Submitted by
Tina L. Thomen
SLM 521:
Telecommunications & The Internet
Fall 2005
This Web Link Bibliography provides writing resources for both secondary
students and teachers. The first three
sections are arranged for middle and high school students in order of relevance
to their daily writing needs: General Style
& Research Guides, Creative Writing ~ Ideas for Teens, and Publishing ~
Teen Writers. Sites were selected
based on navigational ease and appeal to an adolescent audience. Several heavily-commercialized and outdated
sites were reviewed, but eliminated from this bibliography. The last section, Teaching Writing ~ Teen Instructional Activities, provides
resources such as lesson plans, interactive media and PowerPoint presentations
that will enhance writing instruction for a variety of learning styles.
GENERAL STYLE & RESEARCH GUIDES
Elements of
Style – This classic by William
Strunk, Jr. still offers the most concise and user-friendly design for writing
students. Issues such as punctuation and choosing the
active voice are explained with few words and plenty of practical examples.
Students will appreciate this resource for its navigational ease. Common writing topics are formatted with
pop-out boxes that easily separate the examples from the informational text.
Date visited –
Guide
to Writing and Grammar - This website offers six
pull-down menus on the home page that help writers explore the big picture as
well as the minutia of writing at the word, phrase and sentence levels. Struggling grammar students would benefit
from a selection of 176 interactive quizzes that give immediate feedback and
explanations for incorrect answers. In
lieu of paper-only assessments, these interactive quizzes could be taken
multiple times to build grammar skills about a breadth of topics. Date visited –
How to Write a
Bibliography – Examples in MLA Style – This
specific link directs students to a chapter devoted to outlining 36 examples of
print and non-print citations. Through its broader offerings, this
comprehensive site ranges in topics such as writing bibliographies, choosing
research topics, and accessing study guides for literary classics such as Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. At this specific chapter link, each type of
bibliographic citation includes 4-5 examples for students to consider. I personally book-marked this site as a
favorite go-to guide for MLA referencing.
Date visited –
Paradigm Online
Writing Assistant – “Paradigm is an interactive, menu-driven, online writer's guide
and handbook written in HTML and distributed freely...It uses hypertext
structure to create a web of links and text frames that you can navigate
quickly and easily by clicking your desired choice.”(from http://www.powa.org/about/index.html.) The
clean design and mouse-overs allow students to quickly target their area of
writing instruction. Topics include
informal essay, research, poetry, and editing tips. Date visited –
Teenspace
– Internet Library for Teens - Teenspace provides
a step-by-step process for research and writing. This accessible website addresses the thought
processes that teens experience while writing research papers. Besides addressing issues such as how to cite
references, teens learn how to deal with the anxiety and fear of writing. In addition to academic writing strategies,
Teenspace offers an array of other valuable resources such as young adult book
reviews, adolescent health issues, sports, and career planning. Date visited –
WritingDEN – Geared for a younger adolescent audience, the
WritingDEN’s “Tip-O-Matic” home page provides basic writing tips at the
sentence, paragraph and essay level. Easy navigation and simplistic topic headings
offer general overviews for young writers. This site is free from clutter and
advertisements. Date visited -9/23/05. http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/contents.htm.
Writing
the Academic Paper -
CREATIVE WRITING ~ IDEAS FOR TEENS
IDEASFACTORY
- This site offers video clips about the
daily routines and ideas that inspire young writers. For high school students who may need a
visual and auditory release from writer’s block, these video clips spotlight a
novelist, playwright, and poet who have faced these same challenges. Whether or not students are considering
creative writing as a career path, the shared experiences about finding topics
and using everyday life as inspiration are valuable tips for teens. – Date
visited
Language
is a Virus - The title alone
connotes this site’s offbeat creative offerings that will appeal to teen
writers. The tagline concisely explains
its appeal: “Writing toys, games and gizmoz to inspire your creativity. Text
generators! Cut Up machines!” (from home page of http://www.languageisavirus.com/.) This highly interactive site admits teens
into a virtual language carnival where they can ride the “Haiku-a-Tron” and the
“Title-o-Matic” to generate ideas. In
addition to the creative word games and links to other writing resources, teens
learn about writing techniques shared by successful authors such as Ezra Pound,
Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerourac. Date
visited -9/23/05. http://www.languageisavirus.com/.)
Letters, Letter-Writing and
other Intimate Discourse - Copyrighted by Wendy Russ, this site uses the
Internet to celebrate the time-honored traditional of personal
letter-writing. Students can read about
the history of letter-writing and read examples of Civil War letters, letters
written by Einstein, and personal journals or love letters written by everyday
people. As a primary informational source, this site provides real-life
accounts for history and English students.
