Teachers Guide (Reader spreads) - Renaissance...

• Writing Process Guide and• Writing Activities

by Stephen Marcus, Ph.D.

• Tips and Tricks• Curriculum Integration Ideas

Teacher'sGuide

Contents

Page

2 Introduction

3 Writing and the AlphaSmart3 More Than You Bargained For3 Anything Worth Writing . . .4 Habits of Mind4 The Composing Product

6 Writing Activities6 Sequential Writing6 Sequential Responding7 Looping8 Group Looping9 Invisible Writing

10 Class Act

11 Tips and Tricks

13 Classroom Integration Ideas

13 Creating New Word Lists14 Sentences from Spelling Words14 Activity Journal15 Names, Nouns and Verbs15 Questions to Guide the Field Trip16 Sentence Completion for Understanding16 Procedural Writing17 Guided Science Observation17 Interviewing and Writing a Biography

19 Sharing Your Ideas

AlphaSmart Teacher's Guide 1

Introduction

About Dr. Stephen Marcus . . .

The original Teacher’s Guide for the AlphaSmart was written byStephen Marcus, Ph.D.. Dr. Marcus coordinated the National WritingProject Technology Network as well as the California WritingProject/California Technology Project Alliance. He was Chair of theCommittee on Future Technology for the International Society forTechnology in Education and was a member of the Committee onInformation Literacy and the Assembly on Computers and Englishfor the National Council of Teachers of English. He was on thefaculty of the Graduate School of Education at the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara, where he was co-director of SCWriP, anaffiliate of the National Writing Project.

The writing and ideas shared by Dr. Marcus in the originalAlphaSmart Teacher’s Guide are included in this guide as well. Thewriting activities are designed to improve the quality and quantity ofyour students’ writing. Following the writing activities, you will findclassroom integration ideas to help you get started using theAlphaSmart with your students at any grade level and in any contentarea.

2 AlphaSmart Teacher's Guide

Writingand the AlphaSmart

By Dr. Stephen Marcus

More Than You Bargained ForThe AlphaSmart is exceptionally well suited for helping stu-

dents improve the quantity and quality of their “prewriting” - theraw material that will be refined at later stages in the composingprocess (more about this, below). Making notes, false starts, andearly drafts (all part of prewriting) doesn’t apply just to assignmentsdone for English classes. They are the starting points for thinking,problem-solving, and writing across the curriculum.

One of the major goals of prewriting activities is to buildfluency. Attention to format and correctness are appropriate to laterstages in the composing process.

With this in mind, the activities, tips, and tricks provided in thisTeacher’s Guide are meant to accomplish two related goals.

First, they provide activities that students might use for differ-ent kinds of assignments in a variety of classes or subject matterareas - any setting in which the AlphaSmart can support teachingand learning.

Second, many of the suggestions are designed to help you andyour students break the "Technology 80/20 Rule": eighty percent ofthe people who use a given piece of hardware or software make useof only twenty percent of its power.

As simple as it is to use, the AlphaSmart keyboard has featuresthat are just waiting to be exploited in creative ways, to add evenmore value to its use. You don’t have to use it for long before youbegin to see how you’ve gotten even more than you bargained for.

Anything Worth Writing ...

...is worth writing poorly. At first. That’s what “pre-writing” isall about. Prewriting is a way for students to begin to give shape and


order to their thoughts. The AlphaSmart is great for helping themmine diamonds in the rough. The polishing and setting come later.

Often, students spend too much time in early stages of the com-posing process tinkering with their text, when the working rule shouldbe “Don’t get it ‘right’ - get it down.” (This is advice once given towriters for The New Yorker.) The necessary revising and editing cancome later, when the students are sure they’re working on material thatdeserves and demands their attention.

