Creating Agentive Writers with Technology in the Elementary

ClassroomChase Young, Ph.D.

Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi

PPT available for download at thebestclass.org

Conferring with an Avatar Students use text to speech software

to engage in self-revision. Promoting Peer-Revision through

Blogging Students post their writing on

classroom blogs, and use comments from their peers for revision.

Overview

Inspiration for Research

The writing process has changed due to access to digital tools (Yancy, 2009).

Dalton (2010) suggests that teachers can use technology in every aspect of writer’s workshop.

Bogard & McMackin (2012) describe the use of digital stories with third graders.

Morgan & Smith (2008) share how students use wikis to publish research reports for a wider audience.

Stover and Young (in press) examine the use of VoiceThread for peer revision and editing.

Olthouse (2012) suggests that students can use Web 2.0 tools during the each aspect of writing process, including planning, drafting, revising, and publishing.

Some Relevant Research

1. Choose an avatar on Voki.com Type in story or paragraph 2. Listen to it 3. Listen again while reading along 4. Revise

Voki.com

Conferring with an Avatar

1. Set up Kidblog 2. Students publish writing 3. Students comment* on peer’s

writing 4. Students make changes 5. Repeat

Kidblog.org

Blogging with Friends

Please reorder your sentences to make more sense.

Can you please add more detail about… I want to know more about… Can you please tell me more about… Can you please spell _______ like _______? Can you please capitalize ________?

Teach Commenting

“Rachels misson is to help people and kids in hadi to build them houses and raise money to build them and do that.To raise all the money she goes to her schools football games and asks pepole if they want to make a donation.And i bet she makes a lot of money to make all the houses.To help the kods before she makes all the houses she helps the kids by giving food and water to survive  and she helps them learn.Once she earns all the money to build the houses but first she has to find people to help her build the houses and once she finishes building the houses all the children can live in them.”

Example: First Post

“tell more about the house and how it helps the children and what about there parents.”

Example: Comment

Rachels misson is to help people and kids in hadi to build them houses and raise money to build them and do that.To raise all the money she goes to her schools football games and asks pepole if they want to make a donation.And i bet she makes a lot of money to make all the houses.To help the kids before she makes all the houses she helps the kids by giving food and water to survive  and she helps them learn.Once she earns all the money to build the houses but first she has to find people to help her build the houses and once she finishes building the houses all the children can live in them.The kids were homeless and needed homes thats why rachel built the houses.Her parents helped her a lot to raise the money.She builds the houses with the money she earned the people in hadi are now all happy and have homes.She helps the kids learn by teaching them like addition and subtraction and some stuff in science the parents are poor to so they share the food all together with the whole family

Example: “Current” Version

Results

Table 1. Comparison of Students’ Pre- and Post-Writing Scores (n = 18)

Item Pretest Meana

Posttest Meana Zb

Asymptotic Sig. (2 Tailed)

Effect Sizec

Writing Score 2.56 3.19 3.07 .002 .51

Final Dedication

Bogard, J. M. & McMackin, M. C. (2012). Combining traditional and new literacies in a 21st-century writing workshop. The Reading Teacher, 65(5), 313-323.

Common Core State Standards Initiative (2010). Common Core State Standards for English

Language Arts & literacy. Washington, DC: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Offices.

Dalton, B. (2012). Multimodal composition and the common core state standards. The Reading Teacher, 66(4), 333–339

Ferris, D. (1995). Teaching Students to Self-Edit. TESOL Journal, 4(4), 18-22. Fletcher, R. & Portalupi, J. (2001). Writing workshop: The essential guide.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing

of adolescents in middle and high schools. Washington, DC: Alliance for excellent education.

Kindzierski, C. M. M. (2009). "I like it the way it is!": Peer-revision writing strategies for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Preventing School Failure, 54(1), 51-59.

Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2003). New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom Practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

Laru, J., Naykki, P., & Jarvela, S. (2012). Supporting Small-Group Learning Using Multiple Web 2.0 Tools: A Case Study in the Higher Education Context. Internet And Higher Education, 15(1), 29-38.

References and Bibliography

Morgan, B. & Smith, R. D. (2008). A wiki for classroom writing. The Reading Teacher, 62(1), 80-82.

National Commission on Writing. (2003,April). The neglected R: The need for a writing revolution. Retrieved July 31, 2006, from http://www.writingcommission.org/report.html

Olthouse, J. (2012). Teaching Talented Writers With Web 2.0 Tools. Teaching Exceptional Children, 45(2), 6-14.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9, 5, 1-2. Strauss, S., & Xiang, X. (2006). The Writing Conference as a Locus of Emergent

Agency. Written Communication, 23(4), 355-396. Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem

solving. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines, 17(2), 89-100. doi:10.1111/1469-7610.ep11903728

Yancy, K.B. (2009). Writing in the 21st century. Ohio Journal of English Language Arts, 49(2), 70-79.

References and Bibliography