National Writing Project

Teaching Now: Digital Writing Books

Date: December 18, 2009

Summary: In these recent and upcoming books, Writing Project teacher-consultants and leaders share their knowledge, experience, and expertise in the constantly evolving field of digital writing.

 

Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Online and Multimedia Environments

by the National Writing Project with Danielle Nicole DeVoss, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks
Jossey-Bass, November 2010

As a companion to Because Writing Matters (2003), Because Digital Writing Matters makes the case that digital tools and environments have transformed writing practices and therefore must transform our teaching practices. The authors examine current trends, best practices, research, and issues in the teaching of digital writing and offer practical solutions and models for teachers, school administrators, and policymakers, as well as those seeking effective staff development for teaching digital writing.

Because Digital Writing Matters will be available on NWP's website in November 2010.


Using Technology to Improve Adolescent Writing: Digital Make-Overs for Writing Lessons

by Liz Stephens and Kerry H. Ballast
Allyn & Bacon, January 2010

To capture the digital natives' attention in the secondary classroom so that they develop good writing skills for life, teachers must create engaging lesson plans that effectively implement technology for writing across the curriculum. Central Texas Writing Project teacher-consultants Stephens and Ballast outline four frames of writing—inside writing, responsive writing, purposeful writing, and social action writing—and present student-centered and inquiry-based reading/writing lessons to connect real-world writing to content area standards. The result is a state-of-the-art resource for helping teachers teach every student to write inside and outside of the classroom.


The Digital Writing Workshop

by Troy Hicks
Heinemann, September 2009

Troy Hicks, director of the Chippewa River Writing Project in Michigan, shows you how to use new technologies to enhance the teaching of writing you already do. Chapters are organized around the familiar principles of the writing workshop: student choice, active revision, studying author's craft, publication beyond the classroom, and assessment of both product and process. In each chapter you'll learn how to expand and improve your teaching by incorporating new technologies like wikis, blogs, and other forms of multimedia. The Digital Writing Workshop Ning is a companion to the book that invites teachers to network as they learn how to teach digital writing.


Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change, and Assessment in the 21st-Century Classroom

edited by Anne Herrington, Kevin Hodgson, and Charles Moran
Teachers College Press and National Writing Project, May 2009

Whether writing instructors embrace digital literacy now or see the inevitable future ahead, this groundbreaking book will both instruct and inspire. Teacher-consultants from the Western Massachusetts Writing Project have gathered a set of contributing authors from public, independent, rural, urban, and suburban schools and from writing project sites across the country. These teachers share their stories, successful practices, and vivid examples of their students' creative and expository writing from online and multimedia projects such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, electronic poetry, and more.


Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and Other Digital Tools

by Richard Beach, Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and Thom Swiss
Christopher-Gordon Publishers, October 2008

Teachers are realizing they must make use of their students' outside-of-school writing practices, both to connect classroom work to students' real-world lives and to prepare students for the situations they will encounter throughout their lives. This book shows teachers how to teach writing in the classroom using the digital tools their students are already engaged with—such as blogs, wikis, and online chat—and others such as digital mapping, digital storytelling, podcasts, and e-portfolios. The authors provide examples of teaching activities and student work from NWP teacher-consultants' and others' classrooms. Readers can also find links to new tools and activities on the authors' constantly updated resource website .

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