Designing And Teaching Writing Using Technology

8/13/2019 Designing And Teaching Writing Using Technology

1/3

Teaching Writing: Designing Assignmentsand Using Technology to Complete Them

Dan Melzer and Mark Stoner

Suggestions for Designing Writing Assignments

Give students a clear and explicit sense of purpose. Connect the assignmentexplicitly to course objectives, the students' goals, disciplinary and professionalwriting and thinking, etc.

Consider asking students to wri te for real or hypothetical audiencesbeyond the instructor. Most school writing is to the teacher as audience.Consider creating hypothetical audiences (for example, having students write amemo to the CEO of a company or an article for a business journal), realaudiences (for example, having students keep a business blog), or audiencesthat the students choose themselves.

Make the grading criteria of the assignment clear. Consider using gradingrubrics, listing evaluation criteria in the assignment description, and providingstudents with good and/or poor examples. Match grading criteria with thepurpose of the assignment.

Be clear about what you dont want. Mention possible pitfalls and discuss thekinds of things you dont want them to do in their writing (for example, if you dontwant them to use a specific type of evidence or you dont want them to usepersonal experiences).

Make the conventions of the assignment clear. In the assignment description,mention citation expectations, level of formality required, genre structureconventions, etc.

Account in some way for a revis ing and edit ing process. Consider usingpeer response, responding to drafts or topic proposals, giving students extracredit for visiting the University Reading and Writing Center, breaking large andcomplex assignments into smaller, more manageable stages, etc.


2/3

Teaching Writing Using TechnologyDan Melzer and Mark Stoner

Technology and Composing Resources for Teachers and Students

For individual wri ting

Creating blogshttp://www.blogger.comhttp://wordpress.org/

http://ithacultureblog.wordpress.com (student blog)

http://www.livejournal.com/

Creating websites

http://www.webs.com

http://geocities.yahoo.com

http://www.tripod.lycos.com/

For collaborative writing Wikis:

http://www.wikispaces.com/

Sharing:

google docs (http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ for information)

Brainstorming/invention tools:http://bubbl.us/

http://www.cosketch.com/

http://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.html

Writing Process ResourcesCSUS University Reading and Writing Center

http://www.csus.edu/writingcenter

Son of citation machinehttp://citationmachine.net/index2.php?start=#

Capital Community Collegehttp://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
http://www.blogger.com/http://www.blogger.com/http://wordpress.org/http://wordpress.org/http://ithacultureblog.wordpress.com/http://ithacultureblog.wordpress.com/http://www.livejournal.com/http://www.livejournal.com/http://www.webs.com/http://www.webs.com/http://geocities.yahoo.com/http://geocities.yahoo.com/http://www.wikispaces.com/http://www.wikispaces.com/http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/http://bubbl.us/http://bubbl.us/http://www.cosketch.com/http://www.cosketch.com/http://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.htmlhttp://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.htmlhttp://www.csus.edu/writingcenterhttp://www.csus.edu/writingcenterhttp://citationmachine.net/index2.php?start=http://citationmachine.net/index2.php?start=http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/http://citationmachine.net/index2.php?start=http://www.csus.edu/writingcenterhttp://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.htmlhttp://www.cosketch.com/http://bubbl.us/http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/http://www.wikispaces.com/http://geocities.yahoo.com/http://www.webs.com/http://www.livejournal.com/http://ithacultureblog.wordpress.com/http://wordpress.org/http://www.blogger.com/


3/3

Purduehttp://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.html This is an extensive set ofhandouts explaining everything from how to use a comma to how to write anessay. The listing is thorough and easy to use.

On-line Help for Writing Academic Papershttp://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/home.html

Washington State Universityhttp://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/

Scroll past the book image to the bottom of the page to find an alphabetical list ofcommon writing errors explained in brief notes. Easy to use.

Vocabularyhttp://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

If you can't think of a word you want, but you can describe to what it relates,OneLook's reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list ofwords and phrases related to that concept.

Creating rubrics:http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

Other potentially useful s ites:

Creating online magazines:http://www.openzine.com/aspx/

Creating surveys and polls:http://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/flashlight/index.stm

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

http://polldaddy.com/http://www.pollhost.com/

Social networking/communication tools:http://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/imeet/index.stmhttp://twitter.com/ http://www.skype.com/http://groups.google.com/http://www.facebook.com/

For FunCreating word clouds:http://www.wordle.net/

A document with hot links available at:http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/information
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.htmlhttp://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/home.htmlhttp://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/home.htmlhttp://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtmlhttp://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtmlhttp://rubistar.4teachers.org/http://rubistar.4teachers.org/http://www.openzine.com/aspx/http://www.openzine.com/aspx/http://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/flashlight/index.stmhttp://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/flashlight/index.stmhttp://www.surveymonkey.com/http://www.surveymonkey.com/http://polldaddy.com/http://polldaddy.com/http://www.pollhost.com/http://www.pollhost.com/http://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/imeet/index.stmhttp://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/imeet/index.stmhttp://www.skype.com/http://www.skype.com/http://groups.google.com/http://groups.google.com/http://www.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/http://www.wordle.net/http://www.wordle.net/http://www.wordle.net/http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/informationhttp://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/informationhttp://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/informationhttp://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/informationhttp://www.wordle.net/http://www.facebook.com/http://groups.google.com/http://www.skype.com/http://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/imeet/index.stmhttp://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/imeet/index.stmhttp://www.pollhost.com/http://polldaddy.com/http://www.surveymonkey.com/http://www.csus.edu/atcs/tools/flashlight/index.stmhttp://www.openzine.com/aspx/http://rubistar.4teachers.org/http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtmlhttp://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/home.htmlhttp://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.html

Documents

Designing And Teaching Writing Using Technology