Unit 2 Packet: Technology For Teaching Reading and Writing

Unit 2 Packet:
Technology for Teaching

Reading and Writing
Using Educational Technology in the English
Language Classroom
© 2018 by Iowa State University. Unit 2 Packet for the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and
administered by FHI 360. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Table of Contents
Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Reading and Technology ............................................................................................................... 5
Introduction to Reading and Technology ...................................................................................... 6
Text Readability Tools ................................................................................................................. 20
Discussion: Reflecting on How to Find Reading Texts ................................................................ 27
Connecting Reading and Writing Using Fanfiction ............................................................... 28
Writing and Technology .............................................................................................................. 34
What is the Technology-Writing Connection? ........................................................................... 35
Why is Teaching Writing Important and How Can Technology Help? ...................................... 46
Learn More About Useful Word Processing Features ................................................................ 63
Discussion: Share How You Use Technology for Teaching Writing ........................................... 68
Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 69
This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

by FHI 360 and delivered by Iowa State University 2
Overview
"Student writing an essay" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
In Unit 2, we will explore how technology can be used in the teaching and learning of reading
and writing. You will not only learn about the kinds of technology that can be used to teach
reading and writing, but also the considerations associated with using the technology. Experts
in their areas will deliver the material, and you will be able to check your understanding of the
lectures, and discuss and share insights on various topics related to language learning and
technology.
Below are the tasks that you need to complete in this section with the recommended time as a
guide. These time guidelines are only approximate: you may find that you spend longer or
shorter on some tasks, depending on your experience with and interest in the topic.
Tasks:
Reading and Technology
• Watch the lecture: Introduction to Reading and Technology. (40 minutes)

• Complete the Introduction to Reading and Technology follow-on quiz. (20 minutes)
• Watch a tutorial video on how to use online text readability tools. (5 minutes)
• Complete the Text Readability Tools follow-on quiz. (10 minutes)
• Participate in a discussion to share insights on selecting appropriate reading texts. (30
minutes)
• Watch the lecture: Connecting Reading and Writing Using Fanfiction. (15 minutes)
• Complete the Connecting Reading and Writing Using Fanfiction follow-on quiz. (15 minutes)

Writing and Technology
• Watch the lecture: What is the Technology-Writing Connection? (30 minutes)

• Complete the What is Technology-Writing Connection? follow-on quiz. (10 minutes)
• Watch the lecture: Why is Teaching Writing Important and How Can Technology Help? (20
minutes)
• Complete the Why is Teaching Writing Important? follow-on quiz. (10 minutes)
• Watch a tutorial video to learn more about useful word processing features. (10 minutes)
• Participate in a discussion to share your experience using technology for teaching writing.
(30 minutes)
• Evaluate yourself in the Unit 2: Self-assessment. (20 minutes)
• Read a summary of Unit 2. (20 minutes)

Reading and Technology
"Student reading an online text" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
The first topic in Unit 2 will focus on teaching reading using technology, specifically what kinds
of resources are available for teachers and how can teachers select suitable texts for students
in their context.
Goals:
After this section you will have...
• Met our reading expert, Professor Tammy Slater

• Learned about what teachers should know when teaching reading
• Learned about what makes a text appropriate for certain learners
• Explored new technology resources like Project Gutenberg and American Teens Talk
• Learned about how to analyze the readability of a text using online tools
• Learned about how to connect reading and writing using Fanfiction

Introduction to Reading and Technology
[The video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlE2-

ekUHe80OuuCl5WXHUxTRXwoaVHIZ ]
Slide 1. Technology for Teaching Reading. In this module, we explore how

technology can help and support the teaching of reading.
Slide 2. In this Lecture. We will first hear Professor Carol Chapelle introduce the
connection between technology and text today. Then, we’ll meet our reading
expert, Professor Tammy Slater, a professor at Iowa State University. Professor
Chapelle will ask Professor Slater to talk about why reading is important for
students, what teachers should know about reading, and provide some advice for Prof. Carol Chapelle
teachers. Finally, we will look at how technology can help.
"Professor Carol Chapelle"
by Iowa State University is
Slide 3. The Technology-Text Connection. Let’s begin by looking at the connection licensed under CC BY 4.0
between technology and text today. Technology provides access to many different
materials for students to read today. For example, on the Voice of America website,
students can access stories about current events.
Slide 4. Here is an example of a page from Voice of America, which has a number of different news stories
that students and teachers can read and discuss. This particular page appeared shortly after the U.S.
presidential election, and it talks about the biggest picture on the page, about President Obama’s trip to
Europe, but there are also different things that are happening around the world reported.

Voice of America website showing article on President Obama’s trip to Europe
“VoA News” by Voice of America. This content is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted in any way, or distributed
after the end of this course. It is not Public Domain or Creative Commons-licensed, and therefore not for public
use. Please do not save a copy for your personal use, and do not use it after the course ends.
Slide 5. As you can see in this example, each of the stories that appears on the Voice of America webpage
has written text about the story that students can read and discuss.
Voice of America website’s article on President Obama’s trip to Europe
“Obama Calls on Trump to 'Stand Up' to Russia” by Voice of America. This content is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted
in any way, or distributed after the end of this course. It is not Public Domain or Creative Commons-licensed, and
therefore not for public use. Please do not save a copy for your personal use, and do not use it after the course ends.