After all, prewriting is just a stage in a process that also includespreparing more complete drafts and letting others comment on thewriting for re-thinking and revising. These stages are followed byadditional editing and proofreading as progress is made toward thefinal stage of “publishing". Publishing the writing involves making itpublic in some formal way perhaps in a class anthology or even just by“handing it in”.

The strategies that follow are particularly good for generatingcopious notes as well as useful and substantive “mental doodles.” Theactivities also help dissolve writing blocks, which often result fromstudents trying to do their rewriting before they’ve done theirprewriting, from struggling to say exactly what they mean beforethey’re even sure what’s on their minds.

Habits of Mind

Students may need to practice the habits of mind inherent in manyof these activities as well as the specific methods. Encourage the classto talk over what worked, what didn’t and why. Encourage students totry a technique again after getting advice from you and from theirclassmates about how to do a given activity a little better the next time.Not everything will work perfectly for every student every time it’stried; students will find that practice is as important here as anywhereelse.

The Composing Product

We want students to produce clear and effective writing thatdemonstrates a command of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Wewant them to be fluent and to be able to write in a variety of “voices”


and styles to suit the occasion. We also want them to value writing as ameans for giving structure and order to what they know and want tosay.

The AlphaSmart keyboard can be an invaluable aid for reachingall of these goals. It can be particularly helpful as your students engagein the early stages of the composing process, as they prepare to pro-duce a product of which you can all be proud.

Notes:


Writing Activities

Sequential Writing

This activity promotes attention to coherence and creativity.

• Working in small groups, students start their own essays,poems, descriptions, explanations, or stories, either with theirown ideas or with a common prompt (e.g., “Alone, the lastperson alive on earth, he was startled to ear a knock on thedoor”).

• Students type 1-4 lines, then pass their AlphaSmart to aneighbor, who add 1-4 lines.

• Students keep passing the AlphaSmart from person to personaround the group until their own is returned to them.

• The pieces get read aloud, discussed, edited, printed, andpublished in a collection.

Sequential Responding

This activity develops students’ skills as analytical readers andresponders. It also teaches them ways to help build and develop otherpeoples’ work instead of just “tearing it apart.”

• Students bring to class a printout of a piece of work-in-progress. The student’s name should be included at the top ofthe pages.

• Display on the board (or in a handout) a set of responsecategories like the following with modifications for the gradelevel and targeted learning. (F1 is kept available for theauthor’s comments about the other students’ responses):

- F2: What you wrote. . .- F3: The way you approached the assignment . . .- F4: Something you might have mentioned is . . .- F5: One thing that I hadn’t considered was . . .- F6: I was surprised . . .- F7: You’re good at . . .


• Each student’s work-in-progress printout travels with thestudent’s AlphaSmart.

• The students read the work-in-progress and select one re-sponse category and write a response in the designated file.

• The first student to work in a particular file should type thewords as shown above and add his or her personal commentand name.

• Students trade keyboards after contributing to an assignednumber of files.

• All comments should include the name of the person makingthe comment.

• The author eventually gets his or her work-in-progress andAlphaSmart back to review the comments and use them toshape future versions of the writing.

• The author can use F1 to write his or her own responses toquestions like these:

- What kinds of comments were most helpful?- What kinds of comments were least helpful?- If you only had time to take three bits of advice to

improve your writing, what advice would youuse?

Looping

This activity develops fluency and the ability to focus on a topic.

• For 3-5 minutes students do a quantity of “freewriting” in fileF1 on a topic appropriate to the class. In “freewriting”, theytry to get down a lot of thoughts without worrying abouttyping mistakes, spelling, complete sentences, changes oftopic, etc.

• They then review their work, deciding on one particular idea,sentence, phrase, or word that captures some interestingpoint.

• They use this text to begin another short freewriting period infile F2. They then review F2 and use the text there as the basis


for repeating the procedure in F3, F4, F5, etc. Each new filebegins with a short piece of text from the previous file.

• All the files eventually get printed and reviewed as rawmaterial for further writing.

