Technology
&
Writing
By Diane Horban
Diane describes an e-mail project she and her students carried
out during the 1996–97 school year. Her students e-mailed students at a
local high school and discussed language arts. They even got to meet each other
at the end of the school year.
Sample student correspondence follows.
Jennifer and Stephanie Cheri
and Lauren Alyssa and Song Hee
Jennifer
and Stephanie
Dear GBN Student,
I think writing to the high school students, and you
writing back
to us is a great idea. This way we get to learn about all
the different
things and similar things we do in Language Arts. What do
you think
about it?
Have you read any interesting books lately? I have just
stopped
reading a non fiction murder mystery by Lois Duncan. It
was called
Who Killed My Daughter? I felt that it was moving
too slow
for me; I was having a difficult time getting into it. At
the beginning
of the year I was mostly reading historical fiction. I am
now trying
a realistic fiction book called Med Center: Virus.
What type
of genre do you enjoy reading?
Besides reading, we also do a lot of writing in Language
Arts 4-5.
We have mostly done Concept Writing. What type of writing
do you
like to do? Do you write often? I like writing about
things I’m
interested in. I find that it is easier to write, when you
can relate
to the subject you are writing about.
Overall, I hope we become helpful friends. By us writing
to each
other, we are able to learn what other Language Arts
classes are
doing. I’m looking forward to hear from you.
Anxiously waiting, Jennifer
Dear Jennifer,
I am really excited to write to you! I love writing
letters and
getting mail, don’t you? To let you know who you are
writing
to, my name is Stephanie and I’m a junior. My English
class
is great because we just talk about books. For instance,
right now
we are reading Their Eyes Are Watching God by Zora
Neale
Hurston. The book takes place in Florida and Savannah,
Georgia,
during slavery. It tells of a black woman’s life in
and out
of slavery, and of all the different men she meets. It is
a good
book, but it is written in non-educated southern accents
so it is
really hard to understand what they are saying the first
time you
read the book. But I’m getting through it.
I like almost any kind of book, except horror stories.
Last year
I read a book called The Bean Trees by Barbara
Kingsolver.
It was terrific! It had some suspenseful moments, so you
never knew
what was going to happen next and you were not able to put
the book
down. At least that’s how I thought the book was. If
you talked
to a guy about The Bean Trees, he would say it was
a boring
chick book. I think what makes a book great, is not being
able to
put it down. Any book like that is worth reading.
All through high school, you write a lot of papers.
Actually, most
of the time it sounds worse than it is. There really
isn’t
one type of writing I like best, but as long as the topic
is interesting
I’m fine.
Stephanie
Dear Steph,
I love writing letters and getting mail too! Your English
class
sounds really great. In my English class we just read are
own outside
reading books. We haven’t begun reading a book as a
class yet.
I’m really interested in the book The Bean
Trees. I
would love to know more about it. I just finished reading
the book
Med Center: Virus. I didn’t like it very much.
The ending
really left me hanging; I can’t stand it when a book
does that.
I stopped reading the book by Lois Duncan. It was moving
very slowly.
I need a book that is impossible to put down. That why
The Bean
Trees sounds really interesting.
Right now we are working on grammar projects. The class is
divided
up into groups of threes; in our groups, we have to make a
presentation
that will teach the class about our grammar topic. My
group’s
grammar topic it how to punctuate and understand different
forms
of dialogue. To teach the class about our grammar topic we
are going
to play a game show. It is sort of like Family Feud, but
its called
Dialogue Feud. Its going to be a lot of fun.
You probably know my brother, he’s a junior too. His
name is
Gregg. When I asked him about The Bean Trees
he said
it was a chick book. You were right!
How is the book Their Eyes Are Watching God going?
Are you
writing any papers right now? I can’t wait to hear
from you.
Your friend, Jennifer
Dear Jennifer,
Happy New Year!! Did you have a good break? I’m sorry
that
it took me so long to write back to you, but has been a
very busy
few weeks. I just got my United States History paper back.
I wrote
it on the assassination a President John F. Kennedy. It
was really
fascinating!! I learned so much about JFK, his life and
the assassination.
I came to a few conclusions. One was that Lee Harvey
Oswald, the
man convicted of the assassination, did not assassinate
him. However,
if he did assassinate JFK, he did not act alone. By doing
this paper,
it made me more aware of different historical events that
I was
never interested in before. At first I was so incredibly
overwhelmed
with the whole research aspect of the paper, but once I
started
jotting down things it went by really fast! Have you done
any papers?
