It's the Wednesday before MEA break, and I think it's safe to say that both the students and the teachers are ready for a long weekend. Over the past few weeks my eighth grade classes have been working on their first essay of the year: a five-paragraph essay analyzing the poetic elements found in the lyrics of their favorite songs. This has been quite the process, but the use of some new (new to us anyway) technology has helped.
Students began their prewriting by browsing songs looking for elements of poetry in the lyrics. They searched for poetry devices like alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, personification, similes, metaphors, and the list goes on... Once they narrowed it down to one song, they located three elements of poetry within the song to form the three topics that would make up their three body paragraphs.
They also completed a graphic organizer as part of their prewriting. Then they were able to take the information on the graphic organizer and form their paper using Google Docs, a Google application much like Microsoft Word. With Google Docs, the students can access their paper anywhere as long as they have internet. It also constantly saves your work so there is no losing your work because a computer shut off or you forgot to save. The final step in the writing process was to submit the paper using turnitin.com, a website that allows students to upload their paper from their Google Docs account. The website also checks that the paper is original (not plagiarized). Using both Google Docs and Turnitin was beneficial in making their first paper of the year a little easier. I encourage you to check out both of these tools for the classroom!
Students began their prewriting by browsing songs looking for elements of poetry in the lyrics. They searched for poetry devices like alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, personification, similes, metaphors, and the list goes on... Once they narrowed it down to one song, they located three elements of poetry within the song to form the three topics that would make up their three body paragraphs.
They also completed a graphic organizer as part of their prewriting. Then they were able to take the information on the graphic organizer and form their paper using Google Docs, a Google application much like Microsoft Word. With Google Docs, the students can access their paper anywhere as long as they have internet. It also constantly saves your work so there is no losing your work because a computer shut off or you forgot to save. The final step in the writing process was to submit the paper using turnitin.com, a website that allows students to upload their paper from their Google Docs account. The website also checks that the paper is original (not plagiarized). Using both Google Docs and Turnitin was beneficial in making their first paper of the year a little easier. I encourage you to check out both of these tools for the classroom!