Digital Literacy Side-Entry: Apps for Writing Review

 

NaNoWriMo YWP:  I have done National Novel Writing Month with my creative writing students before, but this resource was not yet available!  I love that they have made a NaNoWriMo site that is accessible for k-12 students and their teachers.  This website writing platform allow teachers to create "classrooms" and track student writing progress.  The challenge is for students to write everyday for 30 days.  This would take a chunk of instructional time, but would be invaluable in a creative writing class!  This could also serve as student homework for a month while we work on other things in the classroom.


826 Digital:  This is a website of free lessons from a successful after school program.  My favorite part of the site is a section of student writing samples that one can search by grade level.  So often, it is hard to find writing samples that reflect a teen voice.  These are vetted from 826 projects across the country.  There is a section called "Sparks" that features mini-lessons with short writing tasks or reading samples for students to reflect upon.  The best part of this site is the Lessons section, that has CCSS-aligned lessons, complete with student writing samples to use as mentor texts.  I am so glad to have been introduced to this site! 
Write the World:  This is a social writing platform for young writers all around the globe.  A unique feature of this site is that it give your students an audience beyond their teacher and beyond their peers.  I think that this site would open students up to tailor their writing so it can be understood globally, not just in their own community.  There is a peer review feature, as well as writing contests that students can enter for cash prizes.  If the entire site isn't utilized, there are some excellent writing prompts that can use adapted for classrooms what are using the entire platform.  This site also has a resource area for starting a writing club! 


Comments

  1. Megan HarperJuly 15, 2021 at 7:34 PM

    Gloriann,
    The app 862 Digital stood out to me! I agree that the student work samples is such an interesting and helpful perk! I also like that this app is aligned with the CCSS so teachers can easily tie it into meaningful lessons without having to do the extra work of figuring out where it fits into the curriculum. It is also very cool that this website is free and provides all of these resources. Having students view and interact with the work of their peers can be very powerful in many ways.

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