Writing

=Writing Websites.=

**1. Busy Teachers Café:** [] Busy Teachers Café is a K-6 resource for the “busy teacher”. It offers ideas, lessons, units, free printables, and much more. Teachers can even create their own WebPages, and blogs. **//Grade level: K-12, teacher//**

**2. Spelling City:** [] Spelling City is a site that offers spelling and vocabulary word practice. Teachers can log in and store lists of words for student practice. It has three modes for student practice, test, teach, and games. These lists can be printed for students to take home. This site also has a variety of ready made lists under the resource section. **//Grade level: K-12, teacher, student//**

**3. Merriam Webster’s Word Central:** [] Merriam’s Webster Word Central is an online kid friendly dictionary. It offers definitions in kid language for easy understanding of students. It allows students to do a dictionary search, a thesaurus search, or search for rhyming words. **//Grade level: K-6, student//**

**4. Read-Write-Think:** [] Read-Write-Think offers teachers and students a large variety of resources for reading and language arts instruction. For teachers there are free lessons and web resources. For students there are many student materials from games to organizers to help develop their reading and language arts skills. **//Grade level: K-12, teacher, student//**

**5. 4 Teachers.org (Teach with Technology):** [] 4 Teachers.org is a site to help teachers integrate technology into their classrooms by offering a variety of online tools and resources. This site links teachers to ready-to-use Web lessons, rubrics, quizzes, and classroom calendars. Some of the tools are also for student use that the teacher can access. **//Grade level: K-12, teacher, student//**

**6. Wikipedia:** [|http://en.wikipedia.org] Wikipedia is everywhere and contains just about everything. Wikipedia is a free online collaborative encyclopedia. This means users of Wikipedia can add information to a specific topic they are knowledgeable about. This site can be a huge help in the classroom. This can be used for vocabulary definitions, a research project or simply wanting to know the origin of a specific topic. Some educators frown on this site, because of the looseness of the content it contains. Beware when using this site. Make sure you guide your students around the site when they are exploring. More often than not, it's a great tool for your teaching repertoire. **//Grade Level: All educators, students, grades 3-12//**

**7. Writing Fun:** [|http://www.writingfun.com] After a quick introduction to this site, it can fast become an educator’s best friend when teaching writing. The creator of this site does an amazing job of making ALL of the concepts of writing interesting. The creator takes a different approach to explain the different types of writing and the writing process. Writing Fun is a great site for educators to get resources for teaching writing. The site does an even better job of introducing writing to students. It also lets students organize a piece of writing and gets them get started. This site is very user friendly. Guide your students to get them started and then let them take off on their own. No more tedious paper and pencil and piece of writing can be started and finished with the help of this site. **//Grade Level: All educators, students, grades 3-8//**

**8. In Our Write Minds:** __[]__ Searching the web for valuable sites for this class, I came upon this wonderful resource for teaching unwilling writers. Specifically geared to those teenagers who balk at the notion that they will ever need to communicate via the written word, this site offers great suggestions for: 1. Getting kids to understand how much more marketable they will be if they can write effectively and 2: Dealing with common learning problems and stumbling blocks which students face. **(7 – 12)**


 * 9. The English Teacher:** [] This teaching composition website offers basic strategies in helping students with all of the “pre-writing” steps necessary in composing, primarily the types of objective papers which are required in college and in the workforce. From the creation of a viable thesis, to organizing, outlining, and mapping, these techniques are explained in a clear and down-to-earth fashion. In addition, the teaching strategies of veteran educators are shared on this site. **(9-12)**


 * 10. Working with Student Writing:** __[]__ What I like about this site is that it mirrors the curriculum which I used when I taught senior Composition. Unlike so many texts and other sites, the creators of this one really understand that writing is a process which requires multiple drafts, constant feedback, and revision. From effective new ways to teach research, to relevant, downloadable rubrics, to strategies for grading parts of essays at a time, this site is amazing. **(9-12)**


 * 11. Wordorigins.org:** __[]__ This site explores both the etymology of individual words as well as the derivation of English phrases, idiom, and archaic language. Because none of my students have taken Latin, nor, in some cases, are even aware that root words exist, this site has been an invaluable tool for teaching students the history of word parts. What I especially like about this resource is that it allows my students to engage in what I call “backwards Latin”. Students soon find that knowing a root word can often help them to piece out the meaning of a word they have never before seen. I checked out the blog on this site, and, although I have not yet made any comments, I was very interested to read the remarks (and to learn that the world contains so many other word nerds. **(No grade level)**


 * 12.** **Vocabulary Workshop:** __@http://vocabularyworkshop.com__ This site contains most of the information and resources which I use for my vocabulary lessons. An access card, which came with the Sadlier-Oxford teacher’s edition, is used both to download worksheets and tests and also to connect to interactive games and puzzles, SAT and Act practice worksheets, and an audio program. Many of my students use this site in lieu of flashcards to prepare for the tests. **(1- 12)**


 * 13. Online Etymology Dictionary:** __[]__ Although I use Wordorigins.com in teaching discrete vocabulary lesson from my __Vocabulary Workshop__ text, I prefer this site in researching obsolete and archaic language in conjunction with literary analysis. This is probably the only site which I visit which I (who am not up-to-date in the use of technology) feel completely comfortable in using. This online dictionary relies heavily on the O.E.D., the definitive word history resource, so one never feels that the information will be in any way sketchy. The site describes itself as “the wheel-ruts of modern English” and contains the earliest uses of specific words and learned conjecture about how long the term may have been used conversationally before it was found in the written form. **(No grade level)**


 * 14. Owl Online Writing Lab:** __@http://owl.english.purdue.edu__ This site contains all sorts of grammar and writing hand-outs. Although, at South, grammar is not taught as a separate topic after eighth grade, I often experience the need to “remediate” my students __via worksheets which allow them to practice the skills they have forgotten. “The Owl” makes it so easy__ for me, after I have pinpointed an area of weakness in student writing, to download pertinent exercises. The kids like this a great deal better than in the old days, when I used to haul out the __Warriner’s__ grammar books. **(K – 12)**


 * 15**. **Turnitin.com:** __[]__ Unfortunately, it is sometimes the case that I receive a piece of student work which is not original. This site allows a teacher to type in the suspect phrase and to find out immediately whether the student has committed plagiarism. A real lifesaver, this resource obviates the tenuous and uncomfortable option of confronting the student with an accusation which will surely be denied. In addition, I believe that the existence of sites, such as this and __Plagiarism.org,__ deter would-be thieves from even contemplating plagiarism.


 * 16.** **teAchnology Writing Rubric Generator: [|http://teach-nology.com/web_tools/writing/rubric/] In evaluating student writing I make use of this site to create my own rubrics for specific writing assignments. Because many rubrics are too general and because I often hone in on one specific skill at a time, I really use this site. **(7-12)** **