EDT 5373: Assignment for Week 7-Two Tools

Week 7: Explore two tools for the chapter that you have chosen (Chapter 7 Writing)

Tool #1: www.poetryforge.org

            Poetry writing is now a very important part of my curriculum. Not only do I expose my students to poetry, but I also provide opportunities for them to write poetry. One of the most difficult things to teach my English language learners is Figurative Language. This site works specifically with one form of figurative language, metaphors.

            This tool will assist in teaching how language works using metaphors. The subject would be Language Arts for English language learners in grade 7. The learning objective would be to determine the meaning of figurative phrases and analyze how it creates imagery, appeals to the senses and suggests mood.

Students will be able to use the starting sentence stems provided by the site; they will have (phrases) choices available they can choose from to provide the scaffold. This is very important because every student that is not familiar with poetry needs help by scaffolding. Once they have created the metaphor, then the discussion with peers will involve analysis of meaning, imagery, how it appeals to the senses and mood. After students generate their metaphors, I would ask they print and provide graphics/pictures to show the metaphors. Students will build confidence as they see how successful they are and in turn they can continue to use this tool at home (if they have the technology) or at school.

As with every assignment, formative assessment would be evident as the teacher observes student progress. Summative assessment can be done using a rubric. If students feel comfortable sharing their product, I would encourage they post their work in the section provided by the site. 

Tool#2: www.inspiration.com (grades 6^th -12^th) Kidspiration (grades Kinder-5^th)

The organizational tools this program offers can literally be used by students and teachers to address learning targets in any subject area, and grade level. There is a free trial download available. A teacher can use it to teach, model and assess. I will illustrate a scenario using Inspiration. The grade level is for 7^th grade, and the subject is Language Arts for English language learners. The learning objectives include: identifying characters, setting and point of view, after reading and analyzing Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.

After teaching students the features of this tool, they will first work on the sample concept map the teacher would provide for them. The first step would be for the teacher to model how to fill in one portion of each of the concepts. Then students and the teacher would work on the next portion of each of the concepts and finally let students work on the rest in pairs or on their own. Once students become more familiar with the tool, they can be left to design different ways they can present information dealing with any of the learning objectives that Language Arts demands. I can already see the many incredible ways students will be able to learn, apply and teach others how to use concept mapping. 

            Another useful and important feature available with Inspiration, is the Outline. You can convert the concept map into an outline with a simple click. Students have to be able to see the importance of creating outlines. Analyzing the outline format with the concept map side-by-side, will help students better understand and apply what they learn. Finally, I was amazed that the new Inspiration9 software has embedded a Presentation feature. Students and teachers can create presentations using their concept maps, outlines, hyperlinks, etc…This will definitely support Reading, Writing in all genres, since that is what I am interested in.