Slide 6. The Technology-Text Connection. Because technology provides access to so many different
materials for students to read, teachers can select texts from the Internet for their students to read. We
have two more examples of texts from the Internet, and again, these come from the U.S. government
website, American English. There are two examples. One is called “Four Friends, Ages 13 and 14,” and the
second is “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
Slide 7. These two examples can be found at the American English website that all teachers and students
have access to around the world. On that site, there’s a number of resources for teachers. That middle
section that’s called Resources is where I found the two example texts.
American English website and link to resources
This work is a derivative of "American English For English Language Teachers Around the World" by American English. This
derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Slide 8. Clicking on Resources, I’d find a lot of choices of things to read.
Slide 9. One example is American Teens Talk! This is a collection of readings that’s based on interviews of
American high school students in both written and audio format. Each interview is accompanied by
vocabulary notes and discussion questions, so it’s a very useful tool for teaching reading.

American Teens Talk! interviews on American English website
This work is a derivative of "American Teens Talk!" by American English. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0
by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Slide 10. Here’s an example of what one of the

interviews looks like from this section of the
text, “Four Friends, Ages 13 and 14.” The
students are pictured there. Those are the four
students who are friends, and they’re asked a
number of questions such as, “What have you
been doing this week? Why are you making
videos? What are you doing in school this
week?” Students can read about what
American students are doing.
Slide 11. Under Resources, I also found the text

of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
Slide 12. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

is an American classic that has been simplified
in this version so that students are able to read “Four Friends, Ages 13 and 14” segment of American Teens Talk!
Interviews
it. The texts are available on the website
chapter-by-chapter so that they can be This work is a derivative of "Four Friends ages 13 and 14" by American English.
This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher
downloaded and used in class. Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” on the American English website
This work is a derivative of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Slide 13. With these types of texts available to students and teachers all over the world, one can imagine
a teacher in Africa looking on the website, finding a chapter of “Huckleberry Finn,” and planning to use it
as part of her teaching materials for the day.
Slide 14. That same teacher in Africa might choose the simplified version of “Huckleberry Finn” from the
American English website, but she also might go to another website. There’s one called the Gutenberg
Project that collects books that have been written and used and enjoyed for many, many years all in one
website for users to read. Those two websites are just two of the hundreds and thousands of websites
available that have reading materials that might be used for reading classes. With this wealth of
opportunity for reading in English, we need to ask: What should a teacher do? What should a teacher
choose?

Project Gutenberg website
This work is a derivative of "Project Gutenberg" by Project Gutenberg. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0
by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Slide 15. Meet Our Reading Expert. It is clearly time to bring in our reading expert to talk to us more about
reading and how people learn how to read. Professor Slater is a professor who researches literacy, which
means the ability to read and write. She taught English speaking in Japan, and there, she discovered the
importance of reading. She found that there was an interplay between spoken and written language. In
other words, they were connected. One helped the other. I asked Professor Slater how she became
interested in reading, and this is what she said.
Slide 16. Meet Our Reading Expert.
Prof. Chapelle: How did you get interested in reading?
Prof. Slater: Well, I’ve always been interested in teaching what we often
call Language Arts in primary and secondary schools, but when I was
working towards becoming a school teacher, I fell in love with linguistics,
and that’s the direction my life went in. After finishing a bachelor’s degree
in that subject, I went to Japan to teach English. Much of my work there
focused on oral communication, but what I found really interesting was
Prof. Tammy Slater
the interplay between spoken and written language. At that time, I was
"Prof. Tammy Slater" by Iowa State noticing the role of written language in the acquisition of spoken
University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
language by adults. Students wrote down almost everything new that
they heard so that they could review it and study it and hopefully

learn it. Of course, they frequently wrote down what they heard rather than the correct English spelling,
and they used the Japanese syllabary, their spelling system, to put the words on paper. Of course, studying
it from that system resulted in very strange pronunciations because not all English words follow the
Japanese phonological rule system.
My own experience trying to learn the Japanese language really reinforced the differences between
reading and decoding. I found it was quite easy to decode Japanese, at least when the syllabary was used
such as it is in children’s books and learner textbooks, but this decoding differs hugely from reading, in
which meaning-making plays a critical role. I was a terrible reader because my vocabulary was so bad. My
prior experiences learning Spanish showed me the same thing. Whereas I could manipulate the grammar
well enough and decode and pronounce the words very well, I really couldn’t read very well. Meaning for
me was a huge challenge. These experiences got me thinking about what literacy really is and started me
on a path to study ways to help ESL students hone their literacy skills.
Decoding is part of the literacy process, of course, but literacy is much more the ability to interact with
text, usually written text, with comprehension, and helping students develop literacy, therefore, is helping
them make connections between the text and their own background knowledge or worlds. This
knowledge is knowledge about the content and the world but
is also about how language is used to construct text. In my
Japanese experience, I felt illiterate. I could not interact in a
way I wanted to. I could not feel part of the society there. I
could not always understand what was happening in other
areas of the world. Thus, I was falling behind as a citizen of the
world because of my literacy skills or lack of them.
Slide 17. Meet Our Reading Expert. Professor Slater shared a

useful perspective on reading. She sees reading as a process of
making meaning from text. Professor Slater said students “Teacher selecting reading text from the internet”
by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
create meaning by making connections between the text and
their own experience, and so, teachers can help students make those connections by selecting good texts
from the Internet. As we saw before, there are many, many good texts to choose from.
Slide 18. Meet Our Reading Expert. An example of a text that we looked at earlier is “Four Friends.” A
teacher might select this one for young teenagers who are about the same age as those who are in the
interviews in the actual text. A selection of a text like this, according to Professor Slater, would potentially
allow the readers to connect what they know about their own lives as teenagers with the lives of the
American teenagers. They also might be interested in learning what students of a similar age to
themselves do in the United States.
Slide 19. Why Reading is Important. I asked Professor Slater to talk more about why she thinks reading is
so important for students.

