Writing can be an intimidating topic for middle schoolers since the skills required are much different than that of younger students. And if your child is already experiencing issues with writing, then you need to read this article. I’m going to go over three tools that will help your 7th, 8th, or 9th grader become a better writer.
Writing Platforms With Scoring Engine
Most of the following 10 web applications score essays and provide trait feedback and targeted instruction for students grade four and up. They typically include hundreds of scored prompts (narrative, expository, descriptive, and persuasive), some with reading passages. Most vendors are improving Common Core alignment and adding more complex text and improved instructional feedback.
- Criterion Online Writing Evaluation service from ETS is a web-based instructional tool that teachers use with students to help them plan, write and revise essays guided by instant annotated diagnostic feedback and a holistic score. Riverside Publishing, a division of HMH, distributes Criterion.
- Essay Punch from Merit Software contains nine writing topics and 1,080 help prompts to guide students through each step in the writing process with contextual help and feedback. Designed for students in grades seven to adult.
- GradeMark from iParadigms (turnitin.com) provides rich feedback to students by enabling editorial highlights, custom comments, and QuickMark® editing marks directly on student papers. Turnitin runs the ETS e-rater grammar analysis tool within an updated user experience.
- Learning Oasis from Metametric provides differentiated reading, writing, and vocabulary activities. Learning Oasis leverages the power of the Lexile Frameworks for reading and writing to provide each individual student with appropriately challenging activities. The product is beta and not widely available.
- Project Essay Grade (PEG) from Measurement Incorporated has provided over two million scores to students over the past five years. PEG powers NC Write, an online practice tool for North Carolina schools. More than 1,000 schools are using it as a formative writing assessment.
- SAGrader improves student learning by providing immediate feedback on their content area writing. Perfect for knowledge-based writing in high school and college courses like biology, psychology, and history.
- Writing Roadmap from CTB is an online writing tool that provides an effective way for students to practice and improve their writing and for teachers to measure and track writing proficiency for students in Grades 3-12.
- WriteToLearn from Pearson provides flexible, easy-to-use, effective writing assessment and instruction with added content and tools for English Language Learners. WriteToLearn is used statewide in South Dakota. MyWritingLab is a post-secondary platform powered by the same scoring engine.
- WriteBrain from Sunburst Digital is a web- based program is built on the six-trait writing model applied to eleven different genres. The structure of the program provides support for internalizing writing best practices by utilizing assessments built into the program for self, peer, and teacher evaluation.
- MyAccess! from Vantage Learning has 1,300 writing topics in math, science, language arts, and social studies with a fun, interactive (middle school targeted) interface that transforms writing instruction and assessment by providing immediate feedback. Vantage powers the spell and grammar check in Microsoft Word.
Scoring Engines
- CRASE from Pacific Metrics, provides immediate, accurate, and low-cost scoring of short-answer and essay items with six trait feedback.
- LightSIDE from CMU is a free and open-source software package developed at Carnegie Mellon University. This program is designed as a tool for non-experts to quickly utilize text- mining technology for a variety of purposes, including essay assessment.
- The five winning teams in the second phase of the Hewlett Foundation funded Automated Student Assessment Prize made their scoring engines available as open resources (send me a note if you want to learn more, Tom@GettingSmart.com).
Writing Aids
- Writing Reviser from SAS helps students ask questions experienced writers ask automatically – from big picture issues to smaller details to enhance writing skills.
- OdysseyWriter by CompassLearning is a customizable writing program for elementary and middle school students is called Odyssey Writer. Odyssey Writer can guide students through the entire writing process and make writing more focused, more effective, and even more enjoyable. While some users think of Odyssey Writer as a word processor, this is only a portion of its use.
- noredink a fun way to practice and master grammar on content of interest. An adaptive engine shows tutorials that help students correct mistakes.
- Studysync uses video of student discourse to model careful reading, critical thinking, use of evidence–great examples of Common Core literacy.
- Whipsmart Learning, a developer of online literacy tools, is worth watching.
- StoryBird, a collaborative illustrated storytelling app for families
iPad Writing Apps
With thanks to by Lore Sjöberg on Wired, here are three iPad apps:
- WriteRoom is a full screen alternative to Word; its great for getting words on the page, but don’t try to add charts and graphs.
- Draftpad does away with documents and files; everything is saved until you erase it.
- ensō Writer is a minimalist writing app with a simple sketch feature.
- Evernote makes it easy for students to take note on any device – laptops, tablets, smartphones. What’s more, students can capture audio and photos. Photos of notes or written text can even be searchable within Evernote.
- Dragon Dictation records any dictated thoughts or information. It’s a great way to take notes on the go, said blogger John Hardison.
Christine Chan likes minimalist writing apps and reviews:
- Byword ($2.99) has lots of features but no full screen mode.
- iA Writer ($0.99) is a bare-bones writing app.
- Elements ($4.99) is one of the most feature-packed apps available, but no iCloud synch.
- Writing Kit ($4.99) one of the most robust writing apps available, especially for those that do a lot of research-based writing, but no iCloud synch.
- Simplenote (free with ads) is simplest of the all but doesn’t use Dropbox or iCloud.
