Resource Topics

Teaching Writing - Writing and Technology

Featured Resources

Rural Voices Radio Spawns New Series: Calling America

January 2009
Art Peterson
A new audio series by the team that produced Rural Voices Radio features short segments of writing by authors, young and old, from across the nation. More ›

Digital Comics Spur Students' Interest in Writing

January 2009
Grant Faulkner
Fourth grade teacher Glen Bledsoe has his students create comic strips together, which engages their creativity and teaches them writing, critical thinking, and other skills. More ›

Digital Toolbox: Blogs

January 2009
Weblogs, or blogs, are online publishing platforms that support individuals in posting text and multimedia on the Web. This article explains how to start a blog for use in the classroom. More ›

Additional Resources

Teachers Teaching Teachers Focuses on Technology and Teaching Writing

2010
Through a weekly interactive webcast, New York City Writing Project teachers bring together teachers from across the country and the globe to discuss issues of classroom practice with new digital technology and to think through shared curriculum projects. More ›

Book Review: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media

January 2010
Thomas Maerke
Thomas Maerke, a teacher-consultant with the Ozarks Writing Project, recommends this book as a way of developing awareness of the ways new media affects students and their learning. More ›

Learning About Collaborative Writing with Wikipedia

January 2010
Lona Jack-Vilmar, teacher-consultant with the New York City Writing Project, experimented with Wikipedia as part of an inservice workshop, and multiple authors, unknown to her, contributed to her piece almost instantly. More ›

When Teachers Read: How the Writing Project Made Me a Lifelong Learner

January 2010
Liz Harrington
Liz Harrington, a fellow of the UC Irvine Writing Project, describes how she brought Nicenet into her classroom, providing students with a tool to engage in a "threaded discussion." More ›

Excerpts from Teaching the New Writing

November 2009
Read excerpts from this innovative guide, in which 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. More ›

A Digital Show to Help Digital Writing: Teachers Teaching Teachers

July 2009
Gavin Tachibana
Hosted by the New York City Writing Project, a weekly webcast called Teachers Teaching Teachers supports rich conversation about teaching and learning in 21st century classrooms. More ›

Book Review: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

February 2009
Red Clay Writing Project’s Technology Team
A site's technology team delves into Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, and find themselves warming up to and exploring the possibilities of Web 2.0 tools to support writing and learning in the classroom and beyond. More ›

DC Area Teacher-Consultant Blogs for Family Literacy

September 2009
Art Peterson
A Washington, DC area teacher-consultant establishes a newspaper-supported blog that promotes both family literacy and the writing project. More ›

Digital Toolbox: Group-Based Social Networks

April 2009
Group-based social networks like Ning are online platforms that allow teachers and writing project site leaders to create their own social networking spaces that can be focused on particular content. More ›

Digital Toolbox: RSS

January 2009
RSS allows readers of blogs, wikis, and other online forums to subscribe to "feeds" in order to receive notifications of new or updated content in their RSS reader. More ›

Digital Toolboxes

April 2009
The resource primers in this collection provide a great introduction to some online technologies being used by teachers in their day-to-day practice. More ›

English Teachers Find an Online Friend: the English Companion Ning

March 2009
Grant Faulkner
The English Companion Ning brings English teachers a professional community that they sometimes lack in their schools. Teachers discuss books, lesson plans, and a panoply of classroom topics via discussion forums, blog posts, and multimedia. More ›

Group Conversations Around Images, Documents, and Videos

December 2009
Jason Shiroff
Denver Writing Project technology liaison Jason Shiroff discusses the deliberate inquiry process he uses with his students when introducing new technology tools—in this case, a wiki—in his classroom. Listen, watch, and even comment on this VoiceThread presentation. More ›

Keeping the Promise of the 21st Century: Bringing Classroom Teaching into the Digital Age

April 2009
Over the four years of the Technology Initiative, NWP accelerated growth in its cadre of teacher-consultants, created new classroom-tested practices, produced programs on using technology for teaching, and helped engage students in active learning of subject matter that is tied to meaningful learning goals, reports Inverness Research in this policy brief. More ›

Literacy, ELL, and Digital Storytelling: 21st Century Learning in Action

January 2009
Produced by the Pearson Foundation, this short video documents a semester-long digital writing project led by two Bay Area Writing Project teacher-consultants. The video follows students through the creation of digital stories about their family members' immigration experiences. More ›

