Oct 31 2007
Writing right – right off!
Writing is probably one of the most painful activities to a student. Why? Because most often teachers are having students COPY someone else’s words that mean nothing to them. Or if the student is being tortured with a “free-write” or “journal entry” – what has the average student done in their life that is memorable enough to write about? Another problem with poor attitudes towards writing – how many books with good examples of writing have students read by this age? How can they write well if they’ve never read examples worth emulating?
So – the first hurdle is getting students to at least have a working relationship with words and sometimes that’s easier said than written…er…done…
One tool that could hook their interest could be the Comic Creator. This site gives students several pre-made backgrounds, characters, and props in order to tell their story. Students could retell the plot of The Tell-Tale Heart or come up with an alternate ending to The Pit and the Pendulum. You could create a weekly strip using students for the characters and make a bulletin board with them or add them to the class newspaper. A couple of draw backs to this particular site are the choices are rather limited and printing is only in black & white. However, it’s a good start.
KABAM! is another comic strip site but this one has pre-created strips with story lines. The cool thing about this site is the stories have to do with typical teenage issues and the creator is asked to help finish the story and as a reward for answering correctly, they get to create their own stories. Excellent site for students to have access to if they have some extra time on their hands.
Another excellent tool for students to learn how words can interact is the acrostic word puzzle. Acrostic puzzles are ones that use the letters in a word as the first letter in other words that describe the first word. This can get kids to really exercise their brains in thinking of adjectives, adverbs, strong verbs to help spice up their poems. Once finished, kids can print them out and then decorate or mount on paper to show off to friends and you.
Once kids learn to have an enjoyable passing acquaintance with words, stringing them together into sentences and paragraphs can be less painful for all involved – hopefully. 
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
