The WritingHub Gym is where a student builds one writing skill at a time with Testy. Each skill opens with a short lesson, then a quick warm-up, then one or two short pieces of the student's own writing that Testy marks. Open it from the WritingHub Gym tile on Testy's page.
What is in it
The skills sit in four strands: Persuasive, Narrative, Language and technique, and Sentences and structure. Examples are taking a clear side, PEEL paragraphs, openings that grab, showing rather than telling, building tension, precise words, and planning in three minutes.
Every skill comes in two levels, Junior and Senior, chosen from the student's year. Junior covers Year 4 and below, the OC stream and NAPLAN Year 3. Senior covers Year 5 and Year 6, Selective and NAPLAN Year 5. The examples and what is expected of the writing differ between them.
A session, step by step
- The lesson. On the first visit, Start with the lesson opens a hand written lesson: why the skill matters, a short recipe, an example built up in three stages from weak to strong with notes on each change, common traps, and a checklist. Got it marks it read. Revisit the lesson brings it back whenever it is wanted.
- The warm-up. A few quick questions: highlight the words in a passage that show the skill, put sentence cards into the right order, or choose the strongest of several options. Press Check and the answer and the reason appear, then move on.
- The writing. One or two short tasks: upgrade a weak sentence or paragraph, or write a short piece to a small prompt. Testy marks it for that skill only. He quotes what worked in the student's own words, gives one next step, pins notes to the text and shows a stronger version of the student's own writing.
The tasks change from session to session, and a student does not see the same one again until they have been through the lot.
Stars
Each skill has up to three stars: one for reading the lesson, one for getting two thirds of a warm-up right, and one for showing the skill in two different pieces of writing. Pasting Testy's stronger version back in does not count towards a star or any XP.
What it costs
The lessons and warm-ups are free. Marking a piece of writing uses one tutoring action, and only when Testy has marked it. A task that could not be marked, was too short, was off the point or was copied back costs nothing and earns nothing. See How much Testy you get. XP is earned for correct warm-up answers and for marked writing, with a little more when the skill is shown, and the Gym has a daily limit on the XP it pays.
Put it together
Each skill page ends with Put it together. Write a full piece opens the writing studio in a new conversation, with the skill as the focus, so the student can use it across a whole piece. Testy can also open a skill from the chat if asked, with a card that links straight to it.
How it differs from a writing test
A writing practice paper is a timed sitting marked against the exam rubric, and it lands on Results & Review. The Gym is untimed and about building one skill at a time, with no score out of anything. Most families use both.
Who can use it
The Gym is on Testy's page, so it is open to the accounts that can use that page. LearningHub no longer has a Writing section: its place is the Gym and the writing studio.