• This procedure could also be adapted to the Sequential Writingactivity described above.

• The difference between “sequence” writing and “looping” isthat in the former, the new file picks up where the previous fileleft off and continues in the general direction of the previousfile. In looping, the new file takes as a starting point anyportion of the previous file that catches the writer’s interest.

Group Looping

This activity builds fluency, the ability to focus, and the kind of creativ-ity and collaborative involvement typical of “writing in the realworld.”

• Students work in small groups, with one AlphaSmart perstudent. They each start a file in F1 as described above in theLooping activity.

• After 3-5 minutes, students pass their keyboards to a neighbor,who reviews the F1 file, deciding on one particular idea,sentence, phrase, or word that captures some interesting point.

• Students use this text to do another short period of freewritingin file F2 including his or her name at the end of their writing.

• When finished, they hand the AlphaSmart to a third groupmember, who reviews F2 and repeats the procedure, doing ashort freewriting period in F3. This same process is repeatedwith each student starting a new file beginning with a shortpiece of text from the previous file.

• Eventually (depending on the size of the groups or how muchtime you can devote to this procedure), the AlphaSmart isreturned to the original author, who can review the files to getperspectives, ideas, and quotes for future use in preparing apiece of writing.



Invisible Writing

Students report that this approach develops fluency and helps themovercome the tendency to do inappropriate rewriting before appropri-ate time is spent prewriting. They also report that they’re more inter-ested in seeing what they have to say. The procedure described belowis one way to practice the technique before it’s applied to actual writingassignments.

• Students have a large Post-It sticker available to cover up thetext window.

• They spend 1-3 minutes freewriting on the given topic with thetext window covered (see explanation of freewriting in the“looping” section).

• They then remove the sticker, review the text, and spend 1-3minutes freewriting “visibly” (they can see the text), continu-ing to respond to the assignment.

• They repeat this two-part procedure with the partneredquestion for the assignment.

• Finally, students spend 2-4 minutes freewriting on how thetwo different conditions affected their thinking and writing.They discuss this in class and print the material for later use.

• Here are some sample topics to help students practice thistechnique. They’re designed to provide tasks of equal “cogni-tive load.” Similar prompts can be generated for a variety oftopics and curriculum areas.

- “I’m typing on this keyboard, and . . .- “I can’t see what I’m typing and . . .”

- Why do people read poetry?- Why do people write poetry?

- Why do people read history books?- Why do people write history books?

- What’s hard about learning chemistry?- What’s easy about learning chemistry?

- What was hard about being in school last year?- What was easy about being in school last year?


Class Act

To help students prepare for class discussions, have them use thequestions below to begin thinking about a reading assignment you'vegiven. They can keep the list of questions in one of the available filesand use another file to jot down reponses.

• Type a title to identify the assigned reading.• What, if anything, does the author seem to know about writing

that you don't already know yourself? (Not about the subjectmatter, but about writing.)

• What's something you know that could have been included inthe piece but wasn't?

• What's something that was included in the piece that youalready knew?

• What's a word, phrase, or sentence that surprised, bothered,amused, or confused you? Explain why it affected you thatway.

• Without using any part of the title, what are five key wordsthat would tell someone what this piece of writing was about?After you've listed the words, explain why you picked eachone.

Notes:

Tips and Tricks

Here are a few ways to help make your use of the AlphaSmart key-board more organized, efficient, productive, and enjoyable.

All in a Name

At the start of a file, use the CAPS LOCK key to type a name or topicfor the file. This will help you quickly identify its contents as youlater move from file to file.

Tale of the Tape

When doing interviews, taking field notes, or keeping a learning-log,put a strip of lift-off white tape or some stickers above the file keys(F1, F2, etc.). Label the keys with a set of thinking categories to helpkeep track of things, for example:

• Who? What? When? Where? Why?• What? So What? Now What?• +’s (positives) -’s (negatives)• !’s (interesting factors, neither positive nor negative).

