Vincent Kovar is a writer, instructor, editor, and entrepreneur based in Seattle, Washington. An Adjunct Faculty member with both Antioch University and the University of Phoenix, Vincent writes for the Education 3.0 blog at EarnMyDegree.com.

One of the biggest consumptions of teachers’ time is the correcting and grading of writing. As with all instruction, it is important to give the students the maximum amount of feedback but the process of evaluation should also provide a venue for the maximum amount of learning.

It also wouldn’t hurt if teachers didn’t kill themselves with the amount of time they have to put in marking up assignments.

If you’re leaving school even more tired than your students you may want to reconsider your methods. While teaching is tough work, learning should be even more exhausting. If you’re doing all the editing yourself, you are removing half the learning cycle.

Writing and evaluation are two sides of the same coin. To grow as writers, your students must learn to develop an editorial eye by continuously re-engaging each piece of text.

No one (not even famous writers), gets everything right the first time.

For your students to receive the maximum benefit from the writing process (and for you to retain some sense of sanity), peer editing should be an integral part of your instructional design.

To create an effective peer editing environment first you must create a rubric that targets the objectives for each assignment. This rubric may be based on the classic 6-traits: http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001707.shtml, but it should always include additional details and examples of both good and poor writing.

It’s helpful to include a list of the most common errors: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/easywriter3e/20errors/.

Provide plenty of room for positive comments and train your students in what positive, helpful (yet honest) feedback looks like. It’s also good idea to make these sheets a different color.

Then, have the class follow these four steps:

1. Have the students exchange papers and evaluate each other’s work using the colored rubric sheets. It is always hard to edit one’s own work so exchanging papers gives each writer a fresh pair of eyes and it also allows them the new perspective in which to apply their editorial skills.
2. The students should put their own name as the “editor” at the top of the colored feedback sheets that they fill-out. The editorial process should be viewed as its own assignment.
3. When the editor finds an error, they should not only mark it but find a relevant reference in their text that explains why this is an error and how to fix it.
4. Based on the feedback they receive, have the student writers correct their own papers. When they turn the assignment in to you they should staple or clip together (a) the revised paper and (b) the editing sheet they received with a classmate’s name on it.

The students each receive two sets of points.

The first set of scores is for their own (corrected) work and the second for the editing they performed. Remember, this second set of points is for the peer review they gave, not the one they received.

This second score is based on two things:

• The thoroughness and usefulness of their editing
• The final product of their writing partner

If a student turns in an assignment which does not correct the errors their partner identified, he or she loses points. However, if the writer turns in work which contains errors not identified in the peer-edit, the editor also loses points. The writer and editor are a team.

Bear in mind that the editorial process should take at least as long as the writing process. The first couple rounds may be slow going but quite quickly, the learning will gear up to progress faster than you ever thought possible.

Use the combined feedback to plan future lessons. If you see certain errors cropping up repeatedly (for either the writer or editors) assign supplemental worksheets for the individual teams.

Aside from the reduced workload on the teacher and the increased speed of writing improvement, peer-editing has several other advantages:

• Strong editors will become highly sought after by their peers.
  
  
• Thoroughness and attention to detail will become traits of positive competition in the classroom.
  
  
• Students will have their work completed more often. While they may have excuses ready for a teacher, students are less likely to give (or accept) them with their peers.
  
  
• Peer editing is a skill highly desired by employers and one that is used in higher education.
  
  
• The process increases autonomy and self-directed improvement as a life-long skill.

Once the process gets going, teachers will find their grading time dramatically cut and they will be able to spend that time giving more sustentative feedback with less focus on mechanical errors and sloppy proofreading.

Decades of educational research support the use of peer editing. Studies have shown that peer editing not only increases overall fluency more than control groups which did not use the technique but it’s been linked to improved reading comprehension as well.

Remember, teachers should be coaches, not crutches. Doing the all the revision for your students isn’t helping them learn, it’s depriving them of half the process. Use peer editing. Send your students home tired and send yourself home sane.

