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Grammar Handbook How to Edit your writing To edit your writing well, you need to understand some basic concepts about writing. Sometimes these concepts are called grammar, mechanics, or conventions. Sometimes they are called rules, but really these rules are just patterns that good writers try to follow so they clearly communicate what they want to say to readers. Anybody can be a good editor. First, you have to know what's important and then you have to reread your work carefully. Everyone-especially teachers-appreciate a writer who rereads and corrects his or her work.

writing project that allows timed writing for 10 minutes.

If you use Diigo but are researching a certain topic for a book or term paper and also use Evernote, I recommend setting up an ifttt.com recipe similar to this one I'm using for my collaborative writing book. Everything tagged "collaborative writing" goes automatically to my collaborative writing book. You could use this for a course. You could take everything on Diigo tagged with the course number into a notebook (or into a Google spreadsheet, for that matter.) There are many other sources of information you can use to collect information on a topic in one place. 

A nice website that does a great job of explaining how to teach non fiction writing to children.

30 ideas for teaching writing shares the ideas and links to the articles on this. If you're a writing teacher, you'll want to peruse these ideas.

Great lesson that turns writing students into music producers to improve writing. Designed for the middle school classroom.

Site for sharing writing. Become a member of a writing community. 

Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.

Clever thinking, interesting writing tools, a kick in the pants for any writer wrestling with fluency.

Just to review, the idea behind the Twitter Writing Contest was simple… compose a story in exactly 140 characters and post it on Twitter. I want to thank everyone who participated, because there are a ton of talented writers out there (even at 140 characters)!

One strategy for teaching science concepts is through the use of student developed newsletters. This approach involves students in the learning process as they research information, write articles, and present these articles in an individual or class newsletter format. This newsletter project helps students improve their writing skills as they learn how to write in science.

Created by 5th Cell (creators of Drawn to Life), this title turns writing into objects, drawing from a database of "tens of thousands" of items. You type them in with the stylus, to solve problems. It could be a promising writing activity because it illustrates word meanings, instantly. Why learn to write? To play ScribbleNauts.

What have we done to education? Look what some schools are doing just to get past the state tests!

I write because if I left this post for later, you may never see the like of it again. I write and publish to make sure that words will not be marred by my over thinking and prevent me from being faithful to my draft conversation style with you, dear readers, as I do now and today.

"A superb creative writing site to stimulate ideas for opinion pieces, news articles, stories or poems. There is a teachers area with whole class whiteboard resources, and a pupil area where your pupils can write their pieces and print."

This is an amazing collaborative whiteboard where multiple users can edit a multimedia board in real time. The site allows you to signup and sign in using a Google account and you can access and add your files and media on your Google Docs/Drive area making this a fabulous companion to schools using Google Apps for education. You can write by typing or you can write in 'freehand' so you can use your interactive whiteboard to write and archive the lesson to use or refer to later. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Check out this free writing adviser that students can use to get instant feedback on their writing. Students can type in the tool itself or upload a document. Awesome formative tool. Students are allowed to focus on their purpose and audience, essay structure, and use of written language (sentence economy, variety, power, and clarity). You will see your students learning to ask questions experienced writers ask automatically. As a result, you'll see your students express themselves with greater precision and power. Best of all it is free. You will need an account set up to use this amazing tool, and then you can also enroll your students.

Excellent word clouds created by Ben Rimes over at Tech Savvyed related to the Common Core State standards. This demonstrates how technology standards are related and embedded in the standards, particularly the writing standards. This is one big reason I'm publishing the book "Reinventing Writing." I think a lot of people know they need to write with technology but just don't understand how. This blog post is useful to read if you're having anything to do with Common Core implementation and these charts would be useful to share with your teachers in a quick teacher's meeting. Great post, Ben!

CO14 is happening this weekend and so many great people are presenting. It runs from February 7-9 and is free. My session is sharing how writing has been reinvented as I share the 9 tools that have changed how we teach forever (a sneak preview of my book coming out in May.) If you teach writing, work with curriculum or teach, feel free to join in. The session is at 8 am EST on Saturday morning, February 8. Anyone can join. Lots of amazing presenters are speaking so check it out.

If you need "proof" of the merit of journalism programs, look no further than the "enemy" that has been the excuse for killing many journalism programs -- test scores. Read this NCTE position paper about journalism in the curriculum which states: "It is important to note that a body of research provides data showing that students who participate in journalism programs do better on testing and college language arts courses. In Journalism Kids Do Better (Dvorak, Lain, Dickson), research shows students who take journalistic writing courses score higher on the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition exam than students who take only AP or honors English courses. They also score higher on college entrance exams such as the ACT. "We've done a number of research studies that show that high school journalism is equal to or exceeds standard English [courses], Dvorak said. "Journalism students' writing skills, their sensitivity to audience, their use of grammar, punctuation, spelling, their concern with accuracy, their use of sources -- all of these things tended to be significantly higher in their performances."" I would also argue that many students who are not reached by AP or honors courses can be highly engaged in journalistic pursuits. If you want a strong writing program, make sure you have a school newspaper. Share this with your newspaper and annual staff advisors to help reinforce the merit of journalism programs with your board of education and administrators.

The NWP Digital Is website is a collection of ideas, reflections, and stories about what it means to teach writing in our digital, interconnected world. Read, discuss, and share ideas about teaching writing today.

teaching-focused knowledge base exploring the art and craft of writing, the teaching and learning of writing, along with provocations that push on our thinking as educators and learners in the digital age