Slide 20. Why Reading is Important.
Prof. Chapelle: Why do you think it’s important to teach reading to

students?
Prof. Slater: Nowadays, with the Internet, being able to read in one’s first
language anywhere in the world is much easier, so why learn to read and
write in a second language? Culture is constructed trough language, and
if folks are interested in learning about another culture, an obvious way
to do it is by reading words created by people in that culture. In other
words, we learn through reading. The more we can read, the more we
Prof. Tammy Slater
can learn. As we say in English, “Reading opens up a vast world of
"Prof. Tammy Slater" by Iowa State experience and adventure.” Reading, as a major part of what literacy is,
introduces us to new worlds, new words, and new ways of looking at
ideas. Research has shown that readers have larger vocabularies than non-readers and in general, can
write better. They have had models to follow. Reading in various content areas can also help us learn
language, particularly about the various disciplines, and of course, reading can be fun because good books
provide a major element of enjoyment.
Slide 21. Why Reading is Important. Professor Slater identified several reasons that reading is so
important. She said students learn through reading. They learn other things. Students can learn language
through reading as well. They have the opportunity to see language in use when they read. Also, because
they see the language in use, it helps them to write better if they read. Students also can have fun reading,
and if they’re having fun, they may continue reading. Students can also become informed world citizens
by reading. We saw the example of the Voice of America website. Every day, that website has important
news from the United States and around the world. Students who read that website can learn about
what’s happening in the United States, for example.
Slide 22. Why Reading is Important. One important thing that students learn by reading in English is about
culture, and teachers can help find and interpret readings that convey cultural meanings. One good
example is “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the text that we saw earlier
that you can find on the American English website. That’s a classic of American
literature. It’s set in the middle of the U.S. on the Mississippi River. It’s a story
of friendship, loyalty, and difficult choices for boys in their early teens. It’s also
set many years ago, and so, it has a historical look at the United States.
Slide 23. What Teachers Should Know. I asked Professor Slater what teachers
need to know about reading. She emphasized the connection between
reading, writing, and speaking, the importance of students’ background
Prof. Tammy Slater knowledge, and also some things to think about in selecting texts. Let’s listen.
"Prof. Tammy Slater" by Iowa
State University is licensed
under CC BY 4.0

Slide 24. What Teachers Should Know.
Prof. Chapelle: What’s the most important thing for teachers to understand about reading?
Prof. Slater: I think a critical step in helping students develop literacy skills is talking. Just as children learn
about their worlds just by touching and talking long before they begin reading, students need to talk about
what they will be reading about. This is where meanings are constructed and ways of talking about content
or ideas happen. Most contemporary English textbooks incorporate this idea by starting a unit or chapter
with a few questions that aim to get students thinking and
perhaps talking about what they already know about the topic
they will soon read about. Without triggering background
knowledge and introducing some of the vocabulary and ensuring
that it becomes familiar to the students, reading becomes
difficult or simply a process of decoding without meaning. It’s
critical to help students connect their current understanding to
the written text.
In the initial stages, students can be offered simplified text. We

“Students discussing the topic of a reading” by Iowa
certainly do that with young native speakers who lack the State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
content knowledge or the experience to understand an authentic
text. I mean: young children in kindergarten will not be reading a treatise on nuclear science, but if
students are familiar with the topic and have the knowledge necessary, offering an authentic text can be
very useful and motivating because as these students work to hone their literacy skills, they recognize
that the written text is representing their world knowledge. In other words, they begin to realize that
what they are decoding has meaning and interest for them, and this brings me to another key concept in
teaching literacy: encourage students to read whatever is interesting to them and to write something
about what they read. The practice of journaling or writing your own thoughts about what you read is a
great way to practice literacy skills.
Slide 25. What Teachers Should Know. Professor Slater emphasized that there’s an important connection
between reading, writing, and speaking.
Slide 26. What Teachers Should Know. Let's take a look at how that connection works. When a student
reads something, they’re thinking about it. They’re processing it, and it actually helps them to understand
and remember it if they talk about it with somebody. For example, our student here reading a book might
enter a discussion where she could talk about what she just read. She might say, “I just read about that,
but I disagree with what the author said.” By thinking about it and having an opinion about what was read,
the understanding of the reading is made more prominent. In addition, people often write about what
they read and in fact, the reading that they do helps them to formulate their own thoughts in their own
language when they write.

Slide 27. What Teachers Should know. Professor Slater also
emphasized that teachers can help build their students’ literacy
skills by building knowledge and interest through talking, so for
example, students working together might discuss the topic of a
reading and ask each other about their interests related to that
topic. This way, students become activated about the topic of the
reading before they even start to read, and this helps with
comprehension.
Side 28. What Teachers Should know. Professor Slater also

indicated that teachers should help to trigger background
knowledge and to introduce vocabulary before students read.
That helps students to build a schema or an understanding of the
topic that helps them to comprehend the text. Understanding
the vocabulary is also useful, of course, because students can
capture the meaning of what’s being said because they know the
words.
Slide 29. What Teachers Should know. For example, students Example page in simplified version of “The
that are about to read “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
might be introduced to things like the Mississippi River where
This work is a derivative of "Educating Huck" by
the story took place, the idea of the boat, and the camping on American English. This derivative is licensed under CC
the river that is part of the story. Students might learn the BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher
vocabulary for these aspects of the story so that they can think Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
about it before they read. This helps comprehension.
Slide 30. What Teachers Should Know. The texts that you choose for students to read are important.
Professor Slater talked about authentic versus simplified texts, and each of those have specific purposes
for reading instruction. She also talked about the content of the texts. It matters what the texts are about
because an important aspect of reading is students being interested in what they’re reading.
Slide 31. What Teachers Should Know. Professor Slater also talked about authentic versus simplified
texts. Authentic texts contain language that may be too difficult for learners. That’s the language that was
used by the original author of the text, intended for very proficient speakers of English. Simplified texts,
in contrast, contain the same ideas, but the language is simpler. Such texts are often created for learners
so that they can have access to the same meaning without having to understand the difficult texts.
Slide 32. For example, we looked at “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” that’s available on the
American English website. This is an example of a simplified text, a text that the authors have rewritten in
a way that would make it easier to read for students.

