Technology & Writing
Middle-grades and high school students are almost always involved in writing tasks across the curriculum. In ELA, history, science, math classrooms, vocational classes, and in the related arts, they write essays, reports, answers to questions, lab reports, lists, explanations, descriptions, letters, etc. Writing tasks can require one, several, or all of the following steps: generating ideas, organizing the ideas to make sense, producing drafts of the text, revising drafts, editing texts, and then polishing, publishing, and presenting what has been written.
More and more technology tools, beyond word processing, are becoming available and commonplace in classrooms to help students with key aspects of the writing process. For example, students use graphic organizers to brainstorm ideas. They use tools to outline their ideas. Some use word-prediction software to cut down on keystrokes. Others use text-to-speech (TTS) software to have their texts read aloud to see how they sound. Some students deepen their grammar skills by practicing with Web-based resources. Students take advantage of spell checkers, grammar checkers, and bibliography tools to polish their work. PowerPoint presentations, along with other multimedia applications, give published work a highly professional look. Students can keep online portfolios of their writing to track progress over time. In this section, we have included materials to stimulate your thinking about how to integrate the wide range of available technology tools, as well as links to lesson plans and online resources that provide students with tools at no cost. Feel free to send us a note if you find tools that are right for your classroom and students’ needs. Happy writing!
Sites That Matter
If you want to learn more about strategies for using technology to teach writing, choose from the links below.
Background
Using Media Flexibly to Compose and Communicate
This site illustrates four kinds of multimedia stories that can be written using different media tools. One report uses word-processing and includes graphics, another uses a Web page and the third uses a report with digitized video clips.
www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?
HREF=/articles/dillner/index.html
Digital and Traditional Storytelling
Based on the tradition of oral storytelling, a digital story is one told using technology. This is a good place to begin to look for resources about digital storytelling in education. It includes section on the following categories:
• Different kinds of stories
• Stories vs. reports, Technology to bring
• Story materials to bring
• Books and materials
• Examples of digital stories
• Workshop handouts
www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/
Cyber English
In this article, four teachers discuss how to set up a “Cyber English” classroom. Each student creates their own interactive Web page and Web portfolio. (See Linda Champagne’s Cybercomp10 for an example of a Cyber English classroom www.ithaca.k12.wi.us/Web%20Page/Instructional%
20Pages/champagne/cyberenglish%20pages/cyber9home.htm
or www.tnellen.com/ted/indy04/EJ0942CyberEnglish.pdf
Writing for the Web
This excellent article offers advice on how to teach students to adjust their writing style for writing for the Web.
www.dartmouth.edu/%7ewebteach/articles/text.html
Electronic Portfolios
This site informs teachers about electronic portfolios, why to use them, and how to set them up. It also provides samples of electronic portfolios.
www.essdack.org/port/index.html
Guide to Grammer and Writing
Sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation and geared primarily towards secondary students, this site contains a comprehensive guide to grammar and writing. Sort by types of compositions, word, sentence, paragraph, essay, and research paper levels, tools, and more.
grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
Lesson Plans
Writing - Scholastic Online Writing Activities
This invaluable online writing site offers tools for genre writing and online publishing. Click on the appropriate grade level and then click on writing instruction level to access the list of writing activities by grade level. For example, investigate the activities for middle school students titled: Myths, Folktales, & Fairy Tales. This is a Writing with Writers Series that includes the work of published authors in the genres of biography, descriptive and folktales writing, oral History, persuasive and research Writing. The authors here not only offer generic advice, but will also comment on individual student work.
teacher.scholastic.com/activities/
WebQuest
This is Bernie Dodge’s site of sample WebQuests. WebQuests are online curriculum activities, which engage students in learning about an authentic topic or problem. They are cooperative activities where students assume different roles to solve an authentic problem. Students then write a product, which then demonstrates their knowledge of the problem and its potential solutions.
