[Yes I know it's April Fool's Day, I'm not nearly creative enough to actually think of something funny, so here's a regular blog post, lol]
Hi everyone,
I read a blog entry by Richard Byrne this morning, Essay Map – Step by Step Help Constructing Essays, which is extremely timely, since I happen to be working with a ReadWriteThink.com tool this very week in Mrs. Thomas’ third grade class. Here’s a screen shot:
It’s very slick! Flash-powered and easy to use, it generates a full page worksheet with whatever the kids enter. You can’t save it, but you can navigate forward and back until it’s just right, and then print the entire thing in a very nice full-page format, suitable for rewriting into a final draft! If you just want the worksheet, click here!
In our third grade lesson, we are using the ReadWriteThink Printing Press, but my curiosity got the better of me and in a couple of mouse clicks, I ended up on the main “Student Materials” resource list: http://readwritethink.org/student_mat/index.asp. Holy cow! Tons of ideas and tools presented there. It looked familiar though, and sure enough, I found I’d written a post two years ago on it. Oh well, it’s so good, it’s worth another post!
Hope this helps,
-kj-
9 responses so far ↓
1 Greg // Apr 1, 2009 at 11:51 am
I appreciate your enthusiasm for this, and I also find a lot of great stuff on Readwritethink, but I’m not sure I’m so excited about this.
Do we really need yet another method for teaching the five-paragraph essay?
I’m frustrated when technology is used to merely reproduce what we can already do (and sometimes do more quickly and more effectively) with pen and paper. Just because it’s online and uses flash animation doesn’t make it better.
I’m also frustrated with how hard it is to break my high school students of the idea that every essay must be five paragraphs with three body paragraphs each containing three points. It’s an easy way to organize, but it results in lifeless, boring writing. Other than in schools, where do we ever find writing that is done within a five-paragraph format?
2 Greg // Apr 1, 2009 at 11:53 am
Or perhaps your calling this tool AMAZING was, indeed, an April Fool’s joke?
3 Kevin Jarrett // Apr 1, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Hi Greg,
Thanks for commenting. It was no joke; you ask, “Do we really need yet another method for teaching the five-paragraph essay?” My answer: yes, in some schools, we do.
I understand your frustration at tech that isn’t additive or transformative but when you are dealing with reluctant writers, if technology makes the process more engaging, why not?
This tool isn’t intended to be a writing environment, but it works as a brainstorming and organizing tool. Personally, I always learned the most about writing BY writing, the old fashioned way. I don’t teach writing but hope to one day. I see my future in a classroom, not in a computer lab, but am not sure when that might happen. But alas, I digress.
Have to say I can’t imagine how hard it would be to ‘break’ a high school student of habits acquired throughout a lifetime in school. Good luck there and thanks for fighting the good fight.
I will plead guilty to being a little overenthusiastic (!) at times but that’s just my style.
Peace,
-kj-
4 ClareLane // Apr 1, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Puppy Dog!!
5 Marsha Ratzel // Apr 2, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I agree that we may not need another 5 paragraph essay method, but I can definitely use the help in my science classes. This kind of tool could be invaluable to my students who are just learning how to do this in their English class. They struggle to apply what they learn there to my class…and I hear this from most of the content area teachers.
I think a tool like this could help me help my students doing a much better job at writing an expository essay.
6 Kevin Jarrett // Apr 2, 2009 at 5:16 pm
lol @clarelane. ;-)
Marsha, ‘zactly…
7 Sandra Wozniak // Jan 6, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Yikes…what happened to the readwritethink site! It’s gone!!!
8 Kevin Jarrett // Jan 6, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Hi Sandra! What do you mean?
http://www.readwritethink.org/
… works fine here!
-kj-
9 Sandra Wozniak // Jan 6, 2010 at 5:59 pm
yup, it works like magic now! Last night and today we were rerouted to another site….wonder if that is just at school? whew…glad to see it is up again
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