Slide 33. An American Classic. The simplified text has all the look and characteristics of the authentic text.
It looks like a book that anyone would pick up and read, but in fact, the authors have worked hard to make
the text much simpler.
Slide 34. The same text in its authentic or original form is much more difficult for students to read because
of the characteristics of the language. For example, the first chapter starts:
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth,
mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never
seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe
Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about
in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.
In this writing, there are a number of characteristics of the language that is authentic to the time and the
dialect of the characters in the story, but it’s also somewhat difficult to understand.
Slide 35. We can take a look at some of the characteristics of the language just by putting the authentic
text side-by side with the simple text. The first sentence, “You don’t know about me without you have
read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” is simplified to “You don’t know me unless
you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” The change makes the sentence a
more standard English by using “unless” instead of “without” in that position in the sentence. In the
simplified version, the second part of the sentence after the semicolon, “but that ain’t no matter,” is also
simply deleted. That part of the sentence also contains nonstandard use of “ain’t,” and so, the simplified
text has the appearance of a shorter, simpler, or straightforward sentence. That’s one of the
characteristics of simplified texts. Simplified texts have simpler syntax, they have shorter sentences, and
they use more standard English. This allows students to be able to read the story without being frustrated
by the difficult language.
Slide 36. I found the original version of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” on the website for Project
Gutenberg which has a collection of original texts of many, many authors and many, many books that are
available for free as e-books. That’s worth taking a look at.

Original version of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” on Project Gutenberg website
This work is a derivative of "Project Gutenberg" by Project Gutenberg. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in
the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Slide 37. What Teachers should know. Professor Slater also emphasized the importance of the content
of the text that we choose for students to read.
Slide 38. Advice for Teachers. Professor Slater has already given some important insights into reading,
but I asked her to give us some specific ideas about how to teach reading.
Slide 39. Advice for Teachers.
Prof. Chapelle: What advice do you have for teachers about teaching
reading?
Prof. Slater: Literacy development is a critical part of learning a language

and of becoming an informed world citizen. It’s more than decoding; it’s
understanding the vocabulary and the grammar and the patterns that are
used to construct texts that fulfill a social purpose in our world--purposes
such as informing, instructing, and even entertaining. Decoding is easy;
Prof. Tammy Slater reading isn’t. It takes time to develop beyond the decoding of the ABCs,
so when teaching literacy skills, make sure you involve talk in an
"Prof. Tammy Slater" by Iowa State
enjoyable, fun way prior to having students read and write. This can be
very effective and motivating.

Also, having students keep journals about what they read and, more importantly, what they think about
what they read can play a huge role in developing literacy. Just keep in mind that in literacy development,
a journal offers the conversation between the writer, who is typically the student, and the reader, the
teacher. Just as you wouldn’t want to correct everything a student says, it is important not to correct
journals but to respond to them as a conversation. This also models what good readers often do as they
question and ponder the author’s texts. Finally,
make sure you offer students lots of choice of
reading materials and encourage them to read,
even in their first language, especially if they are
journaling about these texts. As I mentioned,
literacy is all about bringing one’s world knowledge
to the printed page and having the printed page
expand one’s world knowledge.
Slide 40. Advice for Teachers. Professor Slater’s

advice for teachers emphasizes that we should take
into account students’ interests and knowledge “Students engaged in activity related to reading” by Iowa State
when we choose reading materials. Each student University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
has particular interests, and part of the process of going through education is to find and stimulate those
types of interests. Reading is a very important part of that process of stimulating students’ interests.
Slide 41. Advice for Teachers. A related piece of advice is to excite students about reading so that they
feel encouraged to read. Students should enjoy reading in school, and that enjoyment should extend to
outside of class as well when they start finding their own materials to read.
Slide 42. Advice for Teachers. Professor Slater

advised teachers to incorporate reading activities
into fun activities, especially those that include
conversation. Here, she’s talking about linking
reading to speaking, one of the ideas that was
important for her when she started learning
Japanese.
Slide 43. Advice for Teachers. As students engage

in discussion, they should be talking about their
opinions about what they read. This provides
opportunities to become more interested and
“Students discussing their opinions about what they read” by Iowa State
challenges them to think critically about what they University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
read.

Slide 44. Advice for Teachers. You can have students keep journals about what they read.
Slide 45. Advice for Teachers. Overall, we can sum up Professor Slater’s advice as follows: take into
account students’ interest and knowledge in the choice of reading materials. You should try to excite
students about reading, so they feel encouraged to read. The more they read, the better it is for them.
Incorporate reading activities into fun activities that include conversation so that you’re making that link
between the text and the oral language. Engage students in discussion of their own opinions about what
they read so that they are critically engaged with their reading material. Also, have students keep journals
about what they’re reading. That provides them an opportunity to let their reading affect their writing.
Slide 46. How can Technology Help? With this background on what we’re trying to do in teaching reading,
we can start to look at some of the technologies that are useful in helping the process of teaching reading.
There are many searching methods for seeking texts and social media sites of interest to students. This
can provide them with materials that are well suited to their level and interest. Students can be taught to
engage in audio blogging or chat to begin topics, activities to build knowledge and interest in a topic before
reading. Sites with good reading about the world, topics that are very interesting, and American English
simplified texts are also a good option. There are also websites for assessing the readability or the
simplicity of texts. Reading groups can be formed based on common interests within the class, within
language learner sites, or within fanfiction sites. Students can engage in journaling discussion about
reading on blogs and forums.
Exploring Free Reading Resources Online
Prof. Chapelle mentioned several reading resources in her lecture. The following are some of
these resources. Feel free to explore these websites so you can become more familiar with
them and decide if they would work in your teaching context. You will not be graded on this.
• Voice of America (VOA) News

