It’s June and I’m really not sure what happened to this year. The ten months prior have whizzed by and here we are again. I wanted to take this moment to share some reflections of the year and try to put things into perspective. Our Writers Workshop folks grappled with ideas related not only…
Category: Digital Writing Learning Series
To Blog Or Not To Blog
Why blog? Your current process of emailing parents or sending written notices home works just fine! Why change you ask. What makes blogging so unique? Blogging accomplishes many goals that cannot be accomplished as well as email, paper notices or student planner comments. Yes, blogging is an easy way to share homework and expectations for projects…
Informed Choices for Writing Workshop
Even though you may love Writers Workshop, the challenge comes in keeping track of all the confer/revision comments for planning purposes. We know that immediate feedback, specific and targeted will support our students’ approximation of great writing. How do you keep your ongoing comments on students? (I used to use post-it notes – hundreds of post-its.)…
Why Write?
Sometimes a picture says it all… While using ComicLife is a powerful tool to create comics, sometimes what’s required is a tool that has its own built in media library. There are many out on the web to choose. The one above is from LearnEnglishKids by the British Council. A range of panels, backgrounds, characters…
December – The Gift of Time
It’s December and most every hour is in high gear, trying to get those last minute projects merged in with winter festivities. And just this weekend, we got our first whiff of snow. Magic is in the air among the smell of gingerbread houses, mandarin oranges and other treats popping up in all locations. Not…
The Writing Workshop Series – (Session #1)
Here we go – another exciting ride through the intricacies of Writers Workshop. And you knew this was coming – with a twist. As we navigate the environment of web2, we come to understand just how complex the writing process has become. I like to think of this as opportunities to offer more “choice…
Research and the Power of Google Docs
If you dropped by recently, you’ll notice that we’ve been using Google Docs (Google Apps for Education) to enhance the writing process. (For more, select the category – Literacy – Writing Process.) And we’ve had amazing results. Now Google Docs has “upped the bar” and added an integrated research feature. HOW IT WORKS In Docs, let’s say you wrote your beginning…
Celebrating Writers and Learners
Our final learning session of Writers Workshop using Google Docs turned out better than I could have ever imagined. We have such a wonderful group of imaginative and fearless educators! Here’s how the session unfolded. We started with a video from Ted that I discovered on spoken word poetry by Sarah Kay. This spoke to me about how important it is to offer…
“Nudging” Writers with Google Docs
There are times when I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s really happening. Two instances brought the power of writing using Google Docs “front and center”. Watching it unfold was thrilling to say the least. One instance was with a teacher in our workshop series – we’ve been working on using commenting as a way…
Writing Territories to Launch Choice in Writing – Session 2
“I don’t have anything to write about…” How many times have we all heard that? Using a structure like “Writing Territories” provides a powerful way to start scribbling their ideas. These ideas can be listed or supported through collaborative conversation. This mini lesson (* are specific and allow time for students to share their samples to…
“Teach the Writer, not the Writing” ~ Calkins
Troy Hicks, “The Digital Writing Worshop” believes that our writers can achieve more, understand more, and discover more using digital tools, than in our traditional writing workshop. In examining this photo, consider what happens in a typical writing workshop. What writing processes and expectations are the same as they have always been for print texts?…
Little Tools that Do Big Things
Do you ever want to do something with your class and the whole technology thing is just too much? I get that a lot so I’m always on the hunt for tools that “take the mystery out of things” and just work. Remember that we are also in a world of constant change so…
Webspiration in the Classroom
If you’ve used Inspiration, you may want to venture to use the web version which will allow your students to access this Visual Thinking, Concept Mapping & Writing tool from home. Webspiration is an ONLINE tool with features that assist students in capturing ideas, organizing information, diagramming processes, and developing writing. Files can move from Inspiration to Webspiration seemlessly…
Using Plan Boxes in Writing Workshop
You send off your group to incorporate the ideas from your mini lesson – at least that’s your plan. And sometimes that’s exactly what happens. However, its more likely that some students may wander and forget what they’re supposed to do. So how do we get every student (at varying levels of writing proficiency) to…
Digital Writing – Digital Teaching – Session 1
Digital Writing is… Session One (February 9, 2011): “If we engage students in real writing tasks and we use technology in such a way that it complements their innate need to find purposes and audiences for their work, we can have them engaged in a digital writing process that focuses first on the writer, then…