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Growing Real Writers

Using Technology to Emphasize Process and Authentic Writing Experiences

Tim Reger

Instructional Technology Resource Teacher

Rockingham County Public Schools

treger@rockingham.k12.va.us

@regeritrt (Twitter)

Jen Moyers

Instructional Technology Resource Teacher

Rockingham County Public Schools

jmoyers@rockingham.k12.va.us

@jen.loves.books (Insta) / @jenlovesbooks2 (Twitter)

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Our History:

English Teacher (Jen & Tim)

Pilot lab (Jen) - ITRT support (Tim)

Librarian - Elementary and High School (Tim)
Instructional Technology Resource Teacher (Jen & Tim)

Our Foundation:

English Experience & Technology Collaborations

ITRT Collaborations:

Work on High School ITRT Team, but collaborate with teachers at all levels
Support both instruction and technology use
Work with teachers in all subject areas
1:1 initiative - secondary students have take-home chromebooks
Consideration of PBL
Technology to facilitate student creation

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Our Foundation:

Foundations for the Future Class

Our writing goals:

Process over product
Authentic writing experiences
Student voice and choice
Student creation (non-digital and digital)
Building a community

of writers

Writing process as recursive

rather than linear

View the course flyer

Overview of this non-traditional class:

3-credit class (Reading, English 10, Study Skills)
150 minutes, every other day
Students from 4 high schools
4 ITRTs (former English teachers)
Student Requirements

MTC enrolled
10th grade
Completed application
Most from Developmental Reading in 9th grade

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Sample

Warm-ups

Daily Writing

The Beginnings of Authentic Writing

First Nine Weeks Portfolio

Sample

Student

Responses

For their portfolios at the end of each grading period, students could choose from these pieces they had worked on previously.

“Writing four major essays simply doesn't offer enough time immersed in the art of crafting words and sentences. Improvement in writing is grounded in practice, in getting words on the page—lots of them. There are no shortcuts. A ‘four big essays approach’ stifles young writers. Worse, it ensures they will never become excellent writers.”

“Giving Students the Right Kind of Writing Practice - Educational Leadership.” Ascd.Org, 2018, www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr18/vol75/num07/Giving-Students-the-Right-Kind-of-Writing-Practice.aspx. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.

Backward Design

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Questions to Consider about Daily Writing

Typing vs. Writing

Writing WITH Students

Sharing Our Writing WITH Students

Small Pieces of Writing

Benefits of an Ongoing Google Doc

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What worked for us:

Instructing revision (more than editing)

Model writing/collaborative revision
Scaffolding toward student creation of list of focuses for revision

Prioritizing student choice of focuses for revision

Writing Portfolios: Owning the Revision Process

Students marking the revisions through highlighting and identification in commenting (communicating their thinking)
Commenting WHILE they’re writing
Managing, instructing, and assessing through Rubrics

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Portfolio Piece Template

Writing Portfolios: Owning the Revision Process

Portfolio- Student Submission

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Building a Research Foundation

Power of Google Doc via Schoology or Google Classroom

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The Process of Writing

(Recursive, Active, Collaborative, Tech Integrated)

Irvin, Lennie. “Writing Process.” Lirvin.Net, 2019, www.lirvin.net/WGuides/wprocess.htm. Accessed 9 Dec. 2019.

“. . . writing isn't a neat set of steps to follow but a complex organic act of creation. Rather than saying the writing process has "stages," we might describe the process better to say it involves "phases" that we might cycle and recycle through numerous times in the course of writing any single piece of writing.”

Lennie Irvin

→ Design Thinking (Stanford)

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Sentence Variety Activity

Tool→ Google Drawing

Tool→ Google Doc

Digital Handout→ Heartbeat Activity (Drawing)

Excerpts→ Heartbeat Activity (Doc)

Narrative Essay

Model → Teacher-written Draft

Student Work → Student Narrative (Voice Typing in Google Docs, Grammarly)

Assignment Sheet → Personal Narrative

Annotation

Tool→ Nearpod

Student Work→ Annotating Novel Passage

Considering Point of View

Assignment Sheet→ From a Dwarf's Point of View

Tool→ Green Screen/DoInk

Model→ Life and Death of a Pumpkin

Student Work→ From a Dwarf’s Point of View (Draft/Doc)

