At this point in the writing process, students will begin to their first draft. Email programs can act as reliable text editors offering cut and paste, spell checking and portability between different computer platforms. A student's draft can easily be emailed to the student's home for further contemplation after class as well as being carbon copied to the teacher in a matter of seconds as the class comes to an end. Creating interactive stories If you are interested in adding some creative activities to your writing class, you may be interested in interactive stories. This activity was first introduced to me through a colleague who uses it often in a writing environment.
Students create stories that require the reader to make choices.
Depending on the choices the reader makes, the story can change dramatically. The story is saved as a web page and read using a web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. Although the software is for the Macintosh OS, the same type of interactive story can be accomplished with Windows OS using a basic HTML editor such as Netscape Composer. Giving feedback Students and teachers alike will applaud the legible and consistent feedback symbols which teachers can add to their students' electronic text. By clicking on a toolbar, comments can easily be added to student writing saving the teacher from having to write the same helpful comments several times.