Multimedia Composition: A Question of Balance

July 2009
Northern California Writing Project Director Peter Kittle taught himself multimedia composition by creating this video alongside his students. He documents how he learned to be a mountain unicyclist—and relates those processes to literacy learning. More ›

NCTE Promotes 21st Century Writing

May 2009
Literacy education and literacy practices are in the midst of a profound change. A new series of reports from NCTE calls for support for 21st century writing and writers both in and out of school. More ›

NCTE's 'Writing in the 21st Century' Calls for New Composing Agenda

April 2009
With new modes of composing comes a new responsibility to develop models of teaching and learning that respond to these 21st century literacies, argues this latest NCTE report, which is part of a series of reports from NCTE calling for support for 21st century writing instruction. More ›

New Digital Media in the Lives of Our Children at Home and School

September 2009
To highlight the role of digital media in improving lifelong learning, the National Writing Project, the Consortium for School Networking, and Common Sense Media presented at a congressional briefing held in conjunction with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. More ›

Podcasts Contribute to “Whole New Kind of Teaching and Learning” at the Nebraska Writing Project

February 2009
Joe Bellino
In a program funded by a Technology Liaisons Network minigrant, Nebraska Writing Project teacher-consultants first learned about podcasting, then had their students create podcasts in their classrooms. More ›

Such Stuff as Writing Dreams Are Made Of: Technology in the Writing Retreat

March 2009
Michelle Rogge Gannon
Technology can change the nature of a writing retreat, whether through the way pieces are composed, how they're shared, or how they're responded to. It can also be the subject of the writing itself. Here are some tips that came out of NWP's Writing and Technology: A Professional Writing Retreat. More ›

Teaching Now: Digital Writing Books

December 2009
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. More ›

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

April 2009
This code, developed especially for the educational community, supports educators in making thoughtful decisions about interpreting the copyright doctrine of fair use to support media literacy education. More ›

The Literary Map of Santo Domingo: Mapping Cultural Change

October 2009
Meg Petersen
With the aid of a Google map, the author leads her Dominican students to write about urban places often dismissed by Dominican writers as being too close to home to be interesting. In the process, they learn how to be writers. More ›

Thinking Strategically About Your Site’s Web Presence

April 2009
In considering how to design a Web presence for your site, you'll find here a variety of resources, including case studies that outline the process undertaken by a number of writing project sites. The case studies include a multimedia presentation from the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. More ›

VoiceThread Ties Together Student Voices, Images, and Writing

October 2009
Shullamuth Smith
Writing Project teachers discuss ways in which they've used the website VoiceThread with their students to create online, multimodal presentations that allow for a range of feedback. More ›

What Kids Learn When They Create with Digital Media

December 2009
Educators, parents, researchers, students, and community members came together in a public forum, The Power of Youth Voice, in Philadelphia, to discuss the potential of learning through engagement with digital media. More ›

Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe

January 2009
W. Scott Smoot, Darren Crovitz
Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project teacher-consultants Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot teach students to approach Wikipedia not as a source of truth but as a springboard for inquiry. In this article, they describe Wikipedia-based lessons that develop this approach. More ›

Wikis Foster Scaffolded Collaboration in an English Language Arts Classroom

September 2009
Sarah Hunt-Barron
Sarah Hunt-Barron, a South Carolina teacher-consultant, documents the use of wikis to foster collaborative, project-based learning in her classroom. She describes her rationale for introducing wikis to her students and relates some lessons she learned from their use. More ›

“Twitterdee, Twitterdumb”: Teaching in the Time of Technology, Tweets, and Trespassing

California English, September 2009
Shelbie Witte
Through "many trials and even more errors," Shelbie Witte, director of research for the Florida State University Writing Project, has found ways to help students make connections between their classroom writing and recreational writing off campus. More ›

The New Writing Pedagogy

District Administration, November 2009
Thanks to Web-based social networking tools, the next revision of writing pedagogy—one that emphasizes digital spaces, multimedia texts, global audiences, and linked conversations among passionate readers—may be upon us. Three NWP teacher-leaders are quoted. More ›