Student Work→ Video Project (Green Screen)

Poetic Robots

Tool → Spheros

Activity Sheet → Sphero activity

→ View Photos

Design Challenge

Assignment Sheet → Design Challenge

Materials List→ Design Kit

Student Work → Design Challenge - Doc

→ View Photos

Writing Dialogue

Assignment Sheet → Writing Dialogue

Student Work → Dialogue practice (tied in to a portfolio piece)

The Process of Writing

(Recursive, Active, Collaborative, Tech Integrated)

Powerful Passages

Model and Student Work → Found Poetry - Student Work

→ View Photos

Sphero activity (Winter Olympics) - builds community, encourages problem solving, introduces coding
Sphero activity (Poetry Race) - solidifies concepts for future writing, requires collaboration, team building, and communication; requires application of concepts to poetry
Nearpod for Annotation - encourages active reading and annotation for a purpose; provide passages from engaging texts and ask students to annotate independently and then to share their annotations with the class (use interactive board) with discussion
Design Challenge - students (in small groups) receive boxes full of materials; they design something of their choice and then write directions to build their creation; they exchange directions and try to build other group’s creation; they provide feedback on the directions and where they had difficulty; initial group revises
Model Paper - teacher shares the draft of a narrative with class; then, teacher models reflecting on his/her paper and soliciting feedback for revision from the class; focus on figurative and sensory language (previous focus of activities) and on shifting from editing comments to revision
Student Narrative - students complete the table on the Google Doc, which walks them through the process we modeled
Heartbeat Activity - student a provided excerpt from one of several stories we’ve read together; they count the words per sentence and then chart the number of words to assess the health of the “heartbeat” of the story; emphasizes sentence variety
Life and Death of a Pumpkin, From a Dwarf’s Point of View - show video “Life and Death of a Pumpkin”; discuss how the author builds tone and shifts perspective to an unusual point of view; after reading the original “Snow White,” students work together to choose a NEW dwarf and rewrite the story from his/her point of view; then, use green screen (DoInk) to film their stories
Found Poetry - Student Work - model (slide 1) choosing a powerful passage from SSR book and transforming it into found poetry; students do the same with their SSR books on subsequent slides
Dialogue practice - after completing group activity and individual practice reviewing the rules of dialogue, students choose a passage from their own daily writing and add dialogue to that passage

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Passion Projects

Tool→ Prezi

Planning Doc→ Passion Project

Student Work→ Narrative

Student Work→ Poem

Student Work→ Prezi

Student Work→ Google Slide show + link

→ View Photos

The Product of Writing

Emphasizing Choice

Providing Choice with Technology

After students have experience with technology tools, provide this website to facilitate choice: bit.ly/checktheseoptions

Historical Fiction

Tool→ WriteReader

Tool→ Chatterpix

Student Work→ Berlin Wall (Adobe Spark Page)

Student Work→ September 11 (Weebly)

Narrative Writing

Tool → Storyboard That

Student Work→ Before the Story ("The Witch Door" & "All in a Summer's Day")

20% Time

Tool→ Weebly (Reflections in Student Blogs)

Assignment/Overview→ 20% Time Project Presentation

Novel Extension and Research Pairing

Tool→ Adobe Spark (Video and Page)

Assignment/Planning Document→In the Shoes of a Refugee

Student Work→Waleed's Story-Macedonia (Adobe Spark Page)

Student Work→ Waleed's Story (Adobe Spark Video)

Novel Analysis

Tool→ Adobe Spark Page

Assignment Sheet→ The Great Gatsby Color Project

Student Work→ Gold (Adobe Spark Page)

