Author, Scott Nailor
Category Archives: Writing
BBC’s ‘State of Debate’ Game Worth Playing in the Classroom
For a while I have been hesitant to write about games in education. I think it’s the old-school teacher in me. Or, maybe it’s the stigma attached to electronic games in school based on the common assumption that they present distractions from and not opportunities for meaningful learning. But recent research suggests otherwise. In fact, a 2009 MIT study suggests well-designed educational games are valuable tools for developing skills in communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and even innovation. Unfortunately, many educational games only present rote learning—repetition of addition and subtraction, for example. But some games are designed to encourage and support critical thinking. The BBC’s “State of Debate” is such a game. It is very well-designed, it is interactive, and it encourages students to think critically about persuasive arguments. Even hardened critics among us will see this one is a game worth playing in school. In the classroom In “State of Debate,” students are … Continue reading
Take “The Brainstormer” for a Spin
A small group of aspiring authors from among my students just started an after-school creative writers’ club. They meet bi-weekly to share ideas, to collaborate, and to encourage each other to write. So the gathering of this new group got me wondering…what kind of cool resources are online for students interested in creative writing? After a little digging around I found a fun application called “The Brainstormer” created by graphic artist and illustrator Andrew Bosley. The Brainstormer, a simple but innovative tool, is comprised of a set of three wheels that you spin virtually by clicking the center for random ideas about things like conflict, setting, and character to spark the imagination. You can also select ideas manually by moving each wheel to a desired topic. This application is also available through the iTunes App Store for $1.99 so students can download it to their iPhones, iPods, and iPads. This … Continue reading
Teach Students to Use the Power of Images with Worlde, Creatly, and Statworld
The other day a student stood in the middle of my classroom holding his cellphone at arm’s length, pointing it at the white board. I was about to tell him to put it away, but then I realized what he was doing and it gave me pause to think…he was “taking notes” by snapping a digital picture of what I had written on the board. So I wondered, what if I asked him to use those images in his next essay? Isn’t this a way to integrate technology into the language arts curriculum—taking digital pictures and using them with text? But really, when is the last time you asked your students to include images in their essays? Probably never, right? When students include pictures, it’s usually to adorn the cover of the essay beneath one of those annoying plastic report covers. But consider how many images the average student encounters … Continue reading
Posted in Informational Texts, Lesson Plans, Reading, Technology Integration, Writing
Tagged classroom technology, digital text, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, language arts, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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Blending Art, Literature, and Problem Solving at the J. Paul Getty Museum
Common Core Standard 7 for Reading presents teachers with many possibilities for mixing all kinds of art forms with literature. Music, photography, painting, sculpture, and many other media are easily brought into the classroom today because of the internet…the important thing is to use these resources heuristically. 7. Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus). Teaching students to analyze subjects or scenes in comparative forms gives us an opportunity to explore with them the traditions of storytelling—the many and various ways stories can be told and have been told throughout history. Poetry, short stories, plays, and even novels and epic tales have important connections to art and present new, thoughtful ways to analyze and evaluate themes. To start, you … Continue reading
Posted in Classical Literature, Common Core Standards, Lesson Plans, Reading, Writing
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, online english, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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Common Core Reading Standard #5—Analyzing Plot
Looking at CCS standard for reading #5, I am encouraged to see critical thinking required of our students. It is important to ensure that skills like problem solving, analyzing, and evaluating are at the core of our reading, writing, and speaking skills curricula. It is also essential that we keep in mind the goal of generating independent, self-directed (and self-reflective), life-long learners. 5. Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. For standard #5, the key term is “analyze.” In Bloom’s taxonomy, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are the top tiers we strive to reach. A lesson plan from teacher Patricia Schulze provides some excellent opportunities to use technology for this standard. The technology for the lesson comes from a site you are probably familiar with—Read, Write, … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core Standards, Lesson Plans, Reading, Writing
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, digital, engage students, english, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, Language Arts Lesson Plans, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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Online Resources for Analyzing Character
This week we look at the last of three standards under “Key Ideas and Details” in the “Reading” section of the Common Core: Standard 3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. For students to understand how a character develops over the course of a text and how his or her interactions impact plot and theme, they first need to know where to begin. A good place to start is to help them get into the mind of the character. The idea is to help students take a character and, to borrow a quote from Atticus Finch, “climb into his skin and walk around in it.” The internet offers many ways to facilitate this creatively with technology. Here are a few ideas and sites that might work … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core Standards, Lesson Plans, Reading, Writing
Tagged Common Core Standards, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, online english, online lesson plans, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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Writing about Theme with iWrite
Continuing with our exploration of the Common Core, this week I’ve discovered a useful website for the second standard under “Key Ideas and Details.” Standard 2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. This standard is a broad one but also a very important one as it focuses on analysis which is among those higher order thinking skills so important to students becoming independent learners. It is unlikely you could (or should) cover this standard with one lesson. Students need multiple opportunities to learn about and meet this standard. iwrite from Great Source (Haughton, Mifflin, Harcourt) offers a lot of useful material online for both teachers and students exploring not only central ideas with writing but also … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core Standards, Lesson Plans, Writing
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, digital text, high school, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, language arts, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, lesson plans, online english, online high school, online lesson plans, online writing, technology integration
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Bubble This and Dabble That…Free Brainstorming Tools Online
I’ve been working away at my last regular class for my M.A. in English at NAU…just the capstone class after this and I’ll have my Master’s degree! This week, I had to put together an extensive brainstorm map of ideas related to a specific problem and it got me thinking about and searching for good online tools for brainstorming and mind mapping. I found a few I like that I think you might also want to try. The one I used for my class is called BubbleUs, and if you set up an account, it is free. I like that it is simple to get started, colorful, and easy to export when you’re done by saving / exporting an image of your project. If you want something a little more complex with extra features such as the ability to add pictures and drawings to your brainstorm, check out Dabbleboard, where … Continue reading
What if Your Textbooks Were Free and Customizable?
As the school year winds down, you might be thinking about what new or different books you hope to use in the fall. If you are, I encourage you to check out Open Educational Resources (OER) textbooks. OER or “Open Source” textbooks are digital, often customizable, textbooks published and available on the web. Many of them are quite comprehensive and are written by highly-qualified professionals with advanced degrees. These books also often include interactive elements and multimedia such as sound and video. Best of all, they’re free. In the Classroom Here are some OER sources you can explore. Since these are open and free, you’ll see that you can pick and choose from multiple sources for your students instead of having to commit to one textbook from one publisher. Many of them are also available in PDF format for download and to print either for free or for a … Continue reading
Shmoop Promises to “Vanquish” Dread Over Writing
For teachers and students, Shmoop.com, a popular online study guide website, recently released a new feature called “Shmoop Essay Lab” and it’s a powerful teaching/learning tool, especially for students who struggle with developing ideas and organizing their essays. Students can choose to write about literature or to develop a college entrance essay and Shmoop’s interactive tutorial walks them through the process from topic selection to final edit. What’s really interesting is that the literature essay tutorials are custom designed and paired with any one of dozens of books. So, for example, if a student is writing about To Kill a Mockingbird, she can select that book from the menu and follow the step-by-step tutorial for developing an essay about a theme or a topic related to that particular book. The tutorial even offers specific quotes from the text that students can use to support their ideas in the body of … Continue reading
Posted in Writing
Tagged classroom technology, computers writing, engage students, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, high school writing, interactive writing, Language Arts Lesson Plans, lesson plans, middle school writing, online writing, online writing lab, technology integration, Technology lesson plans, writing lesson plans
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