Blogging in Place: Writing That Explores New Neighborhoods

Edutopia, January 2009
Teachers with the National Writing Project are combining place-based learning, project learning, and blogging to connect classrooms, provide an authentic audience for student writing, and prompt students to explore the world outside the schoolhouse doors. More ›

Digital Storytelling for Language and Culture Learning

Essential Teacher, March 2009
Judith Rance-Roney
Rance-Roney, a teacher with the Hudson Valley Writing Project, explains digital storytelling, discusses its strengths in promoting literacy, and, by documenting her own multilingual classroom work, suggests a path for getting started with this technology. More ›

Spatial, Visual Rhetoric Meet New Media

UANews, May 2009
The First Year Writing Showcase, which incorporates teachings in writing and visual communication, began at the University of Arizona in 2007 and has since seen exponential growth in participation among UA students, faculty, and instructors. More ›

A Technology Toolkit That Is Really an Educational Toolkit

March 2008
Paul Oh
In her column "Technology Toolkit," Minnesota teacher-consultant Sandy Hayes examines the educational possibilities afforded by technology, sharing ways it can allow both teachers and students to view the world with a new perspective. More ›

Book Review: Three Books Frame Content Area Literacy in Discussion of 21st Century Literacies

October 2008
Ken Martin
Three books on content area literacy instruction aim to help teachers think about the literacy demands of all content areas while framing their arguments in a larger discussion of 21^st century literacies. More ›

Bringing the World to My Doorstep: A Teacher's Blog-Reading Habits

May 2008
Kevin Hodgson
A technology liaison describes how the world of blogs enriches his teaching, supports his tech liaison work, provides opportunities for his students, and keeps him connected both to his NWP network and to a wider network of educators. More ›

Dakota Writing Project Provides a Different Kind of Technology Hotline for Teachers

April 2008
Through a state initiative, teachers in South Dakota found themselves facing classrooms in which every student had a laptop. Dakota Writing Project's hands-on, online E-Marathon gave them some keys to using the laptops creatively to improve students' writing and learning. More ›

Digital Toolbox: Google Docs

August 2008
Google Docs is a useful digital tool for composing and editing text, as it combines the features of a word processing program with the option of online collaboration, editing, and publishing. More ›

Digital Toolbox: Social Bookmarking

August 2008
Social bookmarking is a useful digital tool for keeping, marking, annotating, tagging, and sharing lists of favorite websites. More ›

Digital Toolbox: Wikis

December 2008
A wiki is a powerful online collaborative tool for composing and editing text, as well as an easy-to-use platform for developing a Web presence. More ›

Hudson Valley Conference Focuses on Teaching Writing in a Web 2.0 World

April 2008
Bonnie Kaplan
At a site's technology conference, teachers learn how to use wikis, podcasts, and other technologies to enhance their teaching, allow collaboration among students, and make the educational process more meaningful and effective. More ›

Indiana Teacher-Consultant Creates Popular Website—Web English Teacher

July 2008
Art Peterson
A popular website with a panoply of teaching resources is hosted by Indiana Writing Project teacher-consultant Carla Beard, who credits the writing project with giving her site a new, more effective direction. More ›

Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project

November 2008
This white paper summarizes the results of a three-year ethnographic study, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, examining young people's participation in the new media ecology. More ›

Maine’s Laptop Initiative Improves Student Writing

February 2008
Anne Miller
The Maine Department of Education is providing a laptop to every middle school student and teacher. And, through programs offered by Maine Writing Project teacher-consultants, teachers learn to use the laptops effectively to improve student writing skills. More ›

Missouri Teachers Create “TechKnowFiles”—Best Practices in Using Technology to Teach Writing

December 2008
Teacher-consultants with the Prairie Lands Writing Project have created “TechKnowFiles,” online units of study related to new technologies and the teaching of writing. The project deepened site capacity and demonstrated how the site has integrated technology into its professional development offerings. More ›

NCTE’s Writing Now Explores Teaching Writing in the 21st Century

December 2008
Technological advances, changing workplace demands, and cultural shifts have made writing more important than ever, so teachers need to help students meet the challenges of writing effectively for many purposes, according to Writing Now, a policy research brief by NCTE. More ›

NWP Teachers’ Writing Featured on Smithsonian Photography Website

January 2008
Works by writing project teachers are featured on the Smithsonian Photography Initiative website click! photography changes everything, a collection of essays and stories discussing how photography shapes our culture and lives. More ›

Oregon Teacher’s Songwriting Program Stirs Student Interest in Words

December 2008
Gavin Tachibana
The Deep Roots program turns students into songwriters: professional musicians set the students’ lyrics to music and then record the songs—and in the process, students stay academically interested and engaged. The founder of the program is now taking it to other teachers. More ›

Technology in the English Language Learner Classroom?