Taking writing courses can help writing teachers become better writers, mentors, and readers. There are several free university level writing courses that can be taken online. Credit is not available for any of the courses and degrees are not awarded, but the opportunity to build new skills is undeniable. Here are 10 self-paced writing courses to explore in your spare time.

Creative Writing Course - The University of Utah's Department of English offers a creative writing course that covers fiction, poetry, playwriting, and creative non-fiction. The course is designed to provide general information about creative writing and improve writing skills.

Short Fiction Course - This short fiction course consists of pre-recorded class content from a writing course at the College of DuPage. You will listent to readings of several pieces of short fiction (The Necklace, A Rose for Emily, The Rocking Horse Winner, and The Chrysanthemums) as well as discussion on each story to facilitate understanding of the short story form.

Poetry Course - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) provides a free course on reading and writing poetry. The course includes assignments, recorded poetry readings, and reading recommendations.

Advanced Writing Seminar - This post-graduate seminar, also from MIT, explores different types of writing. The course includes lecture notes, a full set of assignments, and videos of student presentations. From the course description: "The class is an opportunity to write, review, rewrite and present a point of view both orally and in written form. "

Prose Fiction Course - This Open University course focuses on different ways of approaching prose fiction. The course is designed to help students learn how to read and analyze writing at the university level.

Screenwriting Course - Author and screenwriter Steve Barnes provides a slightly modified version of the nine-week screenwriting course he used to teach at the University of California-Los Angeles. The course includes both instruction and assignments.

Literature in English - This course from the University of California-Berkeley surveys major works in Anglo-American literature and includes lectures on close reading. The course is available in audio form and includes 28 lectures.

Warwick Writing Challenges - The director of the University of Warwick Writing Programme guides writers through more than 20 creative writing challenges. Each challenge can be played online or downloaded as an mp3 file. These challenges are also great practice for writing students.

Writing Tools Workshop - News University offers this course to visitors who register for a free account. The course introduces 50 writing tools to diagnose story problems, improve story architecture, and refine the writing voice. This course is based on Roy Peter Clark's great book Writing Tools which can be purchased from Amazon and is highly recommended for any writer or writing teacher.

Text as Property - Available through Connexions, this Rice University course explores ownership, authorship, plagiarism, and associated topics. The course is split into three parts and can be downloaded as a PDF or zip file. As the course introduction asks, do you know when plagiarism is art and when it's a crime?

Writing on scientific subjects and topics is a little different from creative writing. You don’t really need to be adept at weaving words with skill. In fact, if you can pay attention to detail, if you are knowledgeable enough about the subject, and if you have the dedication for the job, you could easily learn to become a good science writer. Teaching someone to write for science involves training them in the three Cs – good science write-ups must be:

• Concise: You’re not writing 1000 word essays on any random topic; rather, you have the responsibility of stating the facts in a way that is clear and concise. Your writing has to be to the point and not include ramblings about your personal thoughts and opinions. Science is all about facts and there’s no room for romanticism or the abstract in science writing. If you’re asked to write about a rainbow, given a free hand, you would wax eloquent on its many colors and how it signified all that was good and beautiful about life. But a science writer has to strip off the rose-tinted glasses and reduce the colors of the rainbow to what they really are – the dispersal of the light spectrum under certain environmental and atmospheric conditions.
• Comprehensible: Any science writing course worth its salt will tell you that your writing must be easily understood, even by someone who knows just how to read. For science to reach the masses, it must be put in words and sentences that are simple, straightforward and not complicated. Restrict the use of bombastic words and expressions and stick to when is comprehensive and easily understandable.
• Correct: And most important of all, science writing must be factually correct. Although all forms of writing must be grammatically correct to be aesthetically pleasing to the senses, when it comes to science writing, the biggest mistake you could make is to get your facts wrong. When you mix up your facts and make errors, your writing is worthless, because science is all about accuracy and preciseness.

Teaching a science writing course involves instilling these characteristics in your students’ writing. If they can crack the three Cs, they’re well on their way to becoming good science writers. 

