Publishing
Publishing on the Web can provide students and
teachers alike the opportunity to showcase their best work, create personal
home pages that help them reflect on who they are and how their learning
experiences are shaping who they want to become, and initiate dialogue with
their audiences around texts. The following tips and techniques can help
teachers think about ways they might incorporate Web publishing into their
students' educational experiences.
- Incorporate writing into students' normal assignments whenever
possible. Do so even in subjects such as mathematics, science, or physical
education, in which students are not necessarily called upon to write. The
incorporation of writing in this way will not only provide students with a
broad body of works to choose from, but will also help them reflect on their
learning in each of these subjects.
- Develop a partnership with another classroom--down the hall, across the
state or around the world--in which students can establish relationships
with each other and create collaborative projects for Web publication.
- Collect ideas about activities to try from student work that is
available on the Web. A great many schools and classrooms have Web
presences, and exposure to the ideas of others will help spark new ideas.
- Create a classroom-based newsletter, magazine, or other publication for
parents or community members for which students can assume responsibility.
Students will be able to contribute to an ongoing project that has a clear
purpose: informing parents and community members about the activities of the
students and their school.
- Help students begin to think about publishing as "more than words."
Encourage students who prefer to express themselves in modes other than
writing to think about their visual, audio, and graphical creations as
publishable materials, with potential for audience feedback and critique.
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