Writing

=Writing resources=

ReadWriteThink || Students can create their own on-line letter, and learn about the parts of a letter. || Y 3 - 6 ||
 * ||  Link ||  Description ||  Target group ||  Notes ||
 * Letter Writing || [|Interactive Letter Writing Tool]
 * Posters for 6 Traits Writing || [|Teaching that Makes Sense] || Great website with loads of resources for teaching writing, including posters for download. || Teachers ||
 * ||  || StoryTop  is a good web-based tool for creating digital stories and comics. StoryTop  features an easy-to-use drag and drop tool for creating your story. To use Story Top  simply select your background, characters, and text bubbles from the menu and drag them into your story box. After selecting the basic story elements you can then add additional elements like plants, animals, and vehicles. When your story is complete you can save it in your Story Top  account or send it to friend. ||   ||
 * ||  || Make Beliefs Comix  is a free multilingual comic strip creation tool. Make Beliefs Comix iPad app supports the creation of comics in seven languages; English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Latin. The free Make Beliefs Comix iPad app allows students to create two, three, and four panel comic strips. To create comics in the Make Beliefs Comix iPad app you simply select the number of frames you want to use then choose the characters that you want to feature in your story. After choosing your frames and characters you can type text into speech bubbles to tell your story.
 * ||  || StoryTop  is a good web-based tool for creating digital stories and comics. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">StoryTop <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> features an easy-to-use drag and drop tool for creating your story. To use <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Story Top <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> simply select your background, characters, and text bubbles from the menu and drag them into your story box. After selecting the basic story elements you can then add additional elements like plants, animals, and vehicles. When your story is complete you can save it in your <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Story Top <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> account or send it to friend. ||   ||
 * ||  || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Make Beliefs Comix <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> is a free multilingual comic strip creation tool. Make Beliefs Comix iPad app supports the creation of comics in seven languages; English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Latin. The free Make Beliefs Comix iPad app allows students to create two, three, and four panel comic strips. To create comics in the Make Beliefs Comix iPad app you simply select the number of frames you want to use then choose the characters that you want to feature in your story. After choosing your frames and characters you can type text into speech bubbles to tell your story.
 * ||  || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Make Beliefs Comix <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> is a free multilingual comic strip creation tool. Make Beliefs Comix iPad app supports the creation of comics in seven languages; English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Latin. The free Make Beliefs Comix iPad app allows students to create two, three, and four panel comic strips. To create comics in the Make Beliefs Comix iPad app you simply select the number of frames you want to use then choose the characters that you want to feature in your story. After choosing your frames and characters you can type text into speech bubbles to tell your story.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Animation Desk <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> is an iPad and Android app (free and premium versions available) for creating short, animated videos. The app allows you to create drawings using just your finger on your tablet's screen. In the free version of the app (the version that I tried) you can create up to 50 scenes in each of your projects. In each scene you can include as little or as much as you want to draw on the canvas. There are a few different brush and pencil effects that you can use in your drawings. The opacity of the colors you choose can be altered too. When you have completed drawing all of your scenes hit the play button to watch your animation unfold. If you're happy with your animation you can export it to YouTube. You can export all of your drawings as a set of PDFs.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Storyboard That <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> provides templates in which you can create your stories in a comic strip style. Storyboard That doesn't have a stand-alone iPad app, but it is written in HTML5 and works well on all tablets. To help you create your story Storyboard That provides dozens of scenes, characters, and text bubbles to fill your storyboard's frames. Each element that you drag into your storyboard's frames can be re-sized, rotated, and re-positioned. Storyboard That has free and paid plans. The free plan allows you to create three and six frame stories. The free plan also limits you to three storyboards per week. A paid classroom account offers options for managing student accounts, limiting sharing to classroom members only, and a classroom account offers more frames per storyboard. ||  ||
 * ||  || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Over the years <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Read Write Think <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> has published dozens of excellent templates and tools for elementary school language arts lessons. Five of my favorite Read Write Think activities are featured below.
 * ||  || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Over the years <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Read Write Think <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> has published dozens of excellent templates and tools for elementary school language arts lessons. Five of my favorite Read Write Think activities are featured below.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Read Write Think offers a good interactive guide that can help students craft a good persuasive essay. The <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Persuasion Map <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> asks students to start with a thesis statement before walking them through developing support for that thesis. Students can print their persuasion maps or email them to you. RWT offers a number of lesson plans that incorporate the Persuasion Map. You can <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">find those lessons here <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Essay Map <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> provides students with step by step guidance in the construction of an informational essay. Some of my students seem to struggle most with constructing an introduction and conclusion to their essays. Essay Map is particularly good for helping students visualize the steps needed to construct good introductory and conclusion paragraphs. After students complete all of the steps in their <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Essay Map <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> they can print their essay outlines.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;">Alphabet Organizer <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #212121; font-family: 'Slab Serif',sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students can use to create alphabet charts and books. The idea behind Alphabet Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the alphabet and the first letter of common words. In the video below I demonstrate how to use this tool. ||  ||