Group items tagged

"Addressing the challenges unique to students with ADHD will help these students find ways to handle their condition effectively and even use it to their advantage. Their unique perspective can be channeled into creative writing, finding new solutions to problems, and most of all, finding, reaching, and even exceeding their goals and fulfilling their full potential."

"Collaborative, socially-enabled tools can provide excellent opportunities for practice, assessment, better writing, and better communication. In this post are some good collaborative web apps and resources, with social functionality, that can play a valuable role in classroom lessons and assignments:"

 A lot of sites mentioned. Organised under headings: Writing Prompts and Starters; Grammar; Reading & Writing; Poetry; Literature; Shakespeare; Spelling; Vocabulary English as a Second Language (ESL); Other ELA Resources; Blogging & Website Creation; Citation; Web 2.0 Tools - Material Creation; Web 2.0 Tools - File Sharing, Hosting, Viewing and Collaborating; Web 2.0 Tools - Gathering Feedback/Creating Quizzes; Web 2.0 Tools - Document Annotation; Free eBooks and Audio Books

My thought for this site is that you could use it to generate an interdisciplinary writing task with students. They select a starting location then find its opposite; the writing task is that they narrate the journey from the starting point to its opposite. They could research the different places they pass through and choose their own line of travel (making it either more realistic or fanciful). Integrated activities might include geography (different environments); mathematics (distance and measurement); science/physics (distance & displacement).

An Interactive Online Paragraph Writing Tutorial Paragraph Punch takes users through the steps of writing a basic paragraph.

"Your writing partner, helping you write a story from beginning to THE END"

Article summarizing recent finding that shows students using technology especially for writing have better core literacy skills. "Children who blog, text or use social networking websites are more confident about their writing skills: - The National Literacy Trust.

Ready to write? This Story Starter machine generates creative writing prompts. You never know how your story will start.

Another great post by Tom Barret. Where does he find the time? Great ideas for digital writing and integrating ICT into your Literacy and english lessons

Downloadable A4 writing aid for quick reference - words to describe someone's voice

The best online based writing company. Helpful in meeting any student's writing needs.

At NaNoWriMo, we provide the support, encouragement, and good old-fashioned kick in the pants you need to write the rough draft of your novel in November.

Writing Prompts/Journal Topics

resource for teaching writing

In late November I wrote a blog post outlining five resources for free spelling games. That blog post was among the top twenty most read posts of 2008 therefore I am sharing some more online spelling games for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. 1. Spelling Wizard from Scholastic.com lets students, parents, and teachers create their own word search and word scramble games to play online. Each game can have up to ten words. To use Spelling Wizard simply enter ten words into the list field then select word search or word scramble. Spelling Wizard is probably best suited for students in Kindergarten through second grade. Scholastic also offers a free tool for creating online spelling flashcards. 2. Read Write Think has an online activity for young (K-2) students based on four childrens' books. Read Write Think's Word Wizard asks students to select one of four books that they have read or have had read to them. After selecting a book the Word Wizard creates a simple online spelling exercise based on the words in the book chosen by the child. 3. Spell Bee was developed at Brandeis University with funding from the National Science Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Spell Bee allows students to play spelling games in a head-to-head format. Spell Bee allows teachers to create accounts for students so that teachers can track student progress. 4. MSNBC has an interactive spelling bee based on the words from the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. There are three games to play and the words get progressively more difficult the longer you play. The words are read to students who then type the word into the spelling box. Just like in a real spelling bee, students can get the definition and or hear it used in a sentence. The difficulty of the words in the game make it best suited for middle school and high school students. 5. Spelling Bee The Game is an online spelling bee similar in style to the MSNBC game mentioned above. Aft

Better we make the wise decision than the expedient one. Read the older educators... Read Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier and Herb Kohl... and feel the wisdom in their words. They write without hubris, but instead with an acknowledgment of their own flawed humanity. They write with an understand that they cannot be all things to all children, but with the knowledge that they must come as close as they can. I am far from religious, but I am reminded a lot these days of the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

resource pack - interactive for teaching persuasive writing

a tool to create your mini animations by pointing and clicking. You can choose the setting, characters, music at the background and how the chosen characters interact in your animation. You write what you want your characters to say and it shows up in bubbles in your animation. Children can watch a video and write an ending for it or they can summarize a story.