This up-to-date website includes news stories from the U.S. and around the world as well as
stories about science, health, culture, and many more topics. Visit the website and explore
the available stories while thinking about how you may integrate them into a reading
lesson.
• American Teens Talk
This collection of interviews with American high school students is available
in written format and in audio format. Read 3-5 of the interviews and listen to the audio.
Think about how you might be able to pick out a few aspects the students discuss to use as
starting point for a reading lesson.
Also spend some time exploring the reading resources on the American English Four Skills
resources page
• Project Gutenberg
You have access to 53000 free ebooks. Search for specific books or look at the most popular
books in terms of the number of downloads and take notes on which ones you might be
able to use in the classroom.
Text Readability Tools
After listening to the lecture by Professor Slater, you have become more aware of the
importance of selecting reading texts, as well as the vast amount of free online reading
resources available to you. We will next illustrate how to use text readability tools that can help
us gauge the 'readability' of a text. This is an important tool for teachers who want to make
sure that the texts that they use in their teaching are suitable for their students' reading level.
Selecting appropriate reading texts is also important to make sure language learners can
interact with texts at an appropriate difficulty level, because some texts may be too difficult or
too easy. Text difficulty is related to a text’s content, word choice, and grammar structure.
Text Readability Tools Tutorial
Watch the text readability video tutorial that we have prepared for you. This video tutorial
shows the step-by-step process to use two text readability tools: Readable.io and
the Readability Test Tool.
Other readability tools you can explore include:
• Automatic Readability Checker

• Readability Analyzer
• Readability Calculator
Transcript
[The video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYCMW0qu2jc&feature=youtu.be ]
Lea Johannsen: Hello. In this video, I’ll be walking you through how to analyze the readability
scores of a text.
Now, the first step is to get our text. We’ll be using a text from the American English website.
Go to Resources: Teaching the Four Skills. And then scroll down to Reading.

American English website page
This work is a derivative of "American English For English Language Teachers Around the World" by American
English. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored
by the U.S. Department of State.
We’re going to be using The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is a text that Dr. Chapelle
mentions in her lecture. Now that we’re here, you can see that The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn has quite a lot of different options for download. We just want to click on “Text PDF”
download, which opens up in a separate window.
Huckleberry Finn download page

This work is a derivative of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

Copying text directly out of
the browser can lead to
some problems, so you’re
going to want to download
the file. You can do that by
navigating down here to the
bottom of your screen and
clicking on the button with
the arrow and a computer
screen.
Download PDF button

This work is a derivative of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by American English. This derivative
is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.
Department of State.
This should take it

right down into your
downloads, where
you can open the
PDF and view it like
this. Now we could
just copy text
directly from here.
However, copying
text directly out of a
PDF can be difficult,
and lead to some
problems, especially
for the kind of
analysis that you’re
going to be doing.
PDF Document So let’s take the text

This work is a derivative of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by American English. This derivative is and put it into a text
licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.
editor. Let’s go to
page 2, where the
text really starts,
copy some, and then open a text editor. Now if you’re on a Windows computer you’ll open
Microsoft Word, and if you’re on a Mac you might open Pages. Whichever software you’re
using, click to open a blank document and paste your text in.
The first thing you’ll notice is that because we’ve copied text out of the PDF, there are a few
inconsistencies in the formatting, as well as some text that we really didn’t want to copy. You’ll
want to go through and delete that, and also add in letters that are missing.
Whenever you’re copying text out of a PDF, these sorts of issues can pop up. So please be
careful and go over your text a second time.
Copied text in word processing application

This work is a derivative of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by American English. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for
use in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.
The next thing we want to know is how many words we’ve copied out. Now here, my word
editor isn’t automatically showing me the word count. So you might have to go in and turn
word count “on”, depending on what word editor you’re using. Now I can see that I have 141
words copied. That’s not quite enough. We’ll want more to be able to analyze the readability of
a text properly. Let’s get rid of what we have here, and go back for some more.

Back on the PDF we can start
on page 2 and drag our way
down to the bottom of page 3.
Let’s see how many words that
is. Once we’ve copied it into
the text editor we can see that
that’s about 576 words, which
should be enough. The next
thing you’ll notice is that
because we copied between
pages, we’ve also copied over
the formatting that was
between the pages, like the Cleaning up text in word processing application
page number and the author’s This work is a derivative of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by American English. This
name. Make sure to get rid of derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program,
sponsored by the U.S.
those before you continue on
to the next step.
Another thing you’ll want to do is get rid of this sentence at the bottom that doesn’t quite
finish. Having unfinished sentences will only throw off your readability scores, so let’s get rid of
that. Now, with the text copied, we’re finally ready to start analyzing the readability scores.
Let’s go back into the browser and visit the first website (see below).
This work is a derivative of "Measure Text Readability" by Readable.io. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the
AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.

Here we are, on the first website you’re going to use to analyze the readability of a text. This
website is really easy to use. All you do is paste your text here, and click the button that says,
“measure readability”. For this particular text, we have the readability scores as you can see
here.
This work is a derivative of "Measure Text Readability" by Readable.io. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the
AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.
Now let’s try the other website. The second website doesn’t immediately show you where to
put text in, so you have to click on “Test by Direct Input”. Select this, and paste your text.
This work is a derivative of "Readability Test Tool" by WebpageFX. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-
Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.

