Some new ideas....writing #1

Inservice proved to be something that I won't forget.  In addition to providing me with an opportunity to teach others how to use iMovie, I learned a ton about writing.  I am a good writer, for the most part.  I got through college with not too much struggle.  However, it comes naturally to me.  I was not one who went to college to earn a teaching degree to teach people how to write.  I don't think I ever diagramed a sentence until two weeks ago.  EVER.

I also didn't learn how to teach people how to write stories, how to compose a paragraph, etc.  These were all things that came naturally to me and when needed, I help student edit papers that were turned into me, that they were writing for other classes, or for various other reasons.   Was I the one assigning many of these papers?  No.  Now, I am.

I have much more respect for those teachers who teach kids how to write and for those who teach those who struggle in their attempts to do so.  To be a teacher who is now having to go back to middle school and beginning high school concepts and learn how to teach them how to compose sentences and write papers is something I wasn't quite prepared for.

There are a few things though that really stood out from my inservice that I've tried and have helped me so far.  Having to help them with the creation of a story from scratch is pretty hard sometimes and with the help of the iPad, my SmartBoard and an app called Story Wheel, you can put up to 4 students in a group and they can spin the wheel and receive a picture from which they must add part to the story.  They record their part and hit stop.  The next student goes, gets their picture and the game continues.  In the end, the pictures play as the students all listen to their group story.  Some funny stories can come about but this could be good for an individual who just needs a prompt to help them along in their writing.  Think about using the one wheel for the entire class who then have to write two sentences for each picture as their story progresses.   Each student would have such different stories by the end, it would be fantastic to see what their imaginations would come up with!

What have you used in your writing classes?

Stay tuned for the next writing idea.

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