A Resource for "Students Who Think They Hate Writing"
We wanted to pass along this article about a creative option for engaging students in the writing process known as BoomWriter. Research tells us that more technology has not necessarily translated into improved writing skills for most students. In fact, Ken Haynes, the BoomWriter co-founder suggests that "the negative effects of excess screen time and shorter attention spans due to social media are corroborated by recent studies that show only a quarter of American high school students are proficient in writing assessments, and one out of five have 'below basic' writing skills."
Here is Mr. Haynes' description of BoomWriter from the article linked above:
After a teacher signs up for free, here’s how BoomWriter works.
1. Teachers provide a prompt, story start, problem to solve, or single directive for all their students to read and respond to.
2. Each student writes and submits his/her entry for review and feedback from the teacher.
3. Once all entries are approved, all students then assess up to four of their classmates’ entries at a time, and anonymously cast their vote for the best version.
4. This process of reading, writing and voting continues until the project or story is complete!
This approach to “collaborative creativity” effectively engages every student in the writing process. All students also have their own personal Boomer Avatar that they can customize with Boomer Bucks earned from participation. This bit of gamification is another key to its success. In fact, teachers have discovered that the process of completing writing projects collaboratively challenges strong students to produce their best work, and reluctant writers to exceed their normal output levels as they become more invested and strive to present their best work to their peers.
BoomWriter was developed for students in grades 2-12, is Common Core aligned, and works for a variety of subject areas, including History, Social Studies, Science, English Language Arts, and more. If you would like to learn more about this classroom tool, you can visit the website here. We've also included the short video below, so that you can get an overview of BoomWriter.
Here is Mr. Haynes' description of BoomWriter from the article linked above:
After a teacher signs up for free, here’s how BoomWriter works.
1. Teachers provide a prompt, story start, problem to solve, or single directive for all their students to read and respond to.
2. Each student writes and submits his/her entry for review and feedback from the teacher.
3. Once all entries are approved, all students then assess up to four of their classmates’ entries at a time, and anonymously cast their vote for the best version.
4. This process of reading, writing and voting continues until the project or story is complete!
This approach to “collaborative creativity” effectively engages every student in the writing process. All students also have their own personal Boomer Avatar that they can customize with Boomer Bucks earned from participation. This bit of gamification is another key to its success. In fact, teachers have discovered that the process of completing writing projects collaboratively challenges strong students to produce their best work, and reluctant writers to exceed their normal output levels as they become more invested and strive to present their best work to their peers.
BoomWriter was developed for students in grades 2-12, is Common Core aligned, and works for a variety of subject areas, including History, Social Studies, Science, English Language Arts, and more. If you would like to learn more about this classroom tool, you can visit the website here. We've also included the short video below, so that you can get an overview of BoomWriter.
Comments
Post a Comment