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This article from ABC News discusses English teachers' perceptions that their students write more, and write better when social media tools are meaningfully employed.

A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies are shaping student writing in myriad ways and have also become helpful tools for teaching writing to middle and high school students.

One of the challenges of teaching creative writing can be just getting students to start a story. The app Scribeasy can be helpful because it provides visual prompts that aid as story starters.

One of the challenges of teaching creative writing can be just getting students to start a story. The app Scribeasy can be helpful because it provides visual prompts that aid as story starters.

This article discusses a way to incorporate blogging as way to enhance student writing. Four classes take turn blogging once a week, and on the other three weeks, the other three classes comment. It's a great way to keep blogging fresh and hold students accountable for writing.

Examples of using social networking to use the limits of Twitter to learn to pare down their writing. In the comment section, several teachers give examples of their successes in the classroom with this project. Students are limited to telling a story in six words.

Examples of using social networking to use the limits of Twitter to learn to pare down their writing. In the comment section, several teachers give examples of their successes in the classroom with this project. Students are limited to telling a story in six words.

This is a great article about projects teachers have done with digital tools. Not all of them used social media, but some used NING, blogs, and Google Docs for networking and sharing information. I like the fact that many of these projects are about using social tools like blogs to enhance writing skills

This article discusses how digital games like Minecraft can enhance reading and writing skills. Children enhance reading skills through reading manuals on how to play and create in the game. Games also contribute to writing skills when students post to gaming sites. Students are more motivated when they care about the task like playing the game.

"By setting a limited word count with a focused theme and a guaranteed audience beyond the class teacher, children have far greater motivation for writing. Those who are reluctant writers feel safe with only 100 words to write, whilst those more advanced writers can really extend themselves with the word restriction."

Baltimore County Public Schools maintain this website filled with advice, writing samples, and rubrics for a variety of science writing tasks

Science has its own rules for what makes good writing and this page from the Writing Center at University of North Carolina has some great tips on how to write effectively in science

"Teachers say digital tools affect students' writing in significant ways, including broadening the audience for their writing and encouraging collaboration"

"Censorship in the classroom: Understanding controversial issues\n\nhttp://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=203\n\nA lesson plan for grades 9-12 English Language Arts and Information Skills\nLearn more\n\n * Learn more about banned books, biases, censorship, language arts, media, persuasive writing, propaganda, reading, stereotypes, and writing.\n\nHelp\n\nPlease read our disclaimer for lesson plans.\nLegal\n\nPrint\n\n * Print\n\nShare\n\n * Email\n * Delicious Delicious\n * Digg Digg\n * Facebook Facebook\n * StumbleUpon StumbleUpon\n\nIt is important for young people to understand their individual rights and what they, as citizens, can do to protect these rights. In addition, young people need to understand the way in which bias and stereotyping are used by the media to influence popular opinion. In this ReadWriteThink lesson, students examine propaganda and media bias and explore a variety of banned and challenged books, researching the reasons these books have been censored. Following this research, students choose a side of the censorship issue and support their position through the development of an advertising campaign.\nNorth Carolina Curriculum Alignment\nEnglish Language Arts (2004)\nGrade 9\n\n * Goal 3: The learner will examine argumentation and develop informed opinions.\n o Objective 3.01: Study argument by:\n + examining relevant reasons and evidence.\n + noting the progression of ideas that substantiate the proposal.\n + analyzing style, tone, and use of language for a particular effect.\n + identifying and analyzing personal, social, historical, or cultural influences contexts, or biases.\n + identifying and analyzing rhetorical strategies that support proposals.\n\nGrade 10\n\n * Goal 3: The learner will defend argumentative positions on literary or nonliterary issues.\n o Objective 3.01: Examine controversial is

TESOL blog has a paragraph on digital story telling and has a helpful hint with a link to Language Experience Approach where it is recommended to write stories about the student's personal or shared experiences. It is recommended in the blog to use this personal approach to writing with digital storytelling.

Great uses of Twitter in classrooms. For English, I like Dave's suggestions for teaching grammar's rules and structure, storytelling, and rule based writing.

Learn to be concise by using Twitter. Daniel Clinghard uses Twitter as a summary tool to help students understand the power of words. Students have to summarize political texts in the 140 character limit and write a good summary.

Daniel Klinghard, a political science professor, uses Twitter to force students to write precisely about a particular reading.

This blog has an entry titled: "Building School-Based Social Networks for Inquiry, in which he discusses building a social network for students named "Youth Voices." This site is for students to write and respond to each other and teach the value of peer interaction. The process of responding to each other has motivated student begin new posts.

Fantastic! Students use Twitter to take on personality traits of fictional characters in order to develop character empathy. They Tweet in the persona of the character and engage in conversation with other characters. Ultimately, students write a piece of FanFiction from their character's perspective.

Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you're into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here.

drag and drop words onto a picture in order to generate writing ideas

Great article comparing traditional writing versus using a computer along with the effect of keyboarding.