WRITING RESOURCES
SUMNER COUNTY SCHOOLS INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY
January, 2016
This month's newsletter will focus on several valuable digital tools to help teachers create a more engaging and dynamic writing classroom for students to meet the rigorous demands of the new standards.
DIGITAL RESOURCES FOR WRITING INSTRUCTION
Check out these books:
(2009). The Digital Writing Workshop. Central Michigan University: Heinemann
(2013): Crafting Digital Writing. Central Michigan University: Heinemann
(2010): Because Digital Writing Matters. National Writing Project..
The Digital Writing Process
The nature of writing has shifted in recent years. There are very few—if any—jobs these days for which employees produce lengthy handwritten reports. News stories are an integration of words, images, audio, and website links. College applications are all online, and a friendly letter is more likely composed on a smartphone than on stationary. The above article addresses the digital writing process.
Teacher Tools
Grammar Flip - unique sequence of engaging videos on grammar, mechanics, and usage
International Literacy Association - writing resources
Quill - Free for teachers: Quill Proofreader, Quill Grammar, and Quill Writer.
Teaching Elementary Students to be Effective Writers
Two Writing Teachers - Writing Lesson Ideas
No Red Ink
NoRedInk
Help your students improve their grammar and writing skills
NoRedInk helps students improve their grammar and writing skills using their personal interests and adaptive learning. NoREDInk was created by a teacher for students to practice grammar using interactive exercises. It’s a nicely designed site, and students can pick choose the topics that they are most interested in — the NFL, NBA, specific TV shows, etc. Also, NoRedInk links straight to GOOGLE CLASSROOM.
This site Instantly differentiates using the adaptive platform. Teachers can track progress toward mastery of standards. The site provides students with unlimited help whenever they need it.
InstaGrok
Website & App
InstaGrok is interactive concept maps that are searchable and customizable to share information with your students in an engaging way.
InstaGrok allows students to research any subject and see results in an interactive concept map, or “grok.” The grok features key facts, concepts and their relationships, images, videos, quizzes, and a glossary.
The app is recommended for grades 5-12. The instaGrok site and tablet apps are free to the public. However, educators can purchase the classroom version of instaGrok for $45 per year. The classroom version allows teachers to create assignments and monitor students’ progress.
Check out this video on how to use instaGrok:
WRITING FIX
Writing Fix:
Quality Teaching Resources for K-12 strategically designed lessons to help teachers teaching writing.
This is a thought-provoking site that creates writing prompts on the spot, categorized in some unique ways to address learning styles. This site has something for every grade level. Users will find a wide range of help with writing across the curriculum. WritingFix has interactive lessons for building stronger writing skills in writers of any age. WritingFix is an ongoing professional development project. Your initial reaction to the page might be that it is very busy, but do not let that scare you off. Once you get started, you will find the organization quite easy to navigate.
This free site offers a monthly writing lesson emailed to each subscriber.
NEWSELA
Newsela website and app provides relevant news articles for students to read for comprehension. Articles can be adjusted to different Lexile levels. Teachers can set up a Newsela account and assign articles for students to read. Students are given a quiz after reading the article to test comprehension and vocabulary.
The app allows for reading articles & taking quizzes. Also article reading level can be adjusted with a 2-finger drag.
ThinkCerca
ThinkCERCA offers lessons that promote close reading and argumentative writing for Language Arts, Social Studies and Science classes for grades 4 - 12. Some of these close reading lessons and corresponding student performance tracking tools are available for free. Among the tools that ThinkCERCA uses to promote critical thinking and collaboration is "Argument Builder." This guides students through the steps involved constructing an argument, including making claims, supporting those claims with evidence, describing their reasoning, addressing counter arguments and using appropriate language.
Draftback
DraftBack is a free tool designed to use with the GOOGLE CHROME browser and Google Apps for Education. This tool allows you to play back the revision history in any doc that you can edit. It’s like being able to go back and watch your students' writing process. With Draftback, your data is kept entirely private. Draftback is a Chrome browser add-on that tracks documents as they're created in Google Drive and renders a video playback of the document's creation in real time. The playback includes a video scrubber and allows users to pause and advance the playback with different speeds from real-time playback.
Ways to Use Technology in Writing Instruction:
- Blogs - Create a blog - a web journal
- Google Apps for Education
- Edmodo
- PowToon - Create Animated Presentations online
INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY COORDINATORS
We are here to support you in the use of instructional technology.
Linda Oliver - Elementary
Ben Bruce - Middle
Rhonda Bruce - High
Kathy Pryor - Title I