I can't believe that I have not even thought about covering the topic of writing so far in my blog. I mean seriously, what is a blog?? It is a form of writing. In case you have not noticed yet I have even placed a student-blog here in the website so I have every intention on my students writing. That being said, I had better come back to reality and stop living in dream land. My reality with student writing usually starts somewhere with, "Mrs. Bradshaw, I don't know what to write." or "Mrs. Bradshaw, I don't know where to start."
During my summer adventures in RE5533 I have discovered some ideas and sites to use to hopefully combat some of this writer's block. The first idea that I would like to present is using pictures. Pictures can be used in a number of ways to promote writing. PicLits.com is a site that uses pictures and words to inspire writing; you are given a series of pictures from which to choose and then you drag and drop words onto the picture. The site is excellent for having students create Found Poems or just perfecting descriptive writing. Once students are finished creating their masterpiece they have the option of saving it, publishing it, sharing it, emailing it, or scraping it and starting over. There is also a free-style option available for writiers to choose. If you need inspiration before beginning you can check out PicLits online gallery to see other people's work.
The next thing I want to bring up about using pictures to inspire writing can be used as an independent activity, small group, or whole class activity. Speechable.com and Picnik.com allow you to add speech bubbles to photographs. The speech bubbles can be used to prompt students to write what people were thinking in the photo or what people were saying in the photo; a follow up activity would be to discuss the differnces between what people think and what they actually say...'the words that come out of our mouths.'
Still yet, I think that pictures can be used to assist in writing in the simplest of ways. Some students just need a jumping off point, a little inspiration, a picture can offer that. Let's say for example, students are ask to write about a landscape or even a summer vacation--the 'what I did on summer vacation' essay. For some students an assignment like this could be overwhelming, it could cause them stress, they could tell you about it, or even yet for some students they could have told you in great detail if you had not have asked them, but the minute that you asked they draw a blank. Having a photograph available to assist will give them a gentle prompt, a reminder of events to help get the juices flowing.
Now for the fun stuff. PhraseIt.com is an online bubble image editor, but it goes one step further; with PhraseIt students can create their own comic strips. I can see students having a lot of fun with this one. It is very simple to use, it is free and they can use their own photos. Now, knowing my middle schoolers like I do I am sure that there are going to be some pretty amusing comic strips. And, knowing my middle schoolers like I do I can gaurantee you that they will not have a shortage of pictures to use; PhraseIt will allow them to use their photos from their facebbok account, upload photos from their device, or choose random pictures from their online stash.
I guess by now, you are probably thinking that the only thing that I care about is using pictures to promote writing of one sort or another, but that is not the case. I do have a few more tricks up my sleeve thanks in part to Dr. K. My favorite of those new tricks is Fodey.com an online newspaper generator. Students are prompted to enter basic information like headline, date, name of newspaper, and then they enter their story, and last they generate their newspaper. Within seconds they have an authentic looking newspaper, once they have generated their newspaper they can print it or download it to share in their blog. Pretty Cool!! Fodey.com also has the option for students to create talking flowers, clapper boards, ninja text, and many other unique tricks to get students writing.
Penzu.com is another one of my favorites. Penzu is an online journal/diary. The great thing is that you can write anytime, anywhere, from any device and it is completely secure tucked away in your account on the cloud. In other words, my students could have a Penzu that they could write in daily to reflect on all the great writing tools that they now have in class. Penzu Classroom is even better than Penzu because it makes my life, as the teacher, easier. No more lugging home crates of journals to grade....there is an App for that!
Until next time, happy blogging