Passion Project - first iteration of PBL during first 9 weeks of class; we spent several days talking about curiosity and 20% time/Google time and self-efficacy, brainstorming ideas, and determining projects
20% time - presentation detailing Jen’s year-long 20% time project in the English classroom
Storyboard That - telling a story through a different medium; students told stories by using panels, characters, and visuals with some text based on a story we read as a class
Gatsby Color Analysis - students used resources to analyze the appearance of different colors through The Great Gatsby in teams; then, they wrote (using images) in Adobe Spark; they had the choice of using Page or Video
In the Shoes of a Refugee - our class read Alan Gratz’s Refugee (a Global Read Aloud pic); they researched different locations that appeared in the book as the character Mahmoud and his family fled their home; they blended their research, their understanding of the book/character, and their imaginations to create Adobe Spark Pages OR Videos
Historical Fiction - students researched a time period and created historical narratives by creating characters and plots within the time period; they had choices in how their final product would be presented (Adobe Spark, Weebly, WriteReader, Chatterpix, Weebly Blog)

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Multi-Genre Projects

Collaborative Student Work → American Teenager Website

Assignment Website → Sexism Multi-Genre Project Website (with Assignment)

Student Work → Multi-genre Project Google Site

Assignment Sheet → Multi-genre Assignment Handout (What Is Your Truth? example)

The Product of Writing

Considering Audience

Podcasts

Assignment Sheet → Podcast Assignment

Student Work → Podcast (embedded in blog)

Student Work → Podcasts re: Supreme Court cases

Blogs

Assignment Document → Blog Assignment

Student Work → Student Blog (and Embedded Podcast)

Portfolios

Student Work→ Economic Sites

Memoirs

Student Work → Student Memoir (Adobe Spark Page) - Embedded in students’ Weebly websites

Power/Passion Projects

Collaborative Student Work → Power Projects (20% Time Class Google Site)

Performance Assessments

Assignment→ Vlog

Blog Assignment - students maintained (during two of four nine-weeks terms) public blogs for application of skills from the course; students had free choice over all topics and styles; emphasis here was on developing unique student voice and style
Podcast Assignment - after sampling multiple podcasts, students created their own podcasts--individually or in partners--about topics of their choice; they embedded their podcasts in their blogs
Economics Portfolio - students create an ongoing portfolio to demonstrate their knowledge of concepts as they are presented throughout the year; students reflect at the end of each term on their progress and go back to revise based on teacher’s comments and their reflection
Podcasts - in their Government class, students researched Supreme Court cases and then wrote and recorded podcasts sharing vital and interesting information; more than one group of students recorded podcasts about each case, so students had choices about which to listen to, which provided real-time feedback about success in reaching an audience
Student Memoir - students read memoirs independently; the class discussed them at various points throughout reading; students pulled model examples from the memoirs and used those as inspiration for their own memoirs; they build websites in Weebly and embedded their memoirs in those websites
Power Projects (20% Time Class Google Site) - along with their reading of The Hate U Give/All American Boys, student groups developed projects to affect their community’s understanding of equity and/or diversity; each group created a Google Site, including proposal, reflection, and data--these are all gathered in the class Google Site
Sexism Multi-genre Project - as part of their study of sexism, students in this AP English 11 course each created a Google Site containing multiple genres centered on a central focus related to sexism
American Teenager Website - collaborative multi-genre website (built in Google Sites); as culmination of consideration of “Defining the American Teenager” unit, students--in teams--build one page per characteristic; each page contains multiple genres considering how that characteristic defines the modern American teenager

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Access information about these creation tools⬇ at bit.ly/checktheseoptions

Breakouts

Context Clues → Google Drawings

Also check out Voice Typing in Google Docs (Tools→ Voice Typing)

RCPS STEM Website → bit.ly/rcpsstem

Other Tips, Tricks, & Tools

We used a variety of tools and platforms to facilitate student creation and student choice.

Click the links to learn more.

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Growing Real Writers

Using Technology to Emphasis Process and Authentic Writing Experiences

Tim Reger

Instructional Technology Resource Teacher

Rockingham County Public Schools

treger@rockingham.k12.va.us

@regeritrt (Twitter)

Jen Moyers

Instructional Technology Resource Teacher

Rockingham County Public Schools

jmoyers@rockingham.k12.va.us

@jen.loves.books (Insta) / @jenlovesbooks2 (Twitter)

Access the Presentation at bit.ly/growwriters

PDF with Presenter Notes

Thank you!

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Credits

Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:

Presentation template and backgrounds by SlidesCarnival
Photographs by Unsplash

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