Then click the button down here that says, “Calculate Readability”. On this website, the text
gets deleted, but your scores are displayed underneath where the text used to be.
This work is a derivative of "Readability Test Tool" by WebpageFX. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-
Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.

Discussion: Reflecting on How to Find Reading Texts
"Students reading textbooks" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Teachers often search online for texts for their students. While there are many texts available,
finding one that is appropriate for the particular students is not easy. The texts may be too
difficult, too easy, too long, not long enough, etc. Please share with other course participants
your approach when it comes to finding and selecting appropriate reading texts for your
students.
Directions:
Comment on the following questions as part of this forum discussion:
• When you search for appropriate online reading texts for your students, what problems do
you face?
• What selection procedure do you follow to identify a text you use in your classroom?
• Where do you go to find good reading texts?
Your post should be no longer than 200 words.

Connecting Reading and Writing Using Fanfiction
[The video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLlE2-ekUHe82Fe-

Xav5b884aFA654s8RI&v=jeeOeQkwxL4 ]
Slide 1. Connecting Reading and Writing. Let’s take a closer look at how we can
connect reading and writing through the use of fanfiction. To do so, we’ll turn to
our fanfiction expert, Shannon Sauro.
Slide 2. Fanfiction, Reading & Writing. Hello. This is Shannon Sauro. In this segment,
I talk once again about fan practices, specifically fanfiction and fanfiction tasks that
have been brought into the advanced English language classroom. Although the
Prof. Shannon Sauro examples I’ll discuss here are taken from university students in Sweden, similar tasks
"Prof. Shannon Sauro" by have been designed and adapted for younger students with lower English
Shannon Sauro is licensed proficiency in middle and high school classrooms.
under CC BY 4.0
Slide 3. Fanfiction. First, a quick reminder about fanfiction, defined here as "writing
that continues, interrupts, reimagines, or just riffs on stories and characters other people have already
written about." As this definition indicates, there are many different genres and types of fanfiction
depending on the interest of the writer and the source material. One popular genre among younger
writers is fanfiction where the author inserts themselves as a character in their favorite story. In other
cases, writers might rewrite endings to a story, rewrite
an entire story from the perspective of a different
character, or place the characters from one story in an
alternate universe. One currently popular type of
alternate universe fanfiction is where fans write about
their favorite characters working at a coffee shop in their
hometown. Fan fiction can be of any length. For
instance, one type of fanfiction, drabbles, are short
stories that are no more than 100 words long. There are
of course many short stories and also plenty of novel-
length fanfiction stories that are several hundred
thousand words long.
Fan made art of “the Hobbit”
Slide 4. The Hobbit. In this presentation, I’ll be talking "Desolation of Smaug" by Emerald Orb is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
about fanfiction based on two different sets of stories.
The first is based on The Hobbit, a fantasy novel written by British author J.R.R. Tolkien set in a world
called Middle Earth inhabited by dwarves, elves, humans, wizards, dragons, and hobbits.

Slide 5. Sherlock Holmes. The next set of texts are the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Sherlock Holmes is a
London-based, famous fictional private detective who was created by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
and appeared in detective novels and short stories between 1887 and 1927.
Slide 6. Context and Participants. The

context where these fanfiction tasks take
place is a course on teaching literature
required for students specializing in
teaching English at the secondary school
level in Sweden. Students are in either
their first or third term of study of a five-
year undergraduate program. The two
fanfiction projects described here were
designed to serve as a possible model of
tasks that these future teachers could
use with their own students.
Fanfiction names
Slide 7 The Blogging Hobbit. The first
"Story titles" by Shannon Sauro is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
project is called The Blogging Hobbit, a
task-based fanfiction project culminating in the writing of a collaborative story of a missing moment from
Tolkien’s The Hobbit and published in a blog or online fanfiction archive. For this project, students were
organized into groups of three to six and asked to carry out a series of subtasks that resulted in the
publication and presentation of a story depicting a missing moment. Each student was required to
contribute at least six paragraphs to their group story
and to write from the perspective of one character
from The Hobbit. This required careful attention to
the character’s way of speaking and behaving. The
overall project consisted of four parts: (1) the
creation of a map and outline to guide each group in
their writing, (2) the published collaborative story,
(3) an individual reflective essay in which students
wrote about linguistic and literary choices they
attended to, and (4) a group oral presentation on the
process. The resulting 31 stories ranged in length
from 2,000 to just over 16,000 words.
Slide 8. In their reflective papers, the majority of Hobbit fanfiction

