Text Highlight Widget

Use text highlight when the learner should identify evidence, key details, word choices, or patterns inside a passage.

In the Widgets tab it's called Highlighter.

What learners do

Learners click or tap a word to highlight it, and click or tap it again to remove the highlight. To highlight several words at once, they drag across them with a mouse or a finger. On a phone or tablet, a drag that starts on a word highlights; to scroll a long passage, start the swipe in the margin around the text. With a keyboard, they Tab into the passage, move between words with the arrow keys, press Enter or Space to highlight, and hold Shift with an arrow key to extend the highlight.

Settings to know

Select the widget and click the ⚙ Configure button to open its setup panel. The passage, correct ranges, and grading options live there, side by side with a live preview, while styling and layout stay in the right sidebar.

• Passage is the text learners read and mark.
• Correct Ranges are the parts of the passage that count as correct highlights.

Click Edit passage & correct ranges to open the passage editor. Type the passage, select the words learners should find, and click Mark as correct. Click a marked range to give it a short label, or Remove mark to unmark it. Line breaks you type show up for learners too. Step-by-step: Ask students to highlight the evidence in a passage builds a close-reading question from a blank lesson, with a Check button that shows students which highlights were right.

Styling lives in the right sidebar under Style & Layout: font, text and highlight colors, Font Size, and Line Height (the space between lines — raise it to give young readers more room to tap a word).

Grading setup

Text highlight supports grading. The grading controls are in the Scoring section of the ⚙ Configure dialog.

• Scoring (the On/Off switch at the top of the section) turns grading on or off for the highlighting task.
• The widget's name is the readable label for this answer in results and conditions. Rename it at the top of the properties panel — see Widgets and widget settings.
• Points sets how much the task is worth.
• While Scoring is on, the task counts toward both the scene score and the lesson score.
• Group lets you include the task in a custom grading group.
• Correct when switches between All ranges (every correct range must be highlighted) and Any range (highlighting one whole correct range is enough).
• Partial Credit allows learners to earn some credit for partially correct highlighting.

How highlights are graded

Grading goes word by word, and wrong highlights count against the answer:

• An answer is correct only when the learner highlights every word they need to (all of them in All ranges, all of one range in Any range) and nothing else. Highlighting the whole passage is never correct.
• With Partial Credit on, each word found earns a share of the points and each wrong word takes one share back. For example, with two correct words worth 10 points, finding one earns 5; finding both plus one extra word also earns 5. Credit never drops below 0.
• With Partial Credit off, the answer earns all the points or none.
• A highlight has to cover part of a word to count. A highlight that stops right before a correct word doesn't touch it.

How to set up the content

Use a passage that is short enough to scan but rich enough to reward close reading. Mark correct ranges carefully so they match the evidence you want learners to notice: every word inside a marked range is a word learners must highlight, and every word outside one counts against them. Mark "the stormy night" and a learner who highlights only "stormy" has found one word of three. If one word is enough, mark just that word.

You can use a variable in the passage, like Dear {{ name }}, (Liquid templates and variables). The learner sees the filled-in value, which counts as one word. Logic tags such as {% if %} aren't supported in a highlight passage and show to learners exactly as written.

Useful setting combinations

• Correct when set to All ranges:

Best when every piece of evidence matters.

• Partial Credit on:

Best when learners can show partial understanding.

• Correct Highlight color:

After the learner submits, correct highlights change to this color and wrong ones are crossed out, so learners can see what they got right.

• Text highlight + written reflection:

Best when learners should identify evidence and then explain it.

Strong use cases

• Highlight evidence for a claim.
• Mark strong verbs, figurative language, or transition words.
• Identify the sentence that supports the main idea.

Great pairings with other widgets

• Pair text highlight with text for the reading goal.
• Pair it with button for submit-on-demand review.
• Pair it with score for close-reading practice.
• Pair it with audio or text to speech when learners need the passage read aloud first.