Apps to Assist in the Writing Process

This Technology & Learning blogger reviews some of the available apps to use in the writing process.

Is social media use affecting student writing?

Slang commonly used in text-messaging and social media is appearing in students' classroom assignments, report some teachers in this US News & World Report story. One Maryland foreign-language teacher blames students' use of social media for a decrease in the quality of their writing. "They do not capitalize words or use punctuation anymore," teacher Terry Wood said. "Even in e-mails to teachers or [on] writing assignments, any word longer than one syllable is now abbreviated to one."

Storyboarding: Pre-Writing Activity

The more we podcast and have our students create video clips or other digital storytelling projects, the more we need to teach storyboarding as part of the process. Being able to pre-visualize how your story will unfold is becoming a vital skill to have for storytellers.

■Some schools are using digital tools to teach writing

Education Week reports: Innovative language arts teachers find that adapting writing instruction to technology can enhance engagement without sacrificing the fundamentals.

Text messaging: does it harm student writing?

Some teachers say text-messaging could be taking a toll on students' academic writing. Teachers have noticed -- and students admit -- that common text-message abbreviations and lingo are being included in student writing. Teachers also say students often do not know the difference between social and academic writing. Common mistakes include using the letter "u" instead of "you," and using "r" instead of "are." Details in this story from Minnesota.

Classroom blogs: can they encourage students to write?

More teachers are creating classroom blogs, according to this news story, to encourage students to write and understand the power of their words. Some students say posting regular updates on the blogs have improved their grammar and spelling, and one group of elementary students has earned an international audience. Some students post about school or personal issues, and a group of high-school English students are penning blogs in the voice of historic literary characters.

The Rise of Twitter Poetry

World Poetry Day and the 5th anniversary of Twitter --what do they have in common? Find out in this article from the New York Times newspaper.

Learning About "PR" Helps Develop Writing Skills In Fourth Graders

From Reading Today( Feb/March 2010): students at one elementary school study character development using star athletes as models

An Excercise To Help Students Write More Freely

Todd Finley, an associate professor of English education at East Carolina University, shares in this blog post an exercise for helping students write more freely without fear of criticism over punctuation and grammar. In the exercise, students create an autobiographical timeline in five minutes. They then pause to listen to some inspirational poetry before beginning work on a one-sentence, one-page narrative reflecting on an important event in their lives. Students later revise their work, developing it into a sentence-by-sentence format that uses their original narrative.

Improving literacy with technology

In this news article, the writer provides a number of useful website resources that could be used in literacy instruction.