By Karren Colbert

Karren Colbert has a decade of teaching experience, both in and out of the classroom. She's been a fourth grade teacher, reading specialist, instructional coach, and most recently started Write Brained Learning, an educational consulting company. She also blogs at The Write Brained Teacher. (www.writebrainedteacher.blogspot.com) She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Missouri and a Master of Curriculum and Instruction degree, also from the University of Missouri.  In 2005, Karren was recognized as the University of Missouri Alumni Association’s Outstanding Young Professional.

"It feels like spoonfeeding," was the complaint of one teacher as we met to discuss her students' writing progress.  Her second graders had progressed tremendously since the last time we met, yet she was reluctant to celebrate and discouraged by the high level of support they required along the way.

Little did this teacher know that I was in the midst of spoonfeeding my youngest daughter and suffice it to say, it was not going well.  I thought about her comparison.  Spoonfeeding was a perfect metaphor for good instruction.  Just as no two classrooms are the same, so too were my experiences with spoonfeeding.  Natalie, my older daughter, eager for independence, could hardly wait to take matters into her own hands.  Emily, well let's just say that there were moments when I wondered if she would ever feed herself. 

"Is that such a bad thing?" I asked the teacher.

The problem, the teacher explained, was that most of her students had written their piece using complete sentences.  Since this had been the topic of our previous conversation, I was anxious to hear more.  She reflected that the strategies she had put in place were working well.  So far, so good, I thought.  I wasn't sure why this teacher was so disappointed.  Her students were successful as a direct result of her instructional changes.

"It just took so much time and I feel like they should be able to do it without so much help," was her reply.

And what could I say?  She was right, good teaching takes time and this can be frustrating.  As much as I wanted Emily to hold that spoon on her own, she couldn't.  But she did teach me that we have to meet learners where they are if we want to move them, step by step, toward independence.  We can't know when they will finally try to hold the spoon for themselves.  All we can do is follow their cues so that we know when it's time to let them try.  And when this happens, we should expect carrots to end up on the floor, ceiling, and everywhere in between.  If you like things nice and tidy, as I do, there's comfort in the fact that there is learning in the mess.

The gradual progression toward independence, with decreasing levels of teacher support, has a name.  The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model, first developed by Pearson & Gallagher (1993), is a research based instructional model that outlines the process necessary to promote independent application of a skill.  The teacher gradually decreases his or her support as students' demonstrate success.  If necessary, the teacher increases the level of support when students are struggling.

For some reason, writing is seems to be an area where we sometimes abandon the Gradual Release Model.  In my experiences, writing instruction often consists of a quick mini-lesson, followed by time to write independently, in hopes that students apply the learning to their own piece of writing.  This is a bit like showing a baby how to use a spoon, explaining why we use spoons, and then letting them fend for themselves.  We need all students to notice and practice what good writers do.  It is not enough to help them notice a craft or trait and send them back to their seats, hoping they will try it.

If we want to ensure that students begin to apply new crafts and skills, we can apply the Gradual Release Model to our writing instruction with the Notice It, Practice It, Try It framework.  We begin in the Notice It phase by helping students identify the qualities of effective writing.  The 6+1 Traits define what good writers do, but research tells us that our feedback is most useful it's focused on a particular skill. So when we Notice It, we pick one specific skill or craft and use mentor texts to help students identify how a writer does, or does not, effectively use the skill.

The next stage, Practice It, combines Guided Instruction and Collaborative Practice steps of the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model.  During this phase, the teacher utilizes the strategies of Shared Writing and Collaborative Writing.  Let me first define what I mean by these terms, since they mean different things to different people and are sometimes used interchangeably.  We'll define Shared Writing as a class working together, with the guidance of the teacher, to create or revise a piece of writing.  Shared Writing encourages risk taking, provides students with feedback, and allows teachers to evaluate students' readiness for collaborative practice.  Based on student interactions, the teacher can confidently decide who is ready to move on, as well as which students would benefit from additional guided practice.  The next step, Collaborative Writing, is when students work in groups or pairs to practice the skill.  Together, Shared Writing and Collaborative Writing comprise the Practice It phase of our instructional framework for writing.