Colored stickers or small pictures may be helpful if you prefer to usenonverbal means to jog your memory.

Leave the Blanks Blank (For Now)

When jotting down notes and first impressions, if you can’t think of aword, just type in a dotted line. Trust yourself. You’ll think of it later.

Expert Opinion

One good source of expertise is, of course, the students in your class.Have them keep a running account in one of their files of the tricksthey develop to help their work with the AlphaSmart go faster andbetter. Have them share these ideas in class, collect them, and publishthem in a student anthology for use in later classes.


Check the AlphaSmart Web site

Visit the AlphaSmart Web site at www.alphasmart.com and find addi-tional information. From the home page, select "Classroom Solu-tions". From this page you can find more information on additionaltips and tricks, as well as lesson plans, keyboarding ideas and strate-gies for students with special needs. When you are at the "Tips &Ticks" section, be sure to visit “Hot Tips from Cool Teachers".

Notes:


ClassroomIntegration Ideas

These curriculum integration ideas can be used with many differentgrade levels and in many content areas. As you read through theactivities, your successful experiences will help you adapt andconnect the ideas to strategies and processes you already use thathelp students learn.

Creating New Word Lists

Students will create lists of new words for one week to add to theirprinted word list.

• Check out an AlphaSmart to each student or have severalstudents share with designated assigned files.

• Have students enter their new words in the AlphaSmart.Have the students check them out and take them home tocontinue adding to their new word lists. If students aresharing, try to have students check them out at least one nightper week.

• If a student has access to more than one file on theAlphaSmart at a time, the word lists can be developed in twoor more files to reflect the new words from home and schoolor other locations.

• Later, the word lists can include definitions or be used tocreate sentences.

• The word lists can be printed directly from the AlphaSmart toencourage the students to take immediate ownership of thewords they are learning. Students can illustrate these wordlists as they are printed.

• The word lists can be transferred to a computer and format-ted for printing and illustrating as well.


Sentences from Spelling Words

Students will write sentences using their weekly spelling words.

• Transfer the spelling words for the week into each file usingthe Get Utility. You can transfer to one file and then copy andpaste it into each of the other files on the AlphaSmart.

• Each AlphaSmart can be used by up to eight students withone file assigned to each student.

• Students will write a sentence using each spelling word.

• Encourage students to write sentences that include more thanone word from the spelling list in a sentence.

• Ask the students to place the spelling word or words on theline above the sentence before using it in the sentence. Stu-dents can move the order of the spelling words around fromthe original list using the cut and paste feature.

• You can direct that the sentences written connect to specifictopics in social studies, science or to a story from reading.

• Have each sentence list printed directly from the AlphaSmartor transfer to a computer for formatting before printing.

Activity Journal

Check out an AlphaSmart to each student to keep track of all theiractivities for each day for one week.

• Lead a class discussion to identify different categories such asschool, eating, sleeping, and soccer. Each category title can beplaced on a sticker above one of the AlphaSmart files.

• If two students share one AlphaSmart, each student can usefour files labeled by day or activity.

• Students will enter a list of their various activities hourly forone week.

• At the end of the week, students will print their files directlyfrom the AlphaSmart and organize the data they have col-lected into charts and graphs.


Names, Nouns and Verbs

Students will use the beginning letter of names to match with a nounand a verb to create simple sentences.

• Enter a list of the first names of the students in the class intothe F1 file of the AlphaSmart. Use the cut and paste feature tomove the names easily into other files.

• Have students enter a verb and a noun that begins with thesame later as the name to create a simple sentence.

• Examples:- John jiggles jello.- Michelle mashes marshmallows..

• Students can use their family members’ names or the names ofcharacters from a current story or book rather than studentnames. The number of names can be limited to a numberappropriate for the student level.

• The sentences can be printed directly from the AlphaSmart andillustrated.

