing, W.3 for narrative, and W.1 for argument, with L.1 and L.2 conventions throughout.
Teaching more than one grade band? We collected first-week activities for every grade.
Students write on paper. You upload the class set. CoGrader reads the handwriting and drafts the first pass against a grades 6 to 8 rubric.
Students write on paper. Nothing to set up, no devices, no accounts, no logins to reset in the first week.
Open the Back to School banner in CoGrader, pick your grade and the week you ran, then upload the class set. CoGrader reads the handwriting and splits the stack one response per student.
You get a first-pass score against the grades 6 to 8 rubric and Glow and Grow feedback for every student. You review, adjust anything you disagree with, and decide what students see.
Your school will benchmark reading and math in the first few weeks. Writing tends to get left out, because scoring a class set by hand takes longer than the read stays useful. You can browse the standards-aligned writing rubrics we ship, or see how CoGrader grades middle-school writing across the year.
Scored against a real rubric
Grade-band criteria, not a general impression of the writing.
You approve every grade
CoGrader drafts the first pass. Nothing reaches a student until you say so.
Built for student data
FERPA and COPPA compliant, SOC 2 Type II, and used across 50 states.
I use CoGrader any time we are writing paper. I love how I can customize rubrics to match our school initiatives, or use prebuilt ones when I do not have one. I love that I can easily give feedback to my students and have them update their papers before final submission.
After three pieces, scored on the same five categories, you get a class-level read instead of a stack of scores.
Your Writers Wrapped, for one seventh-grade section
That is the difference between knowing Maya got a 3 and knowing your whole second period can hold a voice but cannot yet back a claim. One of those changes what you teach on Monday.
First-day writing, answered.
The ones that get students talking and still leave you with something to read. Build Your Algorithm above does both in one period: students design a recommendation page about themselves, then write a paragraph about it. Icebreakers alone tell you who is loud. Writing tells you who needs you.
Twenty to thirty minutes for Build Your Algorithm, so it fits a shortened first-day schedule with room for the usual housekeeping. The three writing activities that follow run 35 to 55 minutes each.
No. Every activity downloads straight from this page as a printable PDF. You only need a CoGrader account if you want the writing scored for you.
Something they can finish and be proud of. By sixth grade most students have sat through the same name games for years. An activity that ends in a wall display and a paragraph in their own voice gets a different reception.
Yes, if it is short and low stakes. One paragraph on a topic they choose is not a test and should not be graded like one. It is the fastest honest read you will get on a class you have known for 45 minutes.
Upload the class set and let CoGrader do the first pass. It scores each piece against your rubric and drafts feedback, then you review and adjust before anything reaches a student. You read the class pattern instead of scoring thirty pages five times over. It is the same AI essay grader teachers use for the rest of the year, and you can build your own rubric if you would rather use your own criteria.
Yes. The prompts stay the same and the rubric shifts by grade, so a sixth grader and an eighth grader are held to their own expectations on the same activity.
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Why teachers love CoGrader
Teachers who spend their first week learning 150 new names use CoGrader to read the writing that comes with them.
“CoGrader Cut My Grading Time to an Hour with Personalized Student Feedback”
“CoGrader Cut My Grading Time to an Hour with Personalized Student Feedback”
“Makes Grading Faster and Feedback Better for Every Student”
“Powerful Plagiarism & AI Checks with Flexible Rubrics and Feedback”
“Makes Grading Faster and Feedback Better for Every Student”
“Powerful Plagiarism & AI Checks with Flexible Rubrics and Feedback”
“A Teacher's New Best Friend”
“Customizable Rubrics and Easy Student Feedback with CoGrader”
“A Teacher's New Best Friend”
“Customizable Rubrics and Easy Student Feedback with CoGrader”
- SOC 2 Type II
- FERPA
- COPPA
Backed by a U.S. Dept. of Education IES study