October 2008
Judith Rance-Roney
"English Language Learners as Writers in a Digital Age," an ELL Network-sponsored pre-conference institute held at the annual TESOL conference, engaged teachers of English language learners in filling in the following blank "For English Language Learners, technology can _____." More ›

Teens, Video Games, and Civics

December 2008
Teens’ gaming experiences are diverse and include significant social interaction and civic engagement, according to a study from the Pew Internet and American Life. The study offers teachers of writing an opportunity to explore the possibilities of these games for education. More ›

Book Review: Classroom Blogging

RCWP Tech Advanced Institute 2008 Wiki, December 2008
Red Clay Writing Project’s Technology Team
A site’s technology team delves into David Warlick’s Classroom Blogging, trying out its ideas and visiting the author’s own blog, and concludes that the book offers useful information and insights and aligns with writing project philosophy. More ›

My New Teaching Partner? Using the Grammar Checker in Writing Instruction

English Journal, November 2008
Dorothy Fuller, Reva Potter
Reva Potter, a teacher-consultant with the Dakota Writing Project, and colleague Dorothy Fuller report on an action research project which concludes that Grammar Check instruction combined with direct instruction from the teacher can result in significant improvement in student understanding of key grammar concepts. More ›

Maine Writes a New Ed-Tech Success Story

eSchoolNews, June 2008
Maine's decision to provide every student with a laptop has created a number of positive outcomes: equity of access, increased attention to professional development, as well as improved standardized test scores. Sharon Bowman, a teacher-consultant with the Maine Writing Project, is featured in this article. More ›

Digital Storytelling Brings New Dimensions to Reading, Writing, and More

Spring 2007
Can digital storytelling improve reading comprehension, writing skills, and media literacy? An NWP teacher-consultant and technology liaison at Florida Gulf Coast University explores the use of digital storytelling across the grade levels and disciplines with fellow teacher-consultants, students, and colleagues. More ›

Heart and Voice: A Digital Storytelling Journey

September 2007
Kerry Ballast
With no knowledge of the genre or the technology, high school teacher Kerry Ballast took the risk of having her students create digital stories from their personal memoirs. More ›

Inside the Digital Classroom

2007
David Boardman
In this chapter from Teaching the Neglected R, Dave Boardman, a teacher-consultant with the Maine Writing Project, describes the use of digital technology in his classroom, including cross-country communication with other students, blogs, digital stories, and an online newspaper. More ›

Literacy Through Technology: The Power of Digital Storytelling

July 2007
With funding from an NWP Technology Initiative grant, the Maine Writing Project is using digital storytelling as an instructional practice to improve student writing. More ›

Space to Imagine Digital Storytelling

2007
Lisa Miller
In this chapter from Teaching the Neglected R, Lisa Miller links the process of digital storytelling to the processes of prewriting research, exploration, and revision, and also explores nuts-and-bolts aspects of story creation. More ›

Technology in the Classroom: How to Reduce the Glitches

February 2007
Jeff Grinvalds
Grinvalds shares six practices that help technology users deal with the glitches they inevitably experience as they enter the realm of classroom technology. More ›

Technology Teams Take Different Paths Toward the Same Goal

July 2007
Technology teams at local sites can serve many purposes, from developing the site's website to bringing technology into its teachers' practices. This article describes how three sites used Technology Matters minigrants to expand their technological capacity. More ›

Finding a Voice in a Threaded Discussion Group: Talking about Literature Online

English Journal , September 2007
Cathie English
English explores the use of threaded online discussions in the literature classroom. The online discussions helped high school students develop their thoughts in greater depth than they could in classroom conversations. More ›

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education of the 21st Century

2006
Henry Jenkins
Educators today confront an ever-shifting landscape when it comes to Internet technologies and their potential for expanding participatory cultures. Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explores new frameworks for literacy through the lens of participatory culture. More ›

