How to teach writing online on a whiteboard: a body-paragraph lesson, step by step

What a writing tutor does in a session

Writing tutors who ask for advice on r/TutorsHelpingTutors describe students who are far behind and short on motivation. In a June 2024 thread one reply suggests focusing on the mechanics of writing: teach composition and essay structure, even the "hamburger" approach, then give a topic, let the student write, and deconstruct and reconstruct the result, which you can do in every lesson. Another reply says there is no quick fix and the answer is practice. Those habits turn into four jobs for a board:

• Show the structure. A model paragraph split into its jobs, so the student sees the shape before they write.
• Do a tour of the draft. A UW-Madison writing-center instructor suggests starting by asking the student to go through the paper and say what each paragraph does.
• Let the student write the next piece instead of fixing it for them, in their own colour.
• Keep short notes that the student can return to, away from the draft itself.

Setting up your first lesson? See online tutoring setup and how to teach math online, which walks through a first call step by step.

A body-paragraph lesson in five steps

The UNC Writing Center handout on paragraphs builds a paragraph in five steps: a topic sentence that states the controlling idea, an elaboration, an example, an explanation of the example, and a sentence that completes the idea or leads into the next paragraph. It stresses that none of your examples should be left unexplained. The board above follows that order with our own invented sentences:

1. 1Ask for a tour first: before changing anything, ask your student what each sentence of their paragraph is doing.
2. 2Show the model: the topic sentence states the point ("Street trees make hot, bare blocks easier to live on.").
3. 3Add the example and explain it: "my bus stop has no shade, so people wait in the road", then a sentence saying why that matters.
4. 4Close or link on: one sentence that ties the paragraph back to the point.
5. 5Student's turn: give them an example and an explanation with the topic sentence missing, and let them write it. The common slip is writing the example again instead of the point; the red note on the board names it.

Writing on Instaboard

A writing session on Instaboard is a conversation about one paragraph, with the call on top. Here is what that means in practice:

• Paste or type one paragraph into a card. Paste it from the student's draft, or have them type it on the board.
• Mark it up with the pen. Underline the topic sentence, circle the example, draw an arrow when a sentence belongs elsewhere.
• Let the student write the next sentence on the board in their own colour.
• Import a worksheet or a prompt as a PDF and write on it. Each imported PDF uses one of the 5 free boards.

When a shared document is the better choice

• You are working on a long draft. A UW-Madison Writing Center instructor describes the difficulty of getting a sense of the whole draft on a small screen when you have to scroll through it, and suggests working together in a Google Doc, which is a collaborative space where you can make notes and move things around. Use a shared document for the draft and keep the board for the lesson.
• The student keeps over-polishing. The same post warns that a student with a laptop can sit and edit every sentence, and suggests taking notes on separate paper instead of on the computer. A separate board for notes does the same job.
• You need to track edits or leave line-by-line comments. That belongs in a document or a word processor, not on a board.
• You want a recording of the lesson. Instaboard does not record.

Instaboard fits when you teach structure and want the student to write the next sentence on the same page, with the call, the model and the notes on one link.

Use the lesson board in five steps

1. 1Open the writing board above and make it yours.
2. 2Send your student the link, or press Call on the board so the lesson runs in one place. They sign in free once to write.
3. 3Swap in your own paragraph. Replace the model with a paragraph from your student's draft, split into its jobs.
4. 4Let the student write the missing sentence in their own colour, then talk about why it works.
5. 5Leave the board open as the notes and start the next lesson from it.

A thesis-statement version of the same lesson is on the Pencil Spaces alternative page, and session notes for tutors shows what to record afterwards.

What Instaboard doesn't do for writing

• No word processing. No track changes, no comments, no spell check, no grammar feedback, no AI.
• No handwriting reading. Handwritten notes stay as ink and are not searchable.
• Whole-stroke eraser only. You cannot rub out part of a line; erase the stroke and redraw it.
• No recording of the lesson, no class mode, no scheduling.
• Students sign in to write. Anyone with the link can view; writing needs a free sign-in. Free calls run 60 minutes.
• Free covers 5 boards. Each imported PDF uses one of them. Pen strokes do not count toward the 150-item limit; cards and lists do.
• Free boards are shared by link, so use first names only and keep private details off the board.

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