The final state, Try It, has students performing the skill on their own; often editing a piece that they have previously written.

The follow writing lesson provides an example of the Notice It, Practice It, Try It instructional framework.

Skill Focus: Using Specific Nouns (Word Choice Trait)

The purpose of this skill focus is to have students use specific nouns instead of more general ones. For example you would write, "I ate a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich" instead of, "I ate lunch."

Notice It (Mentor Text)

Students will analyze two writing samples using Word Choice Trait criteria to determine what each writer does effectively or ineffectively.  The proficient writing sample, 'A&W', demonstrates the writers' ability to use specific and precise nouns.  The other example, 'My Trip to Colorado', contains general nouns.  Both samples were written by students, but not the same students who will analyze them.  Students will work in pairs to revise 'My Trip to Colorado' in the Practice It step.

Practice It (Shared Writing and Collaborative Writing)

Shared Writing: The class has been working on a descriptive piece about their field trip to the Nature Center where they built bird houses.  They've created a complete draft and are now in the revising stage.  Together they will choose at least three nouns to replace with more specific nouns.  For example, they might replace tools with hammer and nails. 

Collaborative Writing: Students will work in pairs to revise a piece of writing by replacing at least three general nouns.  If necessary, the teacher will meet with a small group of students during this time to provide additional support and practice with the activity, but he or she may also move about the room and provide feedback to collaborative groups. 

Try It (Independent Application)

Students will revise their own piece of writing by replacing at least three general nouns with more specific nouns.

Why Collaborative Writing?

Sometimes we tend to think that older students don't need Shared or Collaborative Writing, but this couldn't be further from the truth.  In fact, I use Shared Writing and Collaborative Writing with learners of all ages, including teachers.  Time after time, teachers tell me how much fun it was writing collaboratively with their peers.   Not only does it make the learning more fun, but the end product is better. 

If we can provide our writers the same positive experiences and small successes, it won't be long before teachers hear the phrase, currently popular in our home, "I can do it myself!"

Resources:

1. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey (www.fisherandfrey.com) are recognized as experts on The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model. 
2. The Writing Fix www.writingfix.com This site, sponsored by the Northwest Regional Educational Library, is a great place to find information about trait writing, mentor texts, and lesson ideas. 
3. At www.thetraits.org, also by Northwest Regional Educational Library, you'll find writing samples to use as Mentor Texts with students.

Students at Mt. Hope High School scored especially poorly on free response questions on standardized tests, resulting in only 19% reaching proficient or above.

School leaders worked with teachers to create cross discipline writing assignments for HS Sophomores. Included in the work was for teachers to assess how well other teachers were grading the student assignments. Teachers commented that this was some of the best professional development they had ever received.

In less than one year, the school showed a gain from 19% proficient to 27%. While still not where they want it, teachers are hopeful that another year will show even larger gains.

Slides

Writing Assessment

by Dona Young

The following is a preview of The Writing Teacher free webinar that will be offered on Thursday, September 24 at 2:00 Eastern time. In this webinar, Dona Young will explore teaching solutions for at-risk students. The address for the webinar is here, but this event is now full. Please let us know if you want us to repeat it at a later date. For more from Dona on teaching writing, see The Writer's Tookit.

Even good writers have trouble facing a blank page. To students who consider themselves non-writers, writing presents a constant stream of hurdles: writing feels like an infinite challenge with no tangible road to progress—good writing is a mystery, and confronting the unknown can wear down even the best of us.  

For example, when at-risk students write a paper, feedback about even their most simple errors can reach beyond their understanding. Let’s take "Suzie" as an example. One Friday afternoon at the end of the first week of a writing skills class, Suzie came up to my desk; she was crying. My first thought was, "Oh my gosh, what did I say to hurt Suzie?" So I asked, "Suzie, what’s wrong?"