students identified ways in which the
"Battle of the Five Armies Blog Screengrab" by Shannon Sauro
collaborative fanfiction task enhanced their is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
language learning at the lexical level. In particular,
several pointed out that mimicking the language of The Hobbit required them to understand and use
words that were more old-fashioned or formal than they were used to using. As one student wrote, “this
writing activity has influenced my language skills. During this project, I have been able to expand my
repertoire of English words which are not so commonly used in everyday English anymore.” Lexical
development was identified by a range of students including those who identified as more proficient in
English and found that imitating the writing style in The Hobbit allowed them to expand their vocabulary,
particularly with respect to adjectives and adverbs which they found characteristic of Tolkien’s writing.
Slide 9. Some students who identified as non-readers of fiction described how the task in particular led to
the development of vocabulary or grammar knowledge useful for creative writing: “I am not that much of
a reader of fiction compared to others, and I feel that my vocabulary had increased when it comes to
creative writing.” Beyond discrete vocabulary item learning, more than a third of all students felt that the
collaborative writing task improved their ability to write in English. Most of them emphasized
development in the area of creative writing in particular because they had little to no experience with
creative writing, while others identified an improvement in overall writing fluency. As one student said,
“After a short while, the writing became very fluent, and I did not have to think too hard before writing.”
In addition, a few self-identified weaker writers described an overarching improvement in their writing
accuracy, which they attributed to the peer feedback they received during the collaborative writing
process.
Slide 10. Careful reading to accurately capture the voice of their particular character was commented on
by more than half the students. For some students, this took the form of trying to capture the character’s
idiosyncratic speech style which included a fondness for riddles but also grammatically incorrect speech,
which we can see an example of here on the screen. Another student wrote this about his character: “I
really tried to make Gollum’s language from the movies work together with the features specific to the
book. He does speak grammatically incorrect, and that was a bit tricky to make work as of making him
understood.” The student went on to point out one of the advantages of the assignment, though: “I have
not worked in this way before with reading and writing, where you tend to go back to your book like a
dictionary to highlight special features from your character.”
Slide 11. One of the questions I’m often asked about classroom fanfiction is how good it is or how it
compares to the fanfiction fans write online. To investigate this, I did a keyword analysis, a type of corpus-
based analysis that looks for keywords that appear with unusual frequency in one group of texts compared
to another. One can also look for negative keywords or words that are unusually infrequent in a corpus
compared to another. In order to do this, I compiled a corpus of online fanfiction from the fanfiction site
Archive of our Own (Ao3) that was written during the same period as my students’ fanfiction, was similar
in length and rating, and was a similar genre. In other words, no explicit stories, no romance, or no
alternate universe stories.
Slide 12. Keywords. Among the keywords found in the classroom fanfiction were third-person plural
pronouns we, our, us. This was a reflection of the fact that the classroom fanfiction was written by multiple
authors and conveyed multiple perspectives and thus plural pronouns were common. Certain character
names were also keywords, including several dwarves who were not as commonly referenced in the
online fanfiction. In addition, keywords included reference to a number of different beings found in
Middle Earth, including dwarves, goblins, wizards, and elves.

Slide 13. Negative Keywords. In contrast, the negative keywords, the words that were particularly
uncommon in my students’ fanfiction compared to the online fanfiction, included third-person singular
pronouns (she, her, his, him), kinship terms, character names, and contracted forms. Taken together,
these negative keywords pointed to a difference in character focus, including a focus on individual
characters, including an original female character only found in the Hobbit films and not in the novel, a
greater emphasis on family or family relationships, and more reference to certain elves as opposed to
dwarves. However, most notably, the contracted forms, when investigated in the corpus, typically
occurred in dialog, revealing that classroom fanfiction, perhaps because of the assignment focus on
character perspective, had much less dialog than the online fanfiction.
Slide 14. A follow-up interview with a focus group

of fans and non-fans in one particularly eager
group who called themselves The Dream Team
also pointed to another major difference
between the classroom fanfiction and the online
fanfiction. According to one student, B, “Fanfics
that get really popular, they kind of answer to
some kind of fantasy that people have about the
characters. Or something they really want to
explore. Or they create an alternate universe. We
didn’t have anything like that, really. I mean, I Keywords
think ours was very kind of very much like the
This work is a derivative of "Blogging Hobbit Wordle" by Wordle.net, used
book in a way, so maybe it wasn’t as exciting under CC BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use
as some other fanfiction because it wasn’t in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
innovating in that way. We were trying to
make it look like it could actually be a part of the book. So I think that’s the difference as well between
what we did and we planned and what’s on fanfiction forums.”
In other words, the instructions for the classroom fanfiction did not allow students to be quite as
innovative as actual fanfiction.
Slide 15. A Study in Sherlock. This led to the second fanfiction project, A Study
in Sherlock. Based on input from students, we moved from The Hobbit to the
Sherlock Holmes stories and gave students more options to be innovative.
Because the Sherlock Holmes stories were mysteries, they were all required to
follow the genre of detective fiction and to have Sherlock Holmes solve a
mystery. The fanfiction was still to be written collaboratively in groups of three
to six, but students were encouraged to be more innovative. They could tell a
new mystery in the original universe of the stories, Victorian London, or they
could tell a new mystery or retell an old one in an entirely different alternate
universe. In preparation, students participated in in-class fanfiction writing Fans of Sherlock Holmes
workshops and were assigned to read examples of Sherlock Holmes
"Sauro and Sundmark" by Shannon
fanfiction in addition to several actual Sherlock Holmes stories. Sauro is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
Slide 16. The Fanfiction. The resulting 16 pieces of fanfiction stories were
on average 5,726 words long. Ten were published to private blogs, and six
were published to the fanfiction archives, Archive of our Own or
Fanfiction.net, with the hope of perhaps eliciting feedback and responses
from actual online fans.
Slide 17. Innovation in the stories took several forms. There were several
set in Sweden, including this one, The Hound of the Northern Lights, which
was a retelling of the Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the
Baskervilles but was set in northern Sweden. Students collaborated to find
a way to Swedify the story, changing characters’ names. For example, the
Sherlock Holmes fanfiction
Baskervilles became the Baskerströms, but also imagining ways two
Englishmen like Sherlock Holmes and John Watson would make sense of "Hound of the Northern Lights Blog
Screengrab" by Shannon Sauro is
Swedish customs and behavior as they went about solving a mystery far licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
north inside the Arctic Circle.
Slide 18. Other groups innovated by setting the Sherlock Holmes characters
inside another universe they were fans of or were more familiar with. One
example of this was the story Nowhere to Hyde which imagined Sherlock and John
in the 1960s as characters in the cartoon series Scooby Doo, a cartoon about a
group of young people, The Mystery Gang, and their dog, Scooby Doo, who solve
crimes. This mixing of universes allowed students who were less interested in
Sherlock Holmes to find a way to engage with the project. As one student wrote,
“My interest in Doyle and the Sherlock Holmes world is still at an intermediate
Fan-made drawing of
level. Scooby Doo
On the other hand, my knowledge of the Scooby Doo universe is far greater, "Nowhere to Hyde" by Sherlock
and I could enter that verse much easier than the universe of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes Fan Fiction is licensed
under CC BY-NC 4.0
As a child, I loved the characters of the Mystery Gang and therefore, I really
enjoyed this task.”
Slide 19. Once again, the writing of fanfiction led to vocabulary development. In particular, many students
commented on the challenge to their vocabulary or variety of English. As one student explained, “First off,
I am highly Americanized in my English use, and I blame Hollywood. It’s been a welcomed challenge to
write in British. My biggest inspiration has once again been the BBC show. I truly enjoyed using the word
‘foggiest’ in a text, and it is now a part of my vocabulary. My American is being invaded. ‘The British are
coming!’”.

