Teaching Writing Part 2: Offering Students an... This post was written by Evan Wolkenstein, a ClassDojo Thought Partner who tweets regularly at evanwolkenstein and blogs at magnetiCClassroom.com. This is part 2 of a 3 part series. Read part 1, here. Maybe you’re lucky, and you have a curriculum that includes teaching students how to organize thoughts, how to ensure that you’ve backed up your ideas — most likely, it’s all part of a unit on how to write an outline. And maybe you also have a golden Lamborghini and a pair of boots that can fly. Students often do not know how to organize their thoughts or write an outline. But what I get often reads more like Kafka’s stream-of-consciousness diary entries. Now, I am not an English Teacher. But I have a background in English Lit. But what about the ideas? One year, a student with some learning differences bombed an essay test she should have thrived on. Sure. The next time we had an essay exam, I gave her an outline in advance, and she thrived. But what about the other students? No! Someday.
Home | Write About This Writing Prompts, Blogging Prompts, Story Topic Generators, Photo Inspiration Writing : Creative Writing & Blogging Prompts Topic Starters, Picture Prompts, and Thought-Provoking Questions for You to Answer "The best learning comes in the doing, and writing from prompts engenders doing."— Judy Reeves Many writers and bloggers seek out articles, prompts, and story starters to get their creative juices flowing. We've also listed recommended resources outside of our domain featuring more free writing prompts, story starters, daily writing exercises, visual art prompts, and writing topic generators. Writing & Photo Prompts, Tools, & Generators on Creativity Portal "Novels, short stories, flash fictions, memoirs, personal narrative and creative nonfiction, even poetry — all have found publication from their start as writing prompts." — Judy Reeves Take Ten for Writers Exercises Get creative with these exercises from Bonnie Neubauer's Take Ten for Writers! Brickstorming Your Legacy Brick What would you write on your legacy brick in 3 lines with 14 characters each?
7 Good Resources for Avoiding, Preventing, and Detecting Plagiarism Thanks to an email from a kind reader I discovered that a couple of the resources about plagiarism that I reviewed in the past are no longer as good as they once were. Therefore, I have created this updated collection of resources for teaching students to how to avoid plagiarism along as well as resources for preventing and detecting plagiarism. Education is the best prevention:Purdue's OWL website is the number one place I refer students and parents to for questions not only about plagiarism, but also for questions about all parts of the writing process.A Magical Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism is an infographic guide created by Kate Hart. Plagiarism Explained by Common Craft. Plagiarism.org, produced by the same people that produce the commercial plagiarism detection software Turn It In, has a free learning center for students and teachers. Plagiarism Checker created as a project for the University of Maryland, is an easy-to-use tool for detecting plagiarism.
8 Strategies for Teaching Academic Language "Change your language and you change your thoughts." -- Karl Albrecht Understanding Academic Language Academic language is a meta-language that helps learners acquire the 50,000 words that they are expected to have internalized by the end of high school and includes everything from illustration and chart literacy to speaking, grammar and genres within fields. Think of academic language as the verbal clothing that we don in classrooms and other formal contexts to demonstrate cognition within cultures and to signal college readiness. Where to Start It would be a mistake to think that academic language is a garbage pail category involving any word, depending on the context. If you are new to incorporating academic language into your lessons, a good place to begin is with Tier 2, high-frequency, general instruction words (such as paraphrase, summarize, predict and justify) that learners need to know for completing an activity, but that are not a lesson's primary learning objective. 1. 2. 3.
Six Alternatives to Book Reports | Education Rethink When I was a kid, I hated book reports. I hated filling out a form describing what I read. I wasn't a fan of artsy crafty alternatives, like cereal box projects or dioramas. What I did love, though, was geeking out on what I read. I loved arguing about who was better, what they should have done, etc. This allows students to explore their favorite trends in books. What makes this fun is that kids get to rethink the role of the setting in the book. I love the notion of universes colliding and characters exploring their shared experiences. I've always thought it would be cool if Ira Glass would interview the entire Weasely family. The antagonist is arrested at the end of the book. Write a review. I have a few other ideas that I've never tested out. Create a TED Talk from the perspective of one of the characters. John Spencer John Spencer is a teacher, author, speaker, and incessant doodler.
3 creative activities for practicing prepositions of place I had to teach prepositions of place the other day and suddenly remembered something that I hadn’t done for years. This can actually be a great grammar point which can be done in class in a really fun way… if you’re willing to get creative. Ok, here we go then with a short description of three fun but easy classroom activities. What do you need? 1. The ‘What’s in the room?’ You can set this activity up very quickly. Find an image of a room with ‘plenty going on’ in it.Get two identical copies of it.Now, imagine the image below is either being projected on to your whiteboard or is on a handout in front of the students.Explain that you will give a sentence and the students need to find the object you mention.All you have to do is give examples: ‘There is a cushion on the bed.’ This is a good one to do to inject a bit of energy into the lesson and to get the creative juices flowing. ELTPics courtesy of @fionamau 2. You can set this activity up just as quickly. ELTPics courtesy of @sandymillin
5 great writing warm up activities... and what they lead to I think you might want to download these activities so you can use them later… so here’s a handy PDF file of this blog post! Warm up activities that get learners writing can be fantastic for getting the creative juices flowing while also giving a focused start to your lesson. A writing task at the start of class can be an effective way of leading into explicit grammar teaching or can just as easily be followed up with speaking activities. What’s more, many such activities are easy to adapt to be suitable for any type of learners, both adults and kids. Indeed, adding an entertaining element to writing activities will make them fun for everyone, as well as making them low pressure tasks which enable learners’ writing to flow freely. Here are five of my favourites. 1. Ok, everyone in the world knows this classic set up: a genie has just granted three wishes to everyone in the class. Where can you take this? 2. You can examine the new adjectives used by the learners. 3. 4. 5.
5 great ice-breakers in 5 days: #1 Where in the World… Welcome back to my blog! Sorry that I appear to have been absent for most of this month, but believe me, I’ve been very busy elsewhere. As well as presenting at the upcoming ISTEK International ELT Conference, I’m delighted to also be part of the social media team, promoting and sharing the whole conference experience with the wider world. This has meant me dealing with almost thirty pre-event interviews with speakers for the conference blog, which has obviously taken up a lot of my blogging time over the past week or so (please have a look at the fruit of my labors here). Anyway, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to refocus on my own blog, and what better way to get back in the saddle than with a blog challenge. Where in the World? In the 21st Century the world is becoming a smaller place, but there are still some mysteries. What you need… A world/country map or globe might help, but you can manage without. How to… Tip… Model the activity yourself so they have an example. Energize…