NWP Cyberspace Project Connects Youth Voices

The Voice, 2006
Paul Oh
An online project seeded by a Technology Matters minigrant allows students at three high schools to exchange written and audio compositions along with images; this activity increases their engagement and improves their writing. More ›

Students Tell Their Stories Digitally

The Voice, 2006
Joel Elliott
Digital storytelling is still very much storytelling. One difference is that when students add a visual component, they are more willing "to write long and . . . write hard." More ›

Teacher Uses Email to Teach Basics of Written Word

The Voice, 2006
Kristina Torres
A middle school teacher describes how she stepped away from traditional "skill and drill" writing exercises and started teaching students to write clear, concise emails. More ›

Writing Project Examines Technology in the Classroom

The Voice, 2006
Elyse Eidman-Aadahl
NWP's Technology Initiative and the federal government's E-Rate program allow teachers to reimagine their teaching in a digital environment and to help young people develop as writers on the read-write Web. More ›

Book Review: Ten Easy Ways to Use Technology in the English Classroom

The Quarterly, 2005
Cheryl Wozniak
Ten Easy Ways to Use Technology in the English Classroom offers techniques for using video, television, movies, and the Internet to present material in a way that engages and makes more sense to contemporary students. More ›

E-Anthology Growing as an Online Writing and Response Forum

The Voice, 2005
Larry Barton, Peter Booth, Shirley Brown, Cathie English, Frankie Mengeling
The NWP E-Anthology is evolving into the online environment that everyone hoped it could be—a virtual community that assists participants in realizing their own visions for their writing. More ›

Tech Liaisons Discover a Whole New World—and Themselves—Through Technology Matters

The Voice, 2005
Paul Oh
The coordinator of NWP's technology liaison program describes its origins, its first Technology Matters institute, and some of the exciting projects of its minigrant-funded members. More ›

Teacher Technology Toolboxes

The Quarterly, 2004
Glen L. Bledsoe
Reacting to what he sees as the increasingly standardized nature of classroom technology and computer instruction, Bledsoe establishes that standardization does not always lead to the betterment of teachers, pupils, or education in general. More ›

NWP E-Anthology: "Strangers" Talk About Writing

The Voice, March-April 2003
Beverly Simon Guillory, Peter Booth
NWP's annual E-Anthology connects summer institute participants across the country. Booth shares the benefits of responding to writing submitted online, and Guillory recounts how valuable it was to receive feedback from "strangers." More ›

The E-Anthology: A Catalyst for Professional Writing?

The Voice, 2003
Shirley Brown
How can the E-Anthology, established to encourage teachers to write about their summer institute experiences, share classroom practices, and discuss key issues in education, include more professional writing as a platform for discussion? More ›

Where Is the Truth In Virtual Reality?

The Quarterly, winter 2001
Roxanne Barber
A dispute over whether The Quarterly had published an article that inaccurately characterized information on a website sends NWP Communications Director Barber on a quest to evaluate sources, online and in print. More ›

Tackling Technology

The Voice, November-December 2001
Deana Lew
A busy teacher discovered the benefits of attending an online conference when she participated in last year's Authors and Issues Online Conference with Ralph Fletcher. More ›

Traveling with the E-Anthology: Arkansas Poem Finds Its Way to South Dakota Literary Magazine

The Voice, May-June 2001
Michelle Rogge Gannon
Michelle Rogge Gannon reflects upon the connections that NWP's summer E-Anthology encourages, following the path of one anthology submission from last summer. More ›

From a High-Tech to a Low-Tech Writing Classroom: You Can't Go Home Again

The Quarterly, Summer 2000
Charles Moran
Drawing on his own experience, Moran finds and evaluates significant differences between computer-based and non-computer-based writing classrooms. More ›

My Laptop Ambivalence: Some Speed Bumps on the High-Tech Road to Writing

The Quarterly, Summer 2000
Susan Cvengros Mortensen
Mortensen details and evaluates the transition of her seventh grade writing students as they adapt to the use of laptop computers. More ›

Striking It Rich: Finding My Digital Story in Northern California

The Voice, November-December 2000
Corey Harbaugh
Joining the digital storytelling team for a weeklong summer institute gave Corey Harbaugh a new medium in which to develop and tell a story. More ›