Suzie responded, "Ms. Young, all through high school I kept hearing about subjects and verbs, and I really never knew what my teachers were talking about until now. I feel so relieved that I finally understand and don’t have to pretend anymore."

Though Suzie was a very bright student, writing had felt overwhelming for her; she didn’t know what to do or where to begin to improve. And clearly her teachers tried to help her, but even the most basic feedback about her mistakes went right over her head. While Suzie could write clear and complete sentences most of the time, she couldn’t write them all of the time; and when she didn’t write correctly, she couldn’t grasp what was wrong. Suzie didn’t understand what a sentence was; as a result, the words "run-on" and "fragment" were illusive to her.

Though Suzie’s sudden insight about her skills was unique, her confusion was not: other students feel equally as lost, and sometimes their teachers feel that way too. Suzie taught me a great deal that afternoon; in fact, whenever I listen to my students, they always teach me important lessons.

One way of listening to students is getting an accurate assessment of their skills and how they feel about learning, so let’s start by taking a look at some formal and informal methods of getting feedback.

1. Become an action researcher: use quantitative and qualitative measures in your design.

• Qualitative feedback—a constant and steady stream of it—helps us connect with students’ learning needs and their perceptions about learning.

Technology has given us the perfect way to check in with our students regularly. Send your students an e-mail asking them how they are doing in class and requesting that they respond with a process memo. In a process memo, your students discuss what they are learning and how they are feeling about what they are learning.

You can also ask your students to attach a process memo to revisions: they describe their process, their corrections, and what they learned. By doing a process memo, they are discussing the changes that they made in their writing; verbalizing what they are learning helps makes them more conscious of their actions and brings them to a higher level.  

A way to get qualitative feedback from the whole class is by doing a chalkboard evaluation. The simplest way is simply to say, "How are things going?" and then write their comments on the board. A more structured method would be to use the start / stop / continue format. Ask your students:

• What is going well in class and that you want to continue?
• What is something that you wish we would start doing?
• What is something that you wish we would stop doing?

Once again, as students give their feedback, write it on the board. Asking students for their feedback makes them feel more connected and respected.

• Quantitative measures give us an accurate idea of what our students know and, more importantly, what they don’t know.  

If you don’t already give your students a pretest, consider using one. By giving a post-test at the end of the semester, your students can see their individual improvement and you can see their aggregate improvement. You can use this information to gain insights into your students’ skill profiles.

Once you have their pretest scores, use the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to gain insight into what your students’ scores mean and how to design your curriculum to meet their needs.   

2. Use the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to identify learning gaps.

The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives breaks learning objectives into six hierarchical levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

By using the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to interpret student skill profiles, we can understand why some students work so hard and make so little progress: when students do not comprehend the basics, higher-level objectives are out of reach, beyond their understanding.

In other words, Suzie could correct mistakes once a teacher pointed them out and coached her, but her pattern of errors continued because she had not learned the basic principle at the core of her mistakes. Suzie knew that she didn’t understand something basic, but she couldn’t verbalize what it was—that is, until she finally learned the core principle that gave her insight and enabled her to fill that specific learning gap. Filling the learning gap also meant that she could now correct a pattern of errors, not just isolated mistakes, which is much more rewarding.

How Suzie felt about writing was also an important element of the learning environment, so let’s take a look at how to address feelings and beliefs that hold students back. 

3. Embrace the feelings and experiences behind the belief, "I can’t write."

Students who can’t write know that they have challenges. They also believe they are unique; in other words, they do not understand that writing is difficult for everyone. As Suzie revealed, she tried to pretend that she understood, hiding it as much as she could from her teachers.

One activity that you can use to open up this dynamic is to have a popcorn discussion about the topic, "What is difficult about writing?" Simply write the question on the board, and then have students share the details about what they find difficult. As students randomly and spontaneously give their responses, write snip-its on the board. Here are some of the responses that you can expect:

getting started, having ideas evaporate before they hit the page, using grammar and punctuation correctly, spelling, writing an introduction, being too wordy, getting off topic, writing a conclusion, and the list goes on.

