testimonials

From our users

new york record

by Jennifer Roy

During the 2005-2006 school year a colleague and I had the opportunity to pilot an online writing program entitled, "Learning to Write." The two English 11 classes that worked with the program completed tasks that included grammar and writing exercises as well as peer editing and the submission of essays. After students received individual login names and passwords (to which each teacher has access), they were able to get right to work. As with any new software or website, there was a brief learning curve. Anticipating this, I assigned a review of the rules of capitalization in the "Learning to Write" LEARN section and a capitalization exercise to follow. The LEARN section is a clear presentation of rules and samples that coordinate directly with the accompanying exercises and quizzes.

Students respond that they like the setup of the program because they can work at their own pace and when they answer incorrectly the program explains why the answer is wrong. The instant feedback is vital for students who have grown accustomed to immediate gratification in other areas of their lives. Teachers can set a level of mastery for exercises and quizzes so that students who do poorly can re-take the assignment and improve their scores. Many of my students assumed that they knew all the rules for capitalization and began the exercise without reviewing the LEARN section, only to find out that the review serves as excellent preparation for the exercises.

These features of "Learning to Write" benefit teachers in many ways. Our school district does not have grammar books, so ready access to this resource fills the gap for our students. In addition, teachers are provided with grades for the exercises and quizzes that the students complete. This provided me with a bit of time that I would have otherwise had to dedicate to grading. The more than 100 exercises and quizzes fall into categories such as: Grammar for Writing, Sentence (Paragraph, Essay) Writing, Style and Clarity, and Quoting. Writing prompts are also available within each category.

The online editing and submission of papers proved to be a new experience for my students and me. I thoroughly enjoyed receiving the essays in an electronic format - it released me from the inevitable stack of papers and provided an orderly and prompt way for me to get work back to students. "Learning to Write" provides default comments and proofreading marks for ease but also allows teachers to create their own. Instead of having to write, "use present tense when discussing literature" over and over, I simply had to click on the tab for that comment. I also had the ability to highlight sections (in three different colors) and to insert comments written specifically for the author. Since "Learning to Write" can be accessed from any internet-ready computer, I could work at home or school - even over winter break while in another state, without having to tote an inevitably messy pile of papers everywhere. Instead of having every student in the class wait until I finish grading every paper, students can check online and see their graded paper as soon as it is finished.

In addition to default comments, "Learning to Write" also provides a default rubric for evaluating essays. Teachers have the option to have their own rubrics (or rubrics provided by NYS for the Regents/ELA exams) uploaded and thus, when students view their grades, a rationale for each score is readily available. There is also an email system attached to the "Learning to Write" program so that if a student has a question about a comment or grade, they can send an email to the teacher within the program - this way, neither students nor teachers need concern themselves with numerous email addresses or managing multiple email accounts.

As the pilot semester continued, my students and I stumbled upon glitches in the system and made recommendations to the parent company for improvements. Much to our pleasure, we found that many of our recommendations were followed and implemented immediately. When revisiting the website with this year's students, I was pleased to discover that "Learning to Write" is even more user-friendly than it was previously. This year my English 9 students are working on grammar fundamentals and will soon be moving into the writing exercises and submitting their essays. We found that the CANCEL button at the end of a completed exercise was a confusing way to turn their work in for grading, so "Learning to Write" is in the process of either creating a submit option or rewording the button. The creators' flexibility and willingness to work with the program users has been remarkable. There is certainly an array of products available for teachers and students to use to improve writing skills; "Learning to Write" is a program definitely worth investigating. To check out the program, go to http://learningtowrite.com and take advantage of the free trial.

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"82 % of my advanced writing students have passed the Florida Developmental Writing Assessment last week.  In addition, 90% have passed the objective section .I believe Learning To Write helped prepare them.  Feel free to share my email with educators who might be interested in knowing how the ELI is structured as the developmental program for the nonnative speakers." - Judy Campbell

Learning To Write instructors are having great success with their online students and Developmental English students as well.   If you would like to see what is making a difference for these students and instructors, please request a full access demo at www.learningtowrite.com or call at 509-947-1446.