Talking Through Technology: NYCWP Builds Community Online

The Voice, November-December 2000
Ed Osterman
Managing the New York City Writing Project's email listserv became the most satisfying and important aspect of Ed Osterman's work as associate director. More ›

Teachers' Stories Come to Life with Technology

The Voice, November-December 2000
Six teachers from the Rural Voices, Country Schools network participated in a one-week storytelling workshop in Berkeley, California, producing digital stories of their classroom research. More ›

Technology Transforms Stories of Teaching

The Voice, November-December 2000
Sue Willis
Although she had no experience with digital storytelling, Sue Willis discovered a new way to describe of the work of Rural Voices, Country Schools team in Central Washington. More ›

Why 2K Is OK

The Voice, January-February 2000
Julia Tucker-Lloyd
Juia Tucker-Lloyd discusses the impact of technology on the classroom. More ›

Assessing Computers for Writing: Stepping Back to Move Forward

The Quarterly, Spring 1999
Stephen Marcus
Marcus considers from numerous angles—and without providing a definite answer—the question "Do word processors improve writing skills?" More ›

Where's the Beef? Mississippi's Tech-Prep Initiative in Action

The Quarterly, Summer 1999
John Dorroh
More ›

Book Review: Exchanging Lives: Middle School Writers Online, by Scott Christian

The Quarterly, Fall 1998
Lacinda Files
Files is impressed by Christian's students, who participate in an online discussion and write with more voice, flavor, and attention to content than one would expect of eighth-graders. More ›

Teacherless Talk: Impressions from Electronic Literacy Conversations

The Quarterly, Summer 1998
Karen Murar, Elaine Ware
An online cross-grade conversation about literature encourages students to develop and hone thinking skills such as questioning, clarifying, connecting, interpreting, and evaluating. More ›

Virtual Reality: Evaluating Online Information

The Quarterly, Summer 1998
Holly Littlefield
Littlefield teaches her students to evaluate website information using such criteria as authority, accuracy, coverage, currency, and objectivity. More ›

NWP E-Journal

The Voice, Winter/Spring 1998
Christina Cantrill, Gary Obermeyer
Cantrill and Obermyer consider the origins, nature, glitches, and strengths of NWP's e-journal. More ›

Book Review: Link/Age: Composing in the Online Classroom, by Joan Turnow

The Quarterly, Summer 1997
Paul Molinelli
Molinelli finds that Turnow captures the playful possibilities of her students' online conversation, as well as providing ways and reasons to harness new technologies in a response-based writing classroom. More ›

Surfing the Net: A Writing Workshop for Middle School

The Quarterly, Summer 1997
Jean Boreen
Boreen makes a case for the need to prepare preservice and beginning teachers to use computers as learning tools in writing classrooms. More ›

Worth a Thousand Words

The Quarterly, Winter 1997
Stephen Marcus
Marcus makes a case that photographs and photography can advance the teaching and learning of writing for both students and teachers. More ›

Kids Publish On Line at KidPub: www.kidpub.org/kidpub/

The Voice, Spring/Summer 1997
Peggy Trump Loofbourrow
Loofbourrow recommends websites on which students can publish their writing. More ›

Clicking on the Icon: How Technology Helped Amplify Some “Micro-Voices”

The Quarterly, Summer 1996
Jabari Mahiri
Mahiri writes of his ill-prepared college students who "changed themselves as writers" through a co-created curriculum and the use of computers—inspiring many drafts. More ›

Picture This!

The Quarterly, Fall 1996
Stephen Marcus
Marcus writes about the uses of photography both to prompt and to supplement writing. More ›

Revisited article: The Wall

The Quarterly, Winter 1995
Jane Juska
Juska describes the plight of her remedial students and the improvement that using computers brought about and offers a list of her insights to assist other teachers. More ›

Video Visits: An Innovation for Learning about Portfolios

The Quarterly, Spring 1995
Pam Perfumo
Perfumo and her colleague Bob Calfee ask teachers to videotape a discussion around the use of portfolios and mail the tape to them for analysis. They present their findings on portfolio use and evaluate video as a form of research. More ›

