"Technology and writing are a perfect fit. Here are a few things you can put to work for your students immediately:
- Use every possible opportunity to engage your students in the use of technology at all stages of the writing process—prewriting through publishing.
- Work with your tech coordinator to start a class blog and possibly individual student blogs.
- Start your own blog. Just as teachers who write become better teachers of writing, teachers who blog become better teachers in promoting technology for writing.
- Try setting up a wiki or other type of writing-community software for students to work on peer revising and editing."
[From "A Look at the OGT" by Carol Brown Dodson. Find the entire column in the April 2008 issue of Adolescent Literacy in Perspective.]
William Melvin Kelley's short story titled "A Visit to Grandmother," opened the door for a discussion about family meal time and led to the creation of a class writing project. Students began by gathering three recipes outside of class. While collecting these recipes, students were to actually sit down and have discussions with the adults about the way dining has changed throughout the years, favorite family memories, and the impact of dining together. Students were to note the comments the adults made to them, and think about how they could use these ideas when generating their own writing. Read more about this class project in Colleen Ruggieri's
Food for Thought: Using Recipes and Writing to Build Community.
Research on writing has shown positive results when teachers provide explicit lessons in how to write compare-contrast papers. Refer to
Teaching Compare-Contrast Writing in the 21st Century, by Lynne A. Hammann, for effective instructional strategies to teach compare-contrast writing.
Julius Caesar does not always inspire sophomores to great scholastic heights—especially when the class is mostly rowdy boys the last period of the day. In
"Et tu, Ms. Ressler?" Radio Show Podcasts and Julius Caesar," an article in the April 2008 issue of
Adolescent Literacy In Perspective, high school English teacher Sarah Ressler describes a final project she designed so that students could analyze
Julius Caesar and demonstrate their knowledge of the play along with their knowledge of advertising, propaganda, and persuasive techniques (Ohio Content Standards that are not always easy to tie into other curriculum).
Picture books by Chris Van Allsburg
 |
The Stranger (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1986) |
|
 |
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1979) |
| |
 |
The Sweetest Fig (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1993) |
|
 |
The Wreck of the Zephyr (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1983) |
Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing by Harry R. Noden (Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 1999)
Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice, and Clarity in High School Writing by Penny Kittle (Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 2008)
Writing Reminders: Tools, Tips, and Techniques by Jim Burke (Boynton/Cook, Portsmouth, NH, 2000)
Opportunities to submit students' writing for publication are available at the following websites: