Prewriting+Activities,+Ideas,+and+Resources+fro+MLTI

Much of the work of writing happens before the first draft. Here are ways to use some of the software titles on the MLTI MacBooks for brainstorming and gathering ideas. In this resource list are also web tools, resources for writing prompts (including images as prompts) and strategies for helping students build digital word banks.


 * Writing Prompts**
 * Writer’s Digest Writing Prompts
 * Can Teach
 * Writing Fix
 * Creative Writing Prompts
 * Creativity Portal


 * Image Collections for Prompts or Visual Synectics**
 * Flickr
 * LIFE Photo Archive
 * NYT News Snapshot
 * NASA Images
 * MARVEL
 * Maine Memory Network
 * Windows on Maine


 * Digital Timer** (for Quick Write)
 * Chimoo Timer


 * Other Resources and Ideas**
 * Book: Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones
 * The Big Picture
 * saving interesting titles from newspapers (ones that don’t give away the article) and the kids love creating the news stories from the title.
 * buy art books on sale and use photos of painting, sculptures, etc. as writing prompts
 * Morgue File
 * Geography Photo of the Day
 * Smithsonian Images
 * Use photo layers in GoogleEarth
 * Research on effects of laptops on writing
 * Bean – free word processing program
 * add an index section in NoteShare notebook to look at words
 * Wordle
 * ABC Brainstorming for Math
 * Weaving a story from beginning to end using iPhoto images as a guide
 * Providing opening sentence
 * What happens next? Showing a short video clip, getting kids to carry on the story
 * Students in ECS create a Discovery Portfolio all about them with music added
 * PB Wiki where students respond to a reading
 * American Memory collection at Library of Congress
 * Image Detective
 * [|Pics4Learning] (Kids can submit their photos)
 * Glogster
 * Kids build blogs in ePals
 * Blogspot and Photo Bucket
 * Quick Writes successful with LD middle school kids
 * Modeling with projector
 * Highlighting best ideas, sentences or phrases in a Quick Write
 * Free Rice (vocabulary)
 * Word Banks as eBulletin in Studywiz
 * Writing Prompts for Math