Writing and the

Web:

The Changing

Nature of Text

and

CompositionJen Deyenberg

Where are your students writing?

What is writing?

If text and writing are changing – what does this mean for our classrooms?

Texts not only include those presented in traditional written or print form, but also orally, electronically or on

film. Texts can be in continuous form, including traditional formal prose, or non-continuous, for example charts and

graphs.

The literacy framework reflects the increased use of multimodal texts, digital communication, social networking and the other forms of electronic

communication encountered by children and young people in their daily lives. It recognises that the skills

which children and young people need to learn to read these texts differ from the skills they need for reading

continuous prose.

Where is Everybody by HikingArtist.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/5019943977

The Changing Writing Process

Online Publishing:

Risks?

Rewards?

Audience!

“The results were fabulous! First and foremost, EVERY student improved their writing having identified weaknesses with the Wordle starter. Seeing the words in pictorial form helped them identify what they needed to change about their language choices in order to better meet the brief” (Sutherland, 2011).

“The Wiki encouraged them to think much more precisely about editing their work because they knew their friends (and me) were logged in and watching what they were doing. There was a real buzz about the place. Every time a new post came in there was a little yelp of excitement. Best of all, the class barely needed me there to achieve. This was true independent learning. I was definitely facilitating rather than teaching!” (Sutherland, 2011).

“One pupil (usually quite unmotivated) even found some internet links about writing to persuade and started an additional discussion topic where he pasted them for his friends to use. Awesome! Even more awesome, when I started a discussion forum entitled ‘what have you learned from your friends today’ many of them excitedly posted specific skills they had improved, which demonstrated that they had really engaged with the assessment process and thoroughly understood how to improve” (Sutherland, 2011)

http://testtube.nfb.ca/#/testtube

http://www.inanimatealice.com/

http://labyrinth.thinkport.org/www/

http://xkcd.com/731/

Trails Optional

Writing and the Web:http://writing.trailsoptional.com/

Trails Optional:http://www.trailsoptional.com/

All Background Photos by: Daniel*1977 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/didmyself/