We Will Write – State of Ed

Marc and Nick sit down with Daniel Senn and Erlend Klouman Høiner, co-founders of We Will Write, the fast-paced, anonymous, team-based writing game already used by more than a million students worldwide. This conversation covers how two childhood friends from Oslo built a platform that is making students beg to write instead of avoiding it, and why the most important thing happening in the room might be the silence right after the timer starts.

Daniel and Erlend walk through the design decisions behind We Will Write: the timed challenges that level the playing field for every writer in the room, the visual prompts that eliminate the blank-page barrier, and why anonymity unlocks student voice in ways traditional writing instruction never could. The conversation also covers the unexpected classroom culture benefits teachers are reporting, what the teacher dashboard reveals about individual student confidence, and the surprising finding that students who use the platform start calling themselves writers.

If you are still trying to get students to care about writing, this one is for you.

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Marc and Nick sit down with Stephanie Clinise, a ninth-grade English teacher at Hatboro-Horsham High School in suburban Philadelphia, to talk about what happens when a teacher leads with the hook every single time. Stephanie found We Will Write, a gamified writing platform out of Norway, got her students engaged in meaningful writing on their first try, and ended up featured at FETC 2026 sharing the story with anyone who would listen.

The conversation digs into the teaching philosophy underneath all of it: why context has to come before content, how a classroom timeline stretching from the Transcontinental Railroad to the birth of Taylor Swift unlocked Shakespeare and Roald Dahl for ninth graders, and how Stephanie is navigating AI in the writing classroom with real structure and genuine optimism. If you believe the lesson has to earn student attention before it can teach them anything, this one is for you.

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