Changing the Way We Write

Jennifer WeningerMountain Creek STEM Academy

On a sheet of paper…

• What do your students like about writing? (Yes, reasons exist!)

• What do your students dislike about writing?

• What would your students rather be doing than writing?

What Students Actually Said…

Why the 5 Paragraph Essay?

• It’s what we know!• It’s formulaic.• It’s easy.

Student Opinion?

• It’s boring.• It’s time consuming.• It’s too much writing.• When am I going to use this in life?• Again? Didn’t we just do this?

It’s Time To Shake It Up!

• Why rely on the same old same old, when there is a whole world of constantly evolving technology?

–Technology is time consuming–We don’t have enough time to master

before teaching–We not only have to teach the concept, but

technology use too.

Bargain Boxes

• It’s a lot of analyzing, with little work on your part. It’s a bargain if I ever saw one!

• A quick way to have student get all of the basics (plot, characters, figurative language, symbolism, etc) with one activity.

• Student create a box out of paper and each side of the box has an assigned activity.

• Great for differentiation.

A-B-C Books

• Takes the place of a lengthy literary analysis.• For each letter of the A-B-Cs, students find a

character, object, idea, or symbol from the book to represent that letter.

• Next to the chosen word, they must write a short blurb of what it represents and why it was important to the story.

Shared Pen

• Great for students that suffer from writer’s block or struggle to start a new paragraph.

• Partners outline their topic together. Then, they take turns writing paragraphs. If a student gets stuck, their partner can assist with guiding the next sentence.

STOP! COLLABORATE & LISTEN!

• Create a task with another subject area:– Science– History– Technology

• Each teacher gives specific requirements and grades for those requirements.

• RUBRICS, RUBRICS, RUBRICS!!

Children’s Book

• Great for cross curricular activities.• Use for breaking down advance concepts.• Students take a topic and chunk it into smaller

concepts. They then take these chunks and present them in a manner that younger students will understanding (content will determine audience).

• Makes students responsible for their own learning.

Comic Books

• Great for students that struggle with writing, especially connecting the writing dots.

• Great for artistic students.• Draw your own or use website:– Bitstrip.com (30 day freebie)– Makebeliefscomix.com (freebie)– Stripgenerator.com (freebie)

Documentaries

• Ideal for students that lose focus with longer writing pieces.

• Students research a given or selected topic.• They then answer the given aspects of the

topic in multiple short paragraphs.• After putting the information in a logical

order, they prepare their script recording and organize research pictures and videos.

Your Turn!• In order to show how easy it really is, and

familiarize yourselves with the technology, you are going to create a documentary.

• I promise, it’s not difficult!• In a small group you will comb for phone for

pictures and videos. You will then combine these into a video to inform about your group members. Add vocals to explain the pictures. Your Life Documentary should be about 1 minute long.