Using tech to help students review their writing

One of my big focuses as a teacher is giving students tools they can use without me. I've given many students checklists and models that they have later thanked me for as they used them throughout many later classes.

Besides those paper tools, I also give my students some electronic tools for reviewing their papers, e-mails, articles and really any written work. None of these are a replacement for a second set of eyes, but it is nice to have technology help out.

Most of these are Freemium meaning they offer services for free, but offer more or better services (without advertisements, less wait, etc.)

Below I'll give links and brief descriptions to four sites I give my students. Try them out with your own writing and share them with your students! I bet one or two of them will thank you.

1. Grammarly

If you sign up here you get to try Premium for a week (full disclosure I get a free week if you sign up with this link). Premium is nice, but I find the free version is definitely great too.

There's a Grammarly browser add-on (for Chrome, Firefox or Safari), a Microsoft Word add-on, and students can go to the site and copy and paste text to check it.

My favorite part though, is the weekly e-mails students get. Grammarly sends an e-mail once a week that lays out spelling and grammar issues they encounter most often.

Students can combine this with NoRedInk and practice any grammar skills they still struggle with on their own.

2. PaperRater

This site does have a lot of ads, but it's a great time to teach some digital citizenship in being careful what you click on. Students copy their text and then go to PaperRater. Once there, they paste their text into PaperRater filling out their specifics (type of text, grade level, etc.). The site looks at several different elements: Spelling, Grammar, Word Choice, Style, Vocabulary and Words. Then it gives a grade.

Obviously, this isn't perfect! For style it looks a lot at transitional phrases. For Word Choice it basically identifies words like "a lot, I don't, big, don't, get, really, many, am, go, most" and reminds students to consider other words or use a thesaurus.

A big thing to go over with students is that the grade is automated and that it definitely isn't a crystal ball that will predict that grade they earn.

3. Hemingway Editor

Reminding students that bigger isn't always better, Hemingway looks at sentence length, adverb usage, passive voice, and just awkward phrases to make writing easier to read.

While PaperRater also looks at sentence structure, most students get focused on the spelling, grammar, and grade. Hemingway focuses exclusively on structure. Spelling and grammar errors are irrelevant.

Hemingway Editor is definitely a site worth introducing to students. There is a time and a place for adverbs, passive voice and complex sentences, but this site's easy color coding can help students see if they have too many of one color populating their essay.

4. The Writer's Diet

Last but not least, there's The Writer's Diet. Based on the book by the same name, the site encourages writers to have "fit" writing rather than "flabby" writing.

After copying and pasting a text, students' are given a bar chart detailing a breakdown of their text and then the text itself.

There you are! Four more digital tools that students can store in their toolbox.

I am always sure to discuss all of these with my students. In fact often when first introducing them I have them run their text through and make changes. Then they give me a little write-up  which site they used, what was helpful, and what was not so helpful. This helps build a critical eye and students get an idea of when to use which site.

These are meant to be helpful tools, but they should be used with a critical eye. These are all automated and none of them perfect!

Do you know of any others I should add to my list? Have any experience you'd like to share? Let me know in the comments!

Using Prism with Poetry

I teach "The Rubaiyat" to my World Literature class. I LOVE IT. I love introducing students to poetry from so far away and so long ago that still has messages for today.

However,  it is an older poem that takes a bit of work interpreting, and for many of my transfer and exchange students, it serves as their first official poetry lesson. So, before we jump into the world of Persian Poetry, we start with something a bit easier: Bon Jovi's, "It's My Life."

My class experiencing Bon Jovi.

Despite being so old there's a pager in the music video, students really like this song! Plus the message is very similar to The Rubaiyat, and it's filled with figurative language.

We start by watching the music video and talking about what the "plot" is. Then we review literary devices and on their own students find as many of them as they can. Ater five minutes I let them pair up to compare and share. Finally, ONE of them gets out a computer, and they head to Prism and create an account.

Then I share this link where I uploaded the lyrics to the song and picked three different categories. You could make these whatever you wanted. I've done this with connotation (positive, neutral, negative) and literal vs. figurative language.

After a quick demo, where I show students how to highlight, erase, and switch highlighters, they are on their own! I have them go through the poem. With a partner, they decide what color different sentences and phrases need to be highlighted.

In this case, I made it a little tricky. I didn't just mark things metaphors or similes I moved those into different categories (figurative language, clever writing, word choice). This meant with some things (like allusions) they had to figure out where it fit best. Once they finish they click "Save highlights."

In the end, you can show the visual representation of what everyone marked. It highlights the words according to the majority. So you can see in the example that gonna is marked as figurative language by most students. However, some marked it for word choice and some clever writing.

