How to Use the H5P Item Bank Writer Prompt for Fill in the Blanks, Drag the Words, and Mark the Words

H5P activities look simple from the learner's side, but writing good items for them is fiddly. Each content type expects its own text syntax, a misplaced asterisk breaks an item, and the hardest part is not the syntax at all. It is making sure every blank has one defensible answer. The H5P Item Bank Writer: Fill in the Blanks, Drag the Words, and Mark the Words in Paste-Ready Syntax prompt writes items you can paste straight into the H5P editor, with a review sheet that checks them for ambiguity.

How the three content types differ

All three use asterisks, but they behave differently:

• Fill in the Blanks marks each answer as *answer*. Alternatives go inside the same asterisks separated by a slash, like *colour/color*, and a tip goes after a colon, like *went:past of go*.
• Drag the Words marks each draggable word with asterisks. The draggable pool comes from the marked words, which shapes how you think about distractors.
• Mark the Words marks the correct words in a paragraph, and learners click the ones that fit the instruction. Any unmarked word that also fits makes the task unfair.

The prompt writes each block in the right form and keeps asterisks away from everything except answers.

What the prompt produces

1. An item plan showing which words each content type tests and whether the skill is recall, recognition, or form.
2. Fill in the Blanks text blocks with one blank per sentence, alternatives from your accepted variants, and tips only where a learner could reasonably get stuck.
3. Drag the Words text plus a teacher note about distractors.
4. Mark the Words text with an ambiguity check, so no unmarked word in the paragraph also fits.
5. Behavior settings for each content type with a recommended value and a reason: Case sensitive, Accept minor spelling errors, Require all fields to be answered before the solution can be viewed, Enable Retry, Enable Show solution, and automatic checking.
6. An item review sheet with the answer key, whether another word could fit, and which learner trouble spot each item targets.

How to fill the inputs

LearningTarget should name the point and the level, for example a CEFR level and grammar structure. WordList is the closed set of answers. The prompt only uses words from it. Learners is where the real teaching value comes in: age band, first language, and known errors. Those errors decide where tips go and which settings matter.

ContentTypes lists the H5P types and how many items you want of each. Host tells the prompt whether you are on H5P.com, the WordPress plugin, Moodle, or Canvas through LTI, which affects notes about grading attempts. Variants lists spellings to accept, such as British and American forms.

Walking through the example

The sample is an A2 class of adult Spanish speakers practicing irregular past simple verbs, with known errors like "goed" and "buyed" and confusion between "saw" and "seen." The output shows a few good habits:

• Tips appear only on the two verbs learners overgeneralize. Tips everywhere would give the answers away.
• Accept minor spelling errors is off for Fill in the Blanks, because the difference between "buyed" and "bought" is exactly the skill being tested.
• Case sensitive is off, since capitalization is not the target.
• The review sheet admits ambiguity. Where another verb could fit a sentence, it suggests adding an alternative or rewriting the sentence, instead of pretending the item is clean.
• The Moodle note suggests setting the grade method to the highest attempt when Retry stays on.

Mistakes to avoid

• Turning on spelling tolerance for form-focused items. It quietly accepts the error you are trying to fix.
• Trick sentences. The prompt is told to keep sentences natural and level appropriate. A tricky item tests reading puzzles, not the grammar point.
• Skipping the ambiguity check on Mark the Words. One extra past tense verb left unmarked makes a careful learner lose points.
• Expecting distractors to appear on their own. Plan them in the text or check whether your H5P editor version offers a separate field for them.
• Stray asterisks. An asterisk used for emphasis in a sentence becomes a blank. Keep them for answers only.

Who it is for

This prompt fits language teachers building practice sets, instructional designers creating item banks in an LMS, and content teachers who want quick vocabulary checks. It writes from your word list and learner notes, so the result is a set of items you can review in one sitting and paste in without reformatting.

Related PromptDig links

• Prompt: H5P Item Bank Writer: Fill in the Blanks, Drag the Words, and Mark the Words in Paste-Ready Syntax
• More education prompts: Browse more prompts
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