An ideal Invent prompt should act as a nudge, a term defined by teacher Mary Ellen Giocobbe as the gentle guidance that takes learners beyond where they are to where they might be. A prompt can be a heuristic in its purest form, a true discovery tool which allows students to use writing to learn instead of to show learning. A well-constructed Invent prompt series allows for this discovery to occur. Yet, as powerful a piece of software as DIWE is, the technology doesn t teach writing. In fact, teachers don t teach writing.
Students learn to write by writing.
Using DIWE allows me to get out of the way, and let students compose. All names have been changed to protect students privacy.