In addition to opening up the energy in the classroom, everything that your students share gives you insight into how to structure their learning.

As a follow-up, consider giving your students an assignment entitled, "My History as a Writer," in which they give details about how they complete a writing assignment, the kinds of feedback they have received, and so on. Allow students to choose whatever title fits their story. One student asked me if he could use the title, "Why I Don’t Write." Since that time, I have used that title as an example, encouraging students to be honest about their experiences with writing and their feelings about it. (As part of their 1 ½ to 2-page paper, also encourage them to write about what is good about writing after they gotten past the challenging aspects of writing.)  

When your students return to class with their assignment, break them into pairs and have them read their papers out loud to each other. One of the lessons that they glean from this assignment is that they are not alone in their frustrations with writing—everyone has challenges and fears.

Writing at its best is messy, so let’s talk about the process. 

4. Focus on the process.

Writing is a process, but most students do not understand the process because they are overly consumed with the product: getting the grade, meeting the expectations, being good enough, not looking stupid, and getting words down perfectly.

When I ask a group of students, "How many of you try to get the words right in your head before you put them on the page?," generally more than half of them raise their hands. When I ask them if they think that is the right approach, once again the majority generally raise their hands. But in every class, a few students say they write whatever is on their minds, and that’s a good thing.

Clearly, most students do not know the difference between composing and editing—one of the most critical dividing lines to apply on the road to building writing skills.

Though they have learned brainstorming techniques, they may have forgotten about them. After we do a mind-map together, students are excited that they have a tool that captures their ideas on the page before their ideas evaporate. Teaching students the difference between composing and editing is exciting; but after they know the difference, the follow-through to compose freely is up to them (with periodic coaching, of course).

However, editing is another issue altogether, and more of my students have editor’s block than writer’s block. Students who have editor’s block are the ones who finish a draft and don’t know what to correct: they hold their breath as they hand in their papers and then wait for their teacher’s feedback. For students who don’t know how to edit, "first and final draft" seems to be their only option. Let’s talk about editing next.   

5. Teach students to fish: give them editing workshops.

For the sake of argument, let’s identify a traditional approach for teaching writing and then use it as a springboard for comparison. Loosely stated, traditional writing classes focus on writing and revising, not on editing.

When students write essays and papers, teachers give them feedback on their errors; in other words, teachers do the "fishing" for them. That could be because, for the most part, grammar and mechanics are not part of the curriculum—there’s no time, there’s no room, and there’s no fit. Instead, students focus on developing their critical writing skills, receiving individual feedback on errors and structure. If they have questions about grammar or mechanics, they rely on a handbook.

For some students, this approach works like magic, but not for all. And the at-risk student is the one who is likely to fall through the cracks. At-risk students’ papers are often so riddled with errors that individual feedback can feel isolating and defeating. Progress comes slowly—one correction at a time; this approach can also be time-consuming and tedious for the teacher.

However, we can untangle the mystery of writing and bring some fun back into the process by giving a series of workshops that cover basic core principles essential for all writers. By working with a set of principles that builds a common vocabulary about punctuation and other elements of editing, students become better editors. They learn that errors come in patterns, and learning core principles helps eliminate patterns of errors.

Once students can identify and correct their own errors, something shifts. They not only feel more empowered to write, they also mull over their writing more, which may help them gain additional insight into their topic. Some of the common editing elements to cover are the sentence core, conjunctions, punctuation, verbs, pronouns, active voice, and so on.

Thank you for taking the time to be concerned about my "Suzie" and yours. Working with at-risk students is a challenge as well as a reward. Good luck with your writing classes!

Why Can't Suzie Write?

Designing a Writing Program for the At-Risk Student

Webinar Description

With almost half of all students entering college needing remediation to bring them up to college level reading and writing, many colleges are struggling to support at-risk students.

Dona Young, author of Writing from the Core and Which Comes First, the Comma or the Pause?, will describe the five steps that make a difference in designing a writing program for at-risk students. This webinar will help you structure your remediation programs around proven techniques.