Finals are next week!! However, I can not really study for
my English
final because my teacher is not giving us the questions
before hand.
So, she told us just to look over each and every story we
have read
this semester, and we’re allowed to use them during
the test
as references.
Last week I took a grammar test for the first time in a
long time.
I think sophomore and junior year grammar is not taught a
lot. But
I did all right. Even though I am not the best grammatical
person
in the world (can’t you tell by reading this letter?)
How are
you with grammar? Hope to hear from you soon. (Oh, by the
way, I
do know your brother Gregg:)
Your friend, Stephanie
Cheri
and Lauren
Dear Cheri,
Hi! Sorry it has taken me so long to respond, but things
have been
a little crazy! I was in the Variety Show, and that took
up a lot
of my time. As for the whole college situation, it is
finally over!
I was accepted to Duke and am excited to go there in the
fall. Now
that I have been accepted I can finally take it easy this
semester!
Getting back to your problem, I can relate to you very
well. I never,
ever have enough time to finish a paper I’m writing
in class
when we just have one class period to complete it. For as
long as
I can remember, I have always been one of the last people
to finish
in-class writing assignments. Even as a Senior, I still
struggle
with this problem, but I have worked to improve my time
management.
I always have the problem of wanting to say so much in a
paper-
I always have a million ideas in my head. I try to write
about them
all, but of course, that is impossible to do (especially
when you
only have 55 minutes!) It is helpful for me to outline
exactly what
I am going to write before I begin. Therefore, even though
I cannot
outline all of my ideas (only the best, most important
ones), I
can help ensure that what I do write about will be very
organized,
complete, and well-written. Sometimes it can be
frustrating when
you don’t have time to write everything that you want
to say,
but it is much better to write a paper that is more
organized and
complete about one or two ideas than to try and fit
everything into
a messy and confusing paper.
Now on to puns! They can be hard to use and hard to think
up, but
when you think about it, a pun is simply a play on words.
A pun’s
humor and creativity can come from using different senses
of the
same word or from the sounds of words. For me, I find it
hard to
say to myself “okay, now I want to think of a pun to
put here
in my paper.” Puns require creativity and almost
always a sense
of humor, which I think I cannot be forced. They will come
naturally
and when one fits in your writing, it will most likely pop
in your
head. So don’t stress yourself out about thinking up
puns!
Relax! They might pop up when you least expect them and
you will
be more than happy with the result.
I hope to hear from you soon. I hope my advice helps!
Sincerely, Lauren
Alyssa
and Song Hee
Dear Alyssa,
Thank you for a wonderful. I enjoyed it very much.
I am happy to hear that you like to write poems. I love to
write
poems. Please send me one! I would love to read them and
would be
more than happy to discuss them, if you so desire.
I have bought a copy of Diary of Anne Frank and
have commenced
(neat word, eh?) to read the first several pages. Already
I can
tell that Anne Frank is someone of deep thought and is
very mature
for her age. What do you think of Anne Frank? Why do you
like her?
Have you started reading Night yet? (You know, all this
underlining
is hard work!) Let me know how you feel about it. I was
excited
when you stated that reading about the Holocaust makes you
want
to go out into the world and help people. Reality can be
harshly
depressing, but it is comforting to hear that there are
kind and
sensitive people out there who are working to make the
world a better
place. I once saw on T.V. the uplifting story of a young
New York
woman who vigorously fundraised to maintain her violin
studio to
continue giving musical opportunities to less fortunate
children.
Being a violinist myself, that story move me to tears. Do
you like
music? If so, what kind of music do you like? Do you play
any musical
instruments? I strongly believe that hope is continually
perpetuated
(fancy word) by the extraordinary endeavors of ordinary
people.
What do you want as a career? What school subjects and
activities
do you enjoy? What kind of stuff would you like to do in
high school?
So here is my letter, hopefully “chalk full of
ideas.”
It always seems to be my fortune that every time I have
one of those
“chalk days,” someone comes up with an eraser!
(Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I know that was a bad joke, but tell me you
laughed
anyway, OK? OK? Whatever. :-) Til next time, I’m
Waiting and writing,
Song Hee
Copyright © 1998, ISTE (International
Society for Technology in Education).
All rights reserved.
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