Avoiding Road-Kill on the Information Highway

The Quarterly, Winter 1994
Stephen Marcus
Marcus discusses such telecommunications phenomena as browsers, hunters, flamers, lurkers, and virtual communities, describes NWP's leadership role in electronic communication, and gives a list of resources. More ›

Video Resources for the Teaching of Literacy

The Quarterly, Summer 1993
James E. Lobdell, Sandra R. Schecter
The authors provide an annotated bibliography of videos related to the teaching of reading and writing. More ›

TR 57. Technological Indeterminacy: The Role of Classroom Writing Practices in Shaping Computer Use

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, 1992
Cynthia Greenleaf
This study examines the integration of computers into a remedial high school English class, concluding that the teacher's writing instruction had the greatest impact on student writing and the ways computers entered into writing. More ›

Computers, Composing, and the Productivity Paradox

The Quarterly, Fall 1992
Stephen Marcus
Marcus makes a case for a more in-depth examination of the question "Has the use of computers in the classroom improved learning?" More ›

Voices in College Classrooms: The Dynamics of Electronic Discussion

The Quarterly, Summer 1992
Gail Hawisher, Cynthia Selfe
The writers report on their study examining the kinds of discourse that characterized electronic communication in their classes and particularly the role of themselves as mediators of this discussion. More ›

Computers and English: Future Tense...Future Perfect?

The Quarterly, Fall 1990
Stephen Marcus
In 1990, Marcus made some predictions about what might happen with technology in the classroom during the next 15 years—prophecies that are interesting to examine in hindsight. More ›

Word Processing and the Writing Process: A Cautionary Tale

The Quarterly, Summer 1990
Peggy Riley
Riley makes the point that with or without computers, all students are different, there is no single process for writers, and many need "the solid feel of a pencil in their hand." More ›

Electronic Writing: The Autobiography of a Collaborative Adventure

The Quarterly, Summer 1989
Jane Zeni
Zeni gives an analytical account of the process through which she and a colleague wrote an article together by communicating electronically. She includes verbatim excerpts from their correspondence. More ›

Literacy, Technology, and the Underprepared: Notes Toward a Framework for Action

The Quarterly, July 1988
Glynda Hull
Accompanying this study of a group of underprepared students as they use computers is a plea to narrow the "information gap" and form a "malleable technology," offering it in ways that "direct its liberatory potential." More ›

Digital Storytelling: Using Technology in the Classroom that is Context-embedded, Inquiry-driven, and Socially Negotiated

Fred Mindlin, a teacher-consultant with the Central California Writing Project, writes that Digital Story Telling can build students' self-esteem and ownership of their work and advance their problem solving skills. The work of Peter Kittle of the Northern California Writing Project is described in the article. More ›

Watch Letters to the Next President in the Classroom

November 2008
Students used new Internet tools to publish their opinions about the economy, gas prices, health care, and education on Writing Our Future: Letters to the Next President, an online project sponsored jointly by the NWP and Google. More ›

Writing, Technology, and Teens

April 2008
Created in partnership with the Pew Internet and American Life Project, this report talks to teens to see what they have to say about technology and the state of writing in their lives. The report looks at teens' basic definition of writing, explores the various kinds of writing they do, seeks their assessment about what impact e-communication has on their writing, and probes for their guidance about how writing instruction might be improved. More ›

Zero-Thumb Game: How to Tame Texting

Edutopia, May 2008
Writing project teachers weigh in on how to harness the popularity of text messaging among teens to generate interest in academic subjects and writing in general. More ›

Can Technology Make Teens Better Writers?

MSN Encarta, November 2008
New technologies are broadening the types of writing students can produce and consume. This article quotes former NWP Executive Director Richard Sterling and highlights the digital storytelling work of the University of Maine Writing Project. More ›

Global Classroom Projects Bring Together Children Who Are Worlds Apart

USC Upstate Headline News, October 2008
The Global Classroom Project, with help from the Spartanburg Writing Project, connects schools in South Carolina, South Africa, and California by having students share their multimedia digital stories and interact via video conferences. More ›

Blogging in the Classroom

WFCR, February 2006
The Making Connections Project of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project brought teachers together to co-design a writing curriculum using weblog technology. This curriculum was based on the idea of developing a writing community among students from urban and rural districts in Western Massachusetts. More ›