This provides a great visualization and allows us to discuss this as a class, which we did. Students pointed out that gonna was a great example of informal diction making this a very informal.

Overall this is a very easy to use

Now, some teachers consider a flaw of PRISM to be that you can't see what each student did individually. That's true! If you really want to see what each student did you can have them screen shot their page and submit that to you, but I care more about the quality of conversations they have with their partner. So more than needing to see what they highlighted, I walk around and make note of their discussions.

Interactive Texts - Actively Learn

There's this idea that learning starts and stops at my door

My boyfriend is moving into his own house and I got him this awesome rug. He commented that with the rug "it felt like home." It was a silly comment, but I get it. I often feel like when my students cross the rug into my classroom they "feel like learning." But then, when they leave the classroom, they feel like the learning stops, and I don't want that.

For example, my students tend to be low readers. I like to read in class because we can annotate together. I can ask questions at pivotal points to be sure students understand (before moving on). I like to take polls to see what students think will happen next. I like to explain background if there's an allusion or other reference my students won't understand. If I just assign them reading on their own... they don't get that full experience, and often won't bother reading at all.

So when possible, we try to read in class. Here's the problem, I can't do it. There just isn't enough time. As much as I would love to do all of the reading in class, that would mean all activities would turn into homework, and I don't like that idea either.

On a similar note, since my school has gone 1:1 a lot of my reading has gone online. We still have books but we also have e-books, articles, etc. Sometimes we read directly from the website in question; other times they are moved into a different site...maybe a school LMS, or a discussion board.

There are quite a few options out there. Today's blog talks about ActivelyLearn.

ActivelyLearn

This is a site with an assortment of already created texts. Some of these texts are just the texts (A Christmas Carol) whereas others have assignments build in (The Gift of the Magi). The ones with assignments include multiple choice questions, polls, helpful annotations and short answer questions. All questions are  aligned with Common Core standards.

Like so many education websites out there this is a free site with free articles, but you can pay for some texts and other premium services they offer.

Most of the texts I've been interested in have been free, but the ones that charge cost per student for a period of time. For example, Sarah Plain and Tall is $0.99 per student for 3 months.

In addition to texts that are already set up for you, a free account lets you import up to 3 internet articles, PDFs, or Google Documents each month. I like using Google Documents. If you use a pdf you can only ask questions at the end of each page instead of throughout.

Once you've uploaded or selected a text you can edit the questions and annotations or add your own.

When students read the text, it is like I am there with them! They can see my annotations (or watch videos I've annotated with more information). Plus, they can add their own annotations and comment on the annotations others have left! It is like having a conversation without being in the same room.

In fact, I can pop in and respond as well. This especially works well over the break when they have assignments I can pop in and check on throughout a period of time. I love that the text becomes a discussion board they can look at later when rereading.

It also helps build a culture of students helping students and really learning from one another (instead of just looking for the answers from me).

When they get to a question or poll they have to answer before they can move on. This is great! Recently I was at a conference that mentioned one of the best things to do to help students read at a level that is higher than what they are used to is to chunk the text.  Having them stop to answer questions does just that!

Once they've answered they can see if they got it right or wrong, and how other people in the class answered. We all know immediate feedback is key. Plus, this way they can be better prepared to continue reading.

Short answer questions don't get graded until the teacher goes through and grades them as incomplete, basic, proficient, or excellent. However, they can see the answers other students gave after they have given their own. They can also comment on the answers other students left (or just "like" them to show support).

OK, regardless of the annotations and the help from friends you're stuck. You don't understand a word. There's help!

Students just click on the unknown word. They can hear the word, see a definition or have it translated into Spanish (more languages soon!).

If those steps don't help, or they are still stuck they can click, "I don't understand!" and it alerts the teachers.

To review

Pros for students

• Like I've discussed this is great for lower readers because it chunks the text
• Students can check their understanding as they go
• Great for the culture of the classroom (students helping students)
• Unknown words are easily looked up   

 Cons: 

• This does require the Internet. Students won't be able to read if they can't connect.
• Some teachers / parents / students have issues with screen time and this can add to it

Pros for Teachers

• Read with the students even if you aren't there
• Automatic grading (except for short answers)
• Built in gradebook that labels each assignment and an overall grade.

 Cons: 

• None really... I love it! 
• There is an adjustment period, for some students who are used to all reading being done in class. However, I think that's great for student accountability.

Have you ever used ActivelyLearn? Any questions I can answer, or suggestions? Blog posts to come on GoFormative, Cirriculet, and more options!
Disclosure: I received the rug exchange for review from Giveaway Service website. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. Reference ID: e9e0e7a5b3b1