Also:
- Day!–The Best Story of Mine is a diary app.
- Writers App ($0.99) helps students organize a story.
- Write and Write2 ($2.99) claims to be the best note-taking app.
Nine reviewed apps from Reading Rockets include:
- ABC Cursive for grades 3-5 helps students learn cursive.
- iCanWrite ($0.99) teaches letters for grade K-1.
- iWriteWords ($2.99) teaches handwriting for grades K-1.
- Kids Writing Pad ($2.99) is a lined pad for handwriting for grades K-3.
- Popplet ($4.99) is a story planning and mind-mapping app for grades 3-12.
- Sentence Builder ($5.99) helps students grade K-5 build grammatically correct sentences.
- Story Builder ($7.99) teaches students grade 1-5 to build stories by answering questions.
- TeachMe: 1st Grade ($0.99) teaches writing by asking questions; a writing recognition engine checks answers.
- Toontastic helps students grades K-5 animate their own stories.
While many of these may be a dream come true for educators, the dizzying array of choices is also a nightmare. Teachers just don’t have time to filter through thousands of apps to find the one that works best for the needs of their students. To help, we started to create curated lists of the best apps in a variety of education related categories. In this installment, we will present the best grammar and writing apps for middle school students.
- Write the World–Boundless site that helps young writers write, revise, think, and evolve.
- NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program- Wildly engaging contest turns students into novelists in 30 days,
- Penzu Classroom– This journaling platform motivates student writers, and also has strong teacher tools.
- Educreations– This neat app records student’s voice and writing.
- Writing Prompts– This app generates fiction, and nonfiction writing prompts, helping students master the skill of the short write.
- Flocabulary: Language Arts– Adds hip hop music to students’ language arts learning.
- com– Provides students with engaging parts-of-speech instruction and assessment.
- Youth Voices– Popular online community hosts authentic student writing.
- Storyrobe– Storyrobe allows writers to write, share their work, and receive feedback from
- Google Docs– Google Docs has all the traditional functionality of Microsoft Word but allows for collaboration between students and for easy-to-give and easy-to-receive feedback from teachers through the commenting and suggesting functions.
A student’s life pretty much revolves around writing, whether it’s essays or narratives. We can all claim to know how to write, but not everyone can meet the accepted writing standards, or even coherently – that is why at times it is considered to be a skill that requires mastery. In connection to this, software developers came up with some tools which can be used to enhance an individual’s writing abilities. This piece will cover 15 of the most helpful online tools which students can use to improve their art.
Google Docs
This free spreadsheet, form application and web based word processor that is offered by Google allows the user to create and edit documents, while at the same time collaborating with others in real time.
ReadWriteThink
From the name, you can tell that this is not exactly one tool. It can help enhance all the three skills. The tool is perfect for high schoolers. With these interactive online writing tools, students can be helped with a number of writing tasks including: writing business letters on templates, comic creation, and practicing storyboarding skills.
3D Writer
This simple, single minded tool can be downloaded and installed on your PC. The tool operates just like a word processing program but it is more of a “lean and mean” version. It is very helpful when it comes to creating hypertext fiction.
Button Talk
This is the MAC version of 3D Writer. What this application does best is focus on story writing. You can use the tool to explore dozens of links to use for hyperlinking. It is simple to use and can be used at a variety of education levels.
Poetry Forge
With this particular tool, poetry writing is simplified even for the students who claim to hate it. Poetry Forge comes with a number of online tools that will help you to come up with original poetry.
Word counter
Students can make the most of this tool when writing to help them count the number of times a word has been used in a document. The tool is ideal for students who have a tendency of overusing certain words.
Citation machine
This interactive web tool is designed to help students quickly and more appropriately cite their sources.
Language tool
A very effective tool that can be used to check and spot mistakes that may go unnoticed by your word processor. It detects spelling, syntax and grammar errors.
Cliché finder
At times it is hard to avoid clichés. However, if they are used in a witty way and sparingly, they can come in handy. The cliché finder helps the writer to detect all the clichés found in a document.
BibMe
Most (if not all) scholarly papers need a bibliography. Students are required to make citations of the source information that they are to include in their paper. This tool provides students with four formats: MLA, APA, Chicago or Turabian for citation.
StayFocusd
The tool helps students to maintain a clear head as they attempt to work on their assignment. Focusing for students can be hard, but StayFocusd helps by limiting the amount of time you can spend on time-wasting websites.
Readability-Score.com
Checking the readability of a school paper can be used to determine whether the paper fits the appropriate level of education. You certainly don’t want to be a grade 12 student with a writing level of a grade 2!
MindMup
A good number of students know how to research and come up with great concepts, but fail to execute them. MindMup is a very useful tool that helps students organize their ideas.
Grammarly
Grammarly is an online tool that is used to check for and highlight grammar mistakes for correction.
Paper Rater
Students can use the tool to check grammar, spell-check and check for plagiarism.
Conclusion
How can we help our students write better? Good writing habits span beyond just grammar and proofreading. To be a better writer, students need to commit more than just time and energy to their craft. It’s easy for middle schoolers to get discouraged when they don’t get the results they want- especially in writing. They may start doubting if they really have what it takes to be a writer at all.