Tricks of the Trade: Infusing Technology in the Middle School Writing Process

1. Tricks of the Trade: Infusing Technology in the Middle School Writing Process Erica Hartman, Sparta Middle School

2. Task Your task today is to explore all of the uses of technology in the writing process, including concept mapping software, digital editing, and online publishing. Using a writing sample, you will use the above technology to brainstorm, edit, proofread, revise, and finally publish a completed piece of prose on the Internet.

3. The Writing Process Brainstorming: the process of generating ideas about a particular idea Prewriting: the process of organizing ideas in preparation for writing Composing: turning the ideas into prose Peer Editing: gaining feedback from another reader on style, construction, ideas, etc. Revising: creating a second draft of the writing piece based on feedback Editing: identifying and correcting errors in grammar, spelling, etc. Publishing: presenting your writing piece to an appropriate audience

4. Brainstorming/Pre-Writing Go to the Inspiration Web site to download a trial copy if you do not have the software. You can kick brainstorming up a notch by teaching students to attach particular graphics and colors to their ideas. As students make higher order decisions about depicting their thoughts in the diagram, their ideas are clarified and they are closer to being able to write.

7. Writing the Rough Draft Composing the draft using Microsoft Word gives the writer the option of saving the rough draft, 2nd draft, and final draft as the same document, but different versions to show progression • Save the current state of a document by using versioning • On the File menu, click Versions. • In the Comments on version box, type descriptive information about the version you're saving. • Note   Because you are archiving document versions, you cannot go back and modify a saved version of a document. Before you can modify an earlier version, you must open that version and use the Save As command to save it as a separate file.

8. Editing A great feature of Microsoft Word is “Insert Comment. ” Students can email you or a peer their rough drafts and you can insert a comment. Click Here for an example. • Type a comment • Select the text or item you want to comment on, or click at the end of the text. • On the Reviewing toolbar, click Insert Comment . • Type the comment text in the comment pane at the bottom of the screen. • Tip   After you've inserted a comment, you can click Close to close the comment pane.

9. Editing • If you or your students are collaborating with other individuals or classes or if you want to see how often they actually revise, you may want to “track changes”. This lets you see how many times they went back to revisit their work.

10. AUTO SUMMARIZE • This feature will automatically highlight key points or topic sentences.

11. How to Check Readability Level • Highlight the text you would like to check. • Before you run Spellcheck, go to Tools, Options, and click on Spelling and Grammar Tab. • Check the box that says, “Show readability statistics”

12. Proofreading and Revision Using a Smartboard and an LCD Projector, ask students to anonymously volunteer to have their draft projected on the screen. They can get simultaneous feedback from teachers and peers in MUGS (mechanics, usage, grammar, and spelling), word choice, sentence structure, etc.

13. Other uses for a Smartboard in the Writing Curriculum Smartboard Stuff Choose Your Own Adventure Teacher’s Guide Magnetic Poetry

14. Digital Publishing Visit one of the sites below to publish your work on-line. Some charge a small, one-time fee, but you can now call yourself a PUBLISHED author! You can create your own web site and publish anything you want for free! http://www.kidpub.org/kidpub/ http://www.writersarea.com/ http://www.cyberkids.com/cw/ http://www.geocities.com/phsmedia/pub.html

15. Any Questions? • Contact me at erica_hartman1@hotmail.com