Group items tagged

Essay Map is a handy tool from the folks at Read Write Think. Essay Map provides students with step by step guidance in the construction of an informational essay. Some students seem to struggle most with constructing an introduction and conclusion to their essays. Essay Map is particularly good for helping students visualize the steps needed to construct good introductory and conclusion paragraphs.

This looks like a great contest. (Plus you can win the kind of computer I have on my desk and it is awesome.) Here's information from the sponsor of this essay contest. I also suggest you get photos and take videos and you can share on your own school website or blog. "The Legacy Project's 14th annual essay contest changes lives and communities as it connects generations and gives students a powerful purpose for writing - listening to and learning from a life . Students learn about real life from real people, and often end up making unexpected friendships along the way. Here's one amazing example of a past winning essay: http://www.legacyproject.org/contests/winners12.html#tulsa Here's a closer look at the educational value of the contest and 21st Century learning skills, with quotes from students and teachers across the country: http://www.legacyproject.org/contests/ltalhowenter.html To enter the Listen to a Life Contest, students 8-18 years interview a grandparent or grandfriend 50 years or older about the older person's hopes and goals through their life, how they achieved their goals and overcame obstacles, or key life experiences. The young person then writes a 300-word essay based on the interview. The Grand Prize is a Lenovo ThinkCentre computer, along with 10 Legacy Awards of a keepsake timepiece from Expressions of Time. The contest runs to March 28, 2014. Students and teachers can find out more about the Listen to a Life Essay Contest, including complete contest rules, at www.legacyproject.org. This national contest is run by the Legacy Project, a big-picture learning project, and the nonprofit Generations United in Washington, DC.

This is a cool grant requiring a 100 word essay about how technology benefits and helps education and is one I'll be doing in the fall -- it is only open to schools in the US but it is public and private -- check the website for rules and good luck. Info from their site: "Each year, Samsung's Hope for Education holds a contest where students from schools nationwide can write a 100-word essay about how technology benefits and helps education. In 2008, the top winner receives a grand prize of over $200,000 worth of Samsung technology, Microsoft software and cash grants from DIRECTV, as well as the SCHOOL CHOICE® educational television programming package. Entries are open now. Contest will run until August 31, 2008."

win a $200,000 grant by having your students write essays. This is exciting.

This is a powerful post full of thoughts on teaching, inspiration, and tragedy. The most inspirational teacher at the middle school never knew it and quit. She didn't get the last day when she would hear an essay about how she was the most inspirational teacher at the school. She didn't get the last day because her house and the school auditorium where the essay would have been read and the essay itself are now all gone. Tragedy upon tragedy. We need ways for teachers to know that they are inspirational.

Ray Salazar's argument for changing our approach to writing essays in light of the Common Core State Standards...very interesting.

When it comes to assignments and exams, it's good to know how to make your work stand out from the crowd. That's where ergo can help. This practical guide to research, essay writing and studying shows you how to find resources, write great essays and prepare for exams. It also has a huge range of original documents and images you can use. ergo helps you make your work the best it can be.

Essays about teaching. Excellent for those who work with teachers.

A set of essays on the nature and nobility of teaching. You can download the text of this on this site.

Fill-in information organization program

This I Believe in the Classroom Hundreds of teachers around the country-in almost every state-have embraced This I Believe as a powerful educational tool. Many have told us that our project was the most enriching writing assignment they have given in many years of teaching. To help teachers guide students through exploring their beliefs and then composing personal essays about them, we offer the following tools:

Good, if long, example of a definition essay/argument essay hybrid

This essay contest would be an excellent cross curricular project between your technology and writing departments and is for inventors digest and several other sponsors and has as a prize a laptop computer and potential to appear on an Emmy Award winning US TV show -- so join in -- applications due August 31, 2009.

Great contest for technology & composition classes to do together.

For anyone who has ever wondered how and why the Internet was created comes this extensive essay, "The Roads and Crossroads of Internet's History." With this document, users can follow the development of the Net from its early stages as a military communication system to the multimedia extravaganza we know today.

For anyone who has ever wondered how and why the Internet was created comes this extensive essay, "The Roads and Crossroads of Internet's History." With this document, users can follow the development of the Net from its early stages as a military communication system to the multimedia extravaganza we know today.

And what counts as "writing," or "composition?" Is a tweet a text, or a piece of a larger text?3 Is a rambling audio podcast, recorded from the driver's seat of my car, a composition on par with a Master's thesis, or an essay? So long as a test or assessment or evaluation of a text occurs within a limited finition of what counts as writing, are these other forms valid? How do we who is a "good" writer? What is "good" writing?

Two well known authors subject themselves to the SAT essay and are graded.This would be an interesting case study for students from many perspectives: 1) for understanding the assessment and 2) for keeping perspective. ;-)

Map to writing a compare and contrast essay