Upper Level Content Skills

Does everything that a student write have to fit the infamous (nonexistent) five paragraph essay format? Must students start with a carefully crafted bullet form outline? Is the topic sentence always the last line of the first paragraph? No, NO and NOOooo…. Conventions and restrictions such as these have limited student enthusiasm for writing for a very long time. Once all of the pieces of assistive technology come together to assist a student in the process of writing, then the student needs a focus, a purpose, a reason to write, ... they need an audience. Here is where the writing process links up with the reading process – what we write is for someone to read.

Writing can presented in a wid variety of forms that meet the needs of the audience and the content. So, instead of an essay, maybe the student will write ... (this list is NOT exhaustive):

A letter to:

Mom – Dear Mom, Today in school I …

Editor – Dear Editor, My school needs to stay open so kids like me can …

A company executive – Dear Mr/Ms Executive, My school needs iPads so kids like me can …

or maybe

A Journal entry:

using Blogger - today I learned ...

a short Exit ticket - tomorrow I want to learn ... .

What about writing ...

a Picture book:

using Book Creator

or Pictello

or maybe, the student really does have to write

an Essay but with the support of Kurzweil 3000

What we write should be far more important than how it gets written. Whether the final product is handwritten, typed on a word processor, clicked on through pictures or spoken into the mic of a speech to text device, it is the writing that shows the thinking that counts.