I absolutely love writing. I always have. I can remember a project I did in fourth grade and how excited I was even before the school year started. I knew the project was coming even in third grade. For this project, we got to write our own stories and then publish the story in a little hardcopy book. (This was back in 2000 before iPad book creator apps) At the time, I was a competitive ice skater so I remember my story being about a young girl who was traveling to an ice skating competition. Fast forward to senior year of high school when I took a playwrighting class at my high school. I was one of four students in class. I remember spending hours writing and re-writing scenes in that play. I actually found a copy of my play earlier this summer when I was over at my parents' house. Sometime in high school, I also decided that I wanted to write screenplays. I don't think that lasted very long. While writing has not always been easy (I'm looking at you, English III and Play Structure and Analysis essays that I wanted to get over with), I still love it.
During my student teaching year, I was responsible for planning math lessons when I took over for my amazing mentor teacher. She and the district resources supported me a lot in this endeavor. Writing lessons were the ones that were always my favorite to teach. I love teaching writing because there is no right answer. It's truly a process of thinking and student creativity. Yes, there are correct ways to use grammar, spelling and punctuation but no writing is the same. Each student always writes something different. Though I didn't think it fitting at the time, I think I was hired to teach sixth grade ELA after graduating from the Masters in Teaching program for a reason. While I am an advocate for the arts and technology in education, I believe that learning how to write well is super important. I definitely challenged my sixth grade students in writing to expand on their ideas and they saw how enthusiastic I was about ELA. I remember one of my boys in my homeroom asking me, "Miss Norman, are you obsessed with writing?" Little did he know that I was. After spending some time away from my sixth grade students and working with fourth and fifth graders pretty frequently the past year and a half, I realized that I'm an ELAR teacher at heart.
Today, on the blog, I'm talking about some of my favorite writing apps for students. Many of these have been used with both sixth and second graders.
1. Story Kit
This app is one of my favorites for a reason. It's free and relatively simple to use. I learned about it in Summer 2014 and it was one of my go-tos my first year. During my year teaching sixth grade, my students used it for imaginative stories and how-to booklets. They then emailed their stories to me. Story Kit creates a bookshelf with all the stories written on the device. You can both edit and read the story on the app. You can add pictures from the camera roll and also draw within the app. When we did our how-tos, I had students bring in pictures that they took at home.
2. ComicsHead Lite
Another app I love is one that I haven't used in my classroom yet, but incorporated into a unit I wrote for third-fifth graders earlier this summer at Trinity. I love Comics Head Lite because it gives kids a fun way to create comics that can be shared with others.
3. Google Docs
I do everything in Google Docs, but I also used it all the time in my sixth grade writing class. Students were writing personal narratives with docs, created works cited pages that they then embedded into their Thinglink presentations, and so much more with Google Docs.
4. Photo Card
I absolutely love Photo Card. I learned about this app during my student teaching year when my mentor had our students write friendly letters with the app. This app creates a postcard for students. After winter break my first year teaching, I had students write thank you letters and also taught them how to address an envelope. This app would have been so useful for this assignment had I reserved my school iPad cart. I also love this app because you can change the photo on the front. Great for adding a photo from an iPad camera roll. After writing, addressing the postcard and choosing a fun stamp, you just email the post card. So much fun.
5. StoryMe
I haven't used StoryMe since my year student teaching, but it's a fun app. During my MAT year, we had our students use the app to take a picture of themselves and then add speech bubbles with adjectives to describe themselves. You can also add captions. The app also allows you to choose layouts with a different number of pictures so you can create a story. After students create, they can save their image and upload it to a Classroom or SeeSaw portfolio (posts on those coming soon) or email it.
During my student teaching year, I was responsible for planning math lessons when I took over for my amazing mentor teacher. She and the district resources supported me a lot in this endeavor. Writing lessons were the ones that were always my favorite to teach. I love teaching writing because there is no right answer. It's truly a process of thinking and student creativity. Yes, there are correct ways to use grammar, spelling and punctuation but no writing is the same. Each student always writes something different. Though I didn't think it fitting at the time, I think I was hired to teach sixth grade ELA after graduating from the Masters in Teaching program for a reason. While I am an advocate for the arts and technology in education, I believe that learning how to write well is super important. I definitely challenged my sixth grade students in writing to expand on their ideas and they saw how enthusiastic I was about ELA. I remember one of my boys in my homeroom asking me, "Miss Norman, are you obsessed with writing?" Little did he know that I was. After spending some time away from my sixth grade students and working with fourth and fifth graders pretty frequently the past year and a half, I realized that I'm an ELAR teacher at heart.
Today, on the blog, I'm talking about some of my favorite writing apps for students. Many of these have been used with both sixth and second graders.
1. Story Kit
This app is one of my favorites for a reason. It's free and relatively simple to use. I learned about it in Summer 2014 and it was one of my go-tos my first year. During my year teaching sixth grade, my students used it for imaginative stories and how-to booklets. They then emailed their stories to me. Story Kit creates a bookshelf with all the stories written on the device. You can both edit and read the story on the app. You can add pictures from the camera roll and also draw within the app. When we did our how-tos, I had students bring in pictures that they took at home.
Below is an excerpt of one of my students' work. She was obsessed with coffee and knew I loved vanilla lattes, so she asked me how I made mine and then used that for her how-to.
2. ComicsHead Lite
Another app I love is one that I haven't used in my classroom yet, but incorporated into a unit I wrote for third-fifth graders earlier this summer at Trinity. I love Comics Head Lite because it gives kids a fun way to create comics that can be shared with others.
3. Google Docs
I do everything in Google Docs, but I also used it all the time in my sixth grade writing class. Students were writing personal narratives with docs, created works cited pages that they then embedded into their Thinglink presentations, and so much more with Google Docs.
4. Photo Card
I absolutely love Photo Card. I learned about this app during my student teaching year when my mentor had our students write friendly letters with the app. This app creates a postcard for students. After winter break my first year teaching, I had students write thank you letters and also taught them how to address an envelope. This app would have been so useful for this assignment had I reserved my school iPad cart. I also love this app because you can change the photo on the front. Great for adding a photo from an iPad camera roll. After writing, addressing the postcard and choosing a fun stamp, you just email the post card. So much fun.
5. StoryMe
I haven't used StoryMe since my year student teaching, but it's a fun app. During my MAT year, we had our students use the app to take a picture of themselves and then add speech bubbles with adjectives to describe themselves. You can also add captions. The app also allows you to choose layouts with a different number of pictures so you can create a story. After students create, they can save their image and upload it to a Classroom or SeeSaw portfolio (posts on those coming soon) or email it.
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| Experimenting this afternoon |
These are some of my favorite apps for writing instruction and others I also used were PicCollage, Blogger and Thinglink. I'm always looking for and learning about more apps for writing. If you have a favorite, share with me!
Happy Writing!
-Elle
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