Practical advice for writing letters of condolescence and recommendation
are provided as well. This site
supplements standard curriculum that focuses on the art of personal
letter-writing. Students benefit from
viewing examples across time periods as well as accessing links to current
resources that will enhance their personal writing development. Date visited –
Writing Business
Letters - This site
offers practical business-letter writing tips for the multitude of students who
will need these skills in the workplace.
Offered by
PUBLISHING ~ TEEN WRITERS
Creative Writing for Teens – Offered by About.com, this site allows
teens to submit poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction to About Creative
Writing for Teens. In addition, teens
receive tips and read selections from what other peers have posted. Students are
empowered to create original works that are evaluated by young adults and
adolescents who share similar interests and life experiences. Up-to-date submissions are as recent as
August, 2005, and the reading topics are arranged both chronologically and
thematically. Topics address relevant
adolescent issues such as sports, hobbies, depression, suicide, humor, art,
love and war. As students produce
elective or assigned writings, they can expand their audience and support
network by submitting their creations to peers across the country. Date visited –
Teen Ink
– This online magazine is written by
teens for teens. Beyond poetry and fiction,
students can submit movie reviews, book reviews and essays about a variety of
topics such as sports, cars, racism and the environment, just to name a
few. With added emphasis and our
society’s need for community service, students may also share their experiences
about giving time and energy back to their neighborhoods. The
past issues of the magazines are conveniently arranged by a picture icon for
each topic. As students develop
collaborative skills for classroom and workplace settings, the sections about
effective feedback are highly beneficial.
Date visited –
TEACHING WRITING ~ TEEN INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES
A
Writer’s Reference – Teachers and
students can use this site to supplement classroom activities with online
writing, grammar and research exercises.
“This student companion Web site for
A Writer's Reference, Fifth Edition, enhances the book by offering a
variety of online resources developed by Diana Hacker” (from home
page of http://dianahacker.com/writersref/.)
Even for teachers who do not choose this text, the “Language Debates” tab offer
unique opportunities for group collaboration projects that would explore
controversial issues such as when to sacrifice grammatical prescriptions for
stylistic freedom. The Language Debates
are not offered in the printed text and it is available to everyone
online. Date visited –
National
Council for Teachers of English: Reading and Writing on the Web – As the trusted source for professional development
and teaching strategies, the NCTE offers numerous online resources for
teachers. The link to the
Read/Write/Think lessons at < http://www.ncte.org/collections/weblit/strategies/117195.htm
> includes lessons that integrate writing with technology. Many lessons feature collaborative activities
that involve students writing about literature or creating poetry and then
transferring these files to design class web-pages. The NCTE appeals to teachers who work with
all age and ability levels. Annual
membership costs to the NCTE are minimal and well-worth the investment. Date visited –
National
Writing Project - “Located in universities across the country, National Writing Project (NWP)
sites work with teachers to improve writing instruction in
OWL: Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab - “The
Purdue University OWL now offers instructors a selection of interactive
PowerPoint presentations on a variety of writing-related topics to be used for
class workshops. Each presentation is designed to provide instructors with
information about the elements of writing while allowing them to initiate
student participation and discussion, adjust their comments to the specifics of
class projects, and progress through the program at their own desired pace.
Each presentation also contains facilitator notes, designed to aid instructors
through discussion of each topic, and references to supplemental handouts from
OWL.” (from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/pp/index.html.) Topics include grammar, rhetoric, business
letters, resumes, persuasion and documentation.
Teachers can easily download these visual presentations for a variety of
writing topics. Furthermore, teachers may adapt instruction for given age
groups by extending certain concepts or by just providing general
overviews. Date visited –
PBS
TeacherSource - This site offers
teachers across disciplines a myriad of lesson plans and access to multimedia
resources that provide a variety of instructional modes. Over 40 lesson plans are listed for grades
9-12 under the heading of “Writing: Composition.” The sorting features by grade level and topic
help busy teachers filter down to their area of expertise. Because teachers often integrate writing with
other arts and humanities activities, the other 23 sub-headings in addition to
“writing” offer teachers ample choice. –
Date visited -9/23/05. http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/arts_lit/high-writingcomposition.html
The
Educator’s Reference Desk - Maintained by the Information
Institute of Syracuse, this site also provides lessons plans for teachers that
are organized by grade and subject level.
In addition to lesson plans for writing, the site provides general tabs
for queries about professional development, links to the ERIC database, and
other resources. For example, English
teachers can access over 20 other sites about writing. Date visited –
Web English Teacher - This uncluttered,
user-friendly site provides numerous instructional ideas for a breadth of
writing topics, including creative writing, essays, storytelling, and
multigenre projects. In addition to the
writing ideas, teachers will appreciate tabs that assist them with ESOL
learners and tools to make graphic organizers.
Besides writing resources, the site offers tips for teaching classic
literature such as Shakespeare and modern selections from Young Adult fiction.
Date visited – 9/23/05. http://www.webenglishteacher.com/writing.html
Updated