For Middle School - webquest.sdsu.edu/matrix/6-8-Eng.htm
For High School - webquest.sdsu.edu/matrix/9-12-Eng.htm
Language Arts WebQuests
This site offers a thorough sampling of WebQuests from “MiddleSchool.net.”
www.middleschool.net/less_tut/webquests/lawq.htm
Welcome WebQuests
Within this site, skim down to the Language Arts section to find many writing-based WebQuests.
www.techtrekers.com/webquests/
WebQuests Language Arts
This site offers some interesting WebQuests for the middle school including two on grammar, writing an I-Search paper and a Tall-Tale Newspaper.
www.berksiu.k12.pa.us/webquest/literature.htm
Literacy Matters—Using Biographies to Teach Literacy Skills
This Literacy Matters section provides the American History Idol (AHI) Curriculum Units, assessment materials and resources to help upper elementary school teachers introduce expository texts through the use of biographies. The AHI Curriculum Units have a technology component. They were designed to integrate the software program, Draft:Builder, published by Don Johnston, Inc., which allows students to take notes, create an outline, manipulate information, and prepare a draft.
www.literacymatters.org/content/biographies/intro.htm
Online Tools
OWL: Online Writing Lab
Purdue University has one of the best online writing labs. It provides students with online help with grammar and punctuation. It offers handouts and exercises on grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/index.html
Visual Thesaurus
This virtual thesaurus
is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus with a unique visual display map that encourages exploration and helps make meaning out of and show relationships between words.
www.visualthesaurus.com/desktop/index.jsp
OneLook® Dictionary Search
The OneLook® search engine searches for words and phrases among over five million words in more than 900 online dictionaries. This search engines also translates words and phrases and helps students spell words if they are unsure of the spelling.
www.onelook.com
Guide to Grammar and Writing
This site offers easy to use help with grammar, writing sentences, paragraphs, and essays.
grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar
Writing.com (Formerly Inkspot)
This multipurpose writing site for writers includes: interactive stories, places for students to publish and read each other’s writing. I highly recommended this site for young adults.
www.writing.com
Word Smyth
Word Smyth is an innovative online dictionary that provides extensive information about each word that is looked up including definitions, synonyms, related words, parts of speech, example sentences and more. It also enables users to look up any word on any Web site through the installation of its Word Smyth NOW program.
www.wordsmyth.com
Writing Den
The Writing Den provides students with tips for sentence, paragraph, and essays writing for middle school students.
www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/contents.htm
The Rhyme Zone Dictionary and Thesaurus
Students can enter a word to see a list of rhyming words, as well as synonyms, antonyms, related words, quotes that contain the word, and much more. It has a reverse dictionary where you can type in a concept and it will give you a long list of synonyms or related words.
www.rhymezone.com
your Dictionary.com
This site offers an online dictionary, thesaurus and the capability of translating words into numerous foreign languages.
www.yourdictionary.com
Web Tools
This page provides educators with links to tools they may find valuable in their quest for learning about Web page creation. It offers Web creation tools, graphics, lesson plans and sample Web pages.
www.oswego.org/staff/cchamber/webdesign/web_tools.htm
Creating Online Presentations with PowerPoint
Microsoft’s tutorial help page offers clear directions for learning how to create a simple PowerPoint presentation and enhance it by adding graphics, spreadsheet data, and voice narration. It also explains how to save your presentation as a Web document and offers lesson plans and how-to articles.
www.microsoft.com/education/PPTTutorial.mspx
Rubistar
A U.S. Department of Education web site, Rubistar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch. It also includes useful samples made by other teachers. Rubistar is one of the best rubric generator sites on the Web.
rubistar.4teachers.org/
Resources
del.icio.us/Supported_etext
This site provides an extensive list of resources, supports, tools, and links to other web sites that provide a variety of supports for electronic texts. Sort by content area, cost, student population, level, type of resource, and type of support.
del.icio.us/Supported_etext
Kairos
This research-based journal offers well-written articles about electronic writing and classroom suggestions for teaching for writing in an Internet environment.
english.ttu.edu/kairos/5.1/coverweb.html
American Library Associations - Writing by Children
This site has been compiled by American Library Association for students to publish their writing. It suggests sites for publishing by grade level.
www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=
greatwebsites&template=/cfapps/gws/
displaysection.cfm&sec=21
Publish Your Creative Work On-Line Theme Page
This Theme Page has links to resources, which will help students to publish their creative work (stories, poetry, art, etc) on-line.
www.cln.org/themes/publish.html
The Topic: Poetry for Kids
This site offers list of links for writing about poetry with the following features: poetry contests, and the capability of listening to famous poems read out loud.
www.42explore.com/poetry.htm
Writer's Companion Research Links
This section of the Writer's Companion web site contains extensive links to research, links, and other sources of information within
11 topics of interest.
www.writerscomp.com/Links_Set.htm