Why Can't Suzie Write is being hosted by Farimah Schuerman of The Writing Teacher and is sponsored by College Starter skills remediation from LearningExpress, LLC and the Wimba Collaboration Suite.

Webinar Date:

Thursday, September 24, 2:00 Eastern Daylight Time

To Register:

http://www.wimba.com/company/events/1714

Cost:

None

The web is a great resource for writing teachers who need lesson plans, writing prompts, interactive activities, high-tech tools, and other free teaching materials. Here are 25 sites that would be particularly useful to educators who teach writing.

Karen Schweitzer is an education writer, editor, and author. She has written eight books for middle school students and is in the process of writing her first fiction novel. Karen serves as the About.com Guide to Business School, a site that offers guidance to prospective, current, and former business school students. She also writes regularly for OnlineColleges.net, a site that provides information about accredited online colleges.

Purdue's OWL - Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides more than 200 resources that can be used to teach writing.

Writing Fix - The Writing Fix is a very useful resource for writing teachers. The site offers lesson plans, writing prompts, and other classroom materials.

The Teaching Portal - The Teaching Portal is unique resource for classroom teachers who want to introduce their students to the art of story writing. Site features include writing exercises, worksheets, and lesson plans.

TeAchnology - TeAchnology provides access to many different writing resources, including lesson plans, workbooks, worksheets, story starters, and writing rubrics.

Thinkfinity - Thinkfinity is a Verizon Foundation Initiative that provides high quality teaching content for educators. The site offers interactive activities, original lesson plans, and a lesson search engine that pulls results from other respected sites around the web.

ReadWriteThink- This International Reading Association (IRA) website is an excellent place to find free teaching resources for the classroom. The site offers lesson plans, information on IRA and NCTE standards, a web resource gallery, and a student materials index.

Writing Den - Designed for grade six to grade twelve students, the Writing Den offers resources to improve vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing skills. The site also provides a section to help teachers incorporate Writing Den materials into the curriculum.

We The Teachers - This online community for teachers is a great place to find teaching ideas and lesson plans for the writing classroom. The site allows teachers to connect with other educators and share lesson plans online.

Shmoop - Shmoop is fun, new site with literature guides, poetry guides, and other teacher resources.

PoetryTeachers.com - This Meadowbrook Press website is a favorite among poetry teachers. The site offers tips on teaching poetry, free poetry activities, and other useful materials.

Grammar Girl - The weekly Grammar Girl podcast is short enough to play in the classroom and entertaining enough to engage students. Each episode includes quick tips for better writing and an answer to a weekly question.

Online Grammar Handbook - This online handbook from the University of Minnesota offers 21 chapters of links to punctuation and grammar resources. The handbook also includes writing instruction and other materials that would be useful to teachers.

Chomp Chomp - Chomp Chomp is a fun grammar site with definitions to common grammar terms, interactive exercises, teacher handouts, and classroom presentations.

VerbaLearn - VerbaLearn is a fantastic resource for teachers who want to improve their students' vocabulary. The site offers customizable lessons, learning activities, and more.

ThinkFold - ThinkFold offers a structured online environment for writing classes or writing partners to collaborate online. Workgroups can upload documents, interact with a share outline, and see changes being made in real time.

Mindmeister - Mindmeister is an online mind mapping tool that can be used to help writing students visualize their ideas.

Scholastic Story Starter - This free online story starter from Scholastic generates fun story ideas for K-6 writers. An example starter: Write a brief biography of a thousand year old vampire who rides a giant sloth to work.

The Story Starter - The Story Starter offers nearly 400,000,000 creative writing prompts and story ideas for writing teachers and students.

Creative Writing Prompts - This site provides more than 300 creative writing prompts and journaling ideas.

Writewith - Originally developed by two college newspaper editors who lived on opposite sides of the country, this free web-based app can be used to write and collaborate online.

Scriblink - Scriblink is a free online whiteboard that can be used by students and teachers who want to collaborate on a writing project. The board is entirely private and only open to people who are invited.

