Writing Workhop with iPods

Just looking around my classroom this week during writing workshop was wonderful.  First of all to watch the students complete their entire publishing piece on iPods is amazing. Second to observe and listen to their conversations about writing was fun.  I heard ideas about word choice, writing stronger closing sentences, moving sentences around to support text better and best of all that writing is fun on iPods.  I sat down with a reluctant writer and asked him how iPods have changed his thinking about writing. He told me that writing on iPods is more fun because he felt like he had more freedom because he did not have to erase and use his color pencil for editing.  Also he loves the idea that next week he is going to add his own personal illustrations that he will draw. He said thinking about the illustrations made him add more details to his writing.  Lastly, he realized when we did our share at the end of workshop that he needed to add more details so he went back to his brainstorming and added details. Next week, I wil blog about their final pieces including how adding illustrations and importing photos support their writing.