• You can add an adjective and an adverb using the samebeginning letter as the students’ skill levels progress.

Questions to Guide the Field Trip

Before taking a field trip, brainstorm with the students and create a listof questions that will be answered or items to look for during the classouting.

• Provide an AlphaSmart to each student and list one identifiedquestion in each file. The questions can be transferred from acomputer using the Get Utility. The questions can be movedfrom one file to other files using the cut and paste capability ofthe AlphaSmart.

• Provide time periodically during the actual field trip forstudents to enter their thinking and findings in response to theguided questions.

• Remind students to spell check each file periodically.



• After returning to the classroom, have each student print fromthe AlphaSmart, edit from the writing-in-progress and returnto the AlphaSmart to make adjustments and additions to thewriting.

• Transfer the final written material to the computer for format-ting and printing by each student. This final report can bebound together for a class summary or made into a multimediareport including illustrations and photographs from the fieldtrip.

Sentence Completion for Understanding

Following the reading and preliminary discussion of a novel, studentsdevelop new insights by completing related statements.

• Determine a set of incomplete sentences to lead the students todeeper understanding of the story.

• Enter the statements into the AlphaSmart. You can havestudents work in one file and share AlphaSmarts or you canassign different statements to various files if your students eachhave their own.

• Some examples of the kinds of unfinished statements are:- “I was surprised at. . . .”- “I began to wonder . . .”

• Remind the students to use the spell checking feature of theAlphaSmart to correct the spelling as they work.

• After each student completes the writing and editing have thetext transferred to a computer for formatting.

Procedural Writing

This writing process encourages procedural and technical writing withstudent partners and an AlphaSmart.

• Partner students together and provide an AlphaSmart for eachpair.

• One student performs the process or procedure. This could bea difficult math problem, a step-by-step research process, or thesteps to create a watercolor.

• The students talk about each necessary step taken together.

• The sequential steps are entered on the AlphaSmart.

• Students can easily change the order of the steps using thecopy and paste feature of the AlphaSmart.

• Students should test the steps of the written procedure byhaving another pair of students try to replicate the processusing the written directions.

• Changes are made to the directions following the test.

• The final text is transferred to a computer for formatting andprinting.

Guided Science Observation

Students will partner with another student for a science experiment,lab or outdoor observation and use the AlphaSmart to guide the workand record the data collected.

Before students start a lab where observation of data is required,provide an AlphaSmart for each student or pair of students.

• Load a set of guiding questions into one of the files to assist thestudents. You can copy and paste the same set of questions toseveral files if you have different classes doing the sameproject. The AlphaSmart will be ready for each class.

• Have the students enter their findings into the AlphaSmartwhile they are working inside and/or outside.

• The students will then edit the work and transfer the text to acomputer for formatting.

Interviewing and Writing a Biography

Students write biographies after interviewing fellow classmates, familymembers, community members or by simulating interviews of histori-cal characters.



• Pair students and provide an AlphaSmart for each student oreach pair.

• Review the criteria for a good biography to include how thesubject overcame difficult odds, lead others to success, helpedothers overcome difficult times, and identified new solutions toproblems.

• Have students conduct the interview and take notes on theAlphaSmart.

• With the notes from the interview, have each student write abiography about the person interviewed.

• Use the spell check feature and print directly from theAlphaSmart for preliminary editing.

• The text can be transferred directly to multimedia programs forpresentation or printed for publishing. These biographies arealso great additions to a classroom Web site.

Notes:


Sharing Your Ideas

Once you have created your own successful lesson plan from theseideas, go the AlphaSmart Web site at www.alphasmart.com. You willsee an opportunity to have your ideas and lesson plans published tobe shared with others.

Notes:

AlphaSmart, Inc.973 University Ave. Los Gatos, CA 95032Phone: (408) 355-1000 Fax: (408) 355-1055

Sales: (888) 274-0680 [email protected] Support: (888) 274-2720

[email protected]

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