Twitter - Twitter can be used for a lot of different things, but is especially good for classrooms who want to collaborate together on a story or poem. Each student can post 140 characters at a time until the piece is finished.

FanStory - Founded in 2000, FanStory is an online writing community that welcomes posts from writers of all ages. Community members can participate in contests and challenge one another to write on different topics.

NaNoWriMo Every November, NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month) challenges writers to pen a 50,000 word novel in 30 days time. Teachers who want to challenge their older students can point to this site and encourage everyone to get involved.

The Online Books Page - Getting students to read good books is sometimes the best way to begin teaching writing. The Online Books Page offers more than 30,000 classic books that can be read for free online.

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We recently ran into a very interesting free website, MixedInk , that can be used for a collaborative approach to writing in the classroom. Here is a guest blog posting by the founder of MixedInk, Vanessa Scanfield.

Collaborative Writing in the 21st Century Classroom, by Vanessa Scanfield, CEO, MixedInk.

Advances in technology are provoking broad structural shifts in business, media, and government. These new technologies are enabling (and, in some cases, forcing) organizations and individuals to adjust in order to capitalize on new opportunities. Success now hinges upon an organization’s capacity to take advantage of a distributed workforce, employ democratic decision-making, and harness collaborative relationships.

Schools are reacting by incorporating 21^st century skills into the classroom. While the term itself is a bit vague, the overarching concept is that students should be moving beyond traditional curricular elements, delving into civic engagement projects, honing their critical thinking and collaboration skills, harnessing technology to produce better work products, and demonstrating the cultural awareness and leadership needed to succeed in college and beyond.

Teachers today have adopted a range of innovative tools to meet these demands.

• Classroom blogs, like Extreme Biology, supplement class discussion and highlight student work;

• wikis, such as Anatowiki, enable students to build a collective knowledge base;

• social networks, such as the Flat Classroom Project, connect students across classrooms, schools, and even countries;

• podcasts can make challenging class projects; and

• Twitter enables real-time participation and provides a new, creative outlet for writing.

These tools offer engaging learning solutions that reimagine the classroom as a place where students provide valuable contributions and learn from interacting with one another, rather than a space built simply for the one-way transfer of information.

I co-founded a startup, MixedInk, which helps to build a range of 21^st century skills across the curriculum. We offer a free, online collaborative writing platform that enables students to weave their ideas and language into a single text.

To use MixedInk, a teacher first sets up a project for the class to collaborate on a collective text. Over a period ranging from days to weeks, students write original versions of the text, edit others’ work, and weave different versions together to form new ones. Throughout the process, students comment on submissions and rate different versions to bring the best-written, most popular ideas to the top. In the end, the class can explore the strengths and weaknesses of the top collective text(s).

This demo video provides a helpful overview:

MixedInk Demo from MixedInk on Vimeo.

Simply by participating in a MixedInk project, students are exposed to a wide range of their peers' work. As they remix the best parts of various essays, students are challenged to critically evaluate the quality of what they read. When students rate and comment on submissions, they must analyze why they prefer some texts and not others. Perhaps most importantly, students hone their ability to recognize compelling concepts and their capacity to synthesize these ideas seamlessly into a single text. Those of us who have worked in groups to write grants, press releases, marketing materials, and mission statements know well the lasting value of this particular skill.

In January, Slate Magazine invited its readers to produce a collective inaugural address using MixedInk. In addition to borrowing language from other contributors, those who participated were able to borrow from the inaugural addresses of all the previous presidents. More than 400 people, including many students, collaborated to produce an eloquent speech, which was published at Slate.com on inauguration day. Though originally intended for an adult audience, the project offered a unique learning experience for the classrooms that participated.

Educational tools like MixedInk are built to nurture students’ creativity, harness their enthusiasm, and ensure their readiness to succeed in an increasingly digital world. In the comments, let us know which new media tools you have incorporated successfully, how you have used collaborative writing in the classroom, and suggestions for how to incorporate collaborative writing across different subjects.