Helping Students Write Using Internet Resources As A Tool
By Cathy Puett Miller
Technology has become such a part of everyday life that our students, in many ways, are greater masters of it than we teachers are. Marry technology with instruction on key skills and students both benefit and become engaged in the writing experience. The Pew Internet & American Life Project together with the National Commission on Writing, an initiative of the College Board, recently conducted a national telephone survey and used focus groups to see what teens and their parents say about the role and impact of technological writing on both in-school and out-of-school writing. They found that teens are motivated to write by relevant topics, high expectations, an interested audience, and opportunities to write creatively. I believe that stretches down to our preteens and to elementary school students as well.
Many on-line resources for writing instruction tap into this interest and give students a chance to practice keyboarding skills as well as a variety of writing techniques at the same time. I've collected a few for you to visit:
Bill Zimmerman, a journalist, prize–winning newspaper editor, and author of 18 books has created a fun, interactive website for young writers, centered on the comic strip concept. No matter the age of your students, having them create their own “comix” strip becomes an exercise in organization: they must have a middle, beginning, and end, and dialogue is essential. After my students have created their strips and shared them with one another, I ask them to then take this strip as an outline and flesh out the story in print. They can practice adding details, developing characters, sequencing, filling in gaps (what happened between this panel and this panel?), and good word choice. This is also a fun way to help students understand the power of revision. He has a companion website, http://www.billztreasurechest.com, where people of all ages can affirm their spirit and share their stories.
Dr. Janette Hughes of the University of Ontario has written extensively about poetry as a powerful literacy tool. She focuses on how poetry helps students synthesize, be clear and concise in their own writing and enhances performance and presentation skills.
Poetry is the theme of this section of Scholastic's teacher website. Jack Prelutsky, Karla Kuskin, and Nikki Giovanni are among the talented poets who share their knowledge and encourage young students to follow their lead and create poetry of their own. I like the fact that there are various ways these authors communicate (webcast presentations as well as hints written in text with great, expressive photographs). Mr. Prelutsky's webcast is actually from the Library of Congress (his 2007 presentation at the National Book Festival) and there you'll find additional webcasts on poetry and literature to share with your students.
Research tells us that having a strong vocabulary is essential to good writing. Most of you are familiar with the fact that the National Reading Panel added vocabulary as one of its five key components to effective reading instruction. But did you know that the National Writing Project (sponsored by universities across the U.S.) says that vocabulary is linked to overall academic success.
Add to your classroom's culture of being interested in words by signing up for The Writing Den's email word of the day. Add retrieval of this word to your group of classroom jobs for younger students and place the new word on your whiteboard, smartboard or the student's screensavers on laptops in middle and high school. This site also contains tips on sentences, paragraphs, and essays. It is specifically for students in 6-12th grade.
Turn on the computer during writing instruction and you'll turn on students to expressing themselves, learning about organization of their writing and generate excitement. Search out your own favorite ways of connecting technology and learning for your students. Many tech-savvy students can become interested in writing that may, without the technology, view writing as something too far removed from life to be meaningful.
The teacher's resource website from the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English and Verizon Foundation: http://www.readwritethink.org