Slide 20. On a final note, this fanfiction project also helped some students
develop a deeper awareness of literary techniques, which they were able
to identify in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries to apply to their
own stories. Here is one student’s reflection which highlights the close
relationship between language and storytelling that she became aware of:
“Doyle writes also quite linear with Watson’s first-person narrative, which
contributes to maintaining the suspense, since Watson, as a limited
narrator, is many times as clueless as the reader is, which I tried to keep in
mind at all times. I also tried to give my writing a variable rhythm, slowing
it down with descriptions sometimes, and speeding it up with action verbs
at other times.“ These specific examples show how fanfiction can be
integrated into classroom teaching for the purpose of language Fan-made drawing of Sherlock
development and literary learning by requiring a close connection
"The Fall" by pennswoods is licensed
between reading and writing.
under CC BY-NC 4.0
Slide 21. Technology for Teaching Reading. This concludes this week’s
lecture on using technology for reading. We thank Prof. Chapelle and her
colleagues for this intriguing presentation and hope you found the
associated activities useful as you explore the use of technology on your
own.

Writing and Technology
Checking the assignment together" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0e.
In this second topic in Unit 2, you will get a chance to explore how language teachers can use
technology to help students become more effective writers.
Goals:
After this unit you will have...
• Met our writing expert, Professor Elena Cotos

• Learned about why teaching writing is important
• Learned about what teachers should know when teaching writing
• Learned about available online resources and tools for teaching writing
• Explored the available word processing features on Microsoft Office Word

What is the Technology-Writing Connection?

ekUHe81WFzeFNO_4_38KL_8vergF ]
Slide 1: Technology for Teaching Writing. In this part of the course, we explore how
technology can help support and shape the teaching of writing. We have asked Carol
Chapelle, a Distinguished Professor at Iowa State University, to provide us with
insights into the writing and technology connection. Let’s listen.
Slide 2: In this Lecture. In this lecture we’ll talk about the technology-writing
connection. And then in the second part we’ll meet our writing expert: Elena Cotos.
We’ll ask Elena why writing is important for students and what teachers should know Prof. Carol Chapelle
about writing. We will then ask her for some advice for teachers and finally look at "Professor Carol Chapelle"
how technology can help in the teaching of writing to English language learners. by Iowa State University is
licensed under CC BY 4.0
Slide 3: The Technology-Writing Connection. Many educators in applied linguistics
today see a very strong connection between technology and writing. They see their students using
technology to put their thoughts into words to have conversations with each other, and with a lot of
people throughout the world, through the use of new technologies. Overall, technology provides access
to many different ways for students to write. And students seem to really enjoy taking those opportunities
to make new friends and establish relationships and just have fun. Teachers can find many resources to
help teach writing on the Internet as well. This connection between writing and technology seems to be
a very strong one. There are two examples of technology for writing that seem to have really played an
important role in everything we’re doing in education today. They are word processing software and the
second is collaboration software.

Slide 4: Word Processing. The image shows an example of a word processing software program, Microsoft
Word, which most people are probably familiar with. This is one, but only one, of many different kinds of
text editors that students are using for
writing their essays. The introduction of
word processing into the world of writing
and instruction has been really important
because of students’ ability to write
something on the screen and then make
changes by looking at what they have
written, or revising what they have
written. In my example, a student has Microsoft Word processing program
written in response to an assignment to
"Writing assignment on Microsoft Word" by Iowa State University is licensed
write about someone that he or she under CC BY 4.0
admires.
Slide 5: Word Processing. In this example the student has taken the prompt of “Person I admire” and used
it for the title. The first version of the essay names Barak Obama and tells who he was, the President of
the United States. The student writes, “He work very much and people liked him. He is a nice guy. He
traveled a lot and he play sport like basketball.” Most of us would recognize as teachers that this should
only be the first draft of an essay that has a lot of room for development. The fact that the student has
written it using a word processing program makes that development an obvious and easy thing to handle
in a physical sense. Writing on paper wasn’t that easy. On paper, the finished product tends to be the
paper that the student writes the first time. Word processers, on the other hand, make it easy to change
text and that has had a really strong effect on the teaching of writing.
Slide 6: Word Processing. Word processing, when it was introduced in the 1980s, had the effect of
changing how teachers thought about writing: The change was from thinking of writing as a product to
thinking of writing as a process. In the model where writing is considered a product, the focus is on the
finished text as opposed to the process view of writing where the focus is on the process of developing
the text: writing, revising, and editing. The idea is that writing is an ongoing process. In the product mode
of thinking, writing is for teachers to mark, whereas writing as a process conceptualizes writing as a way
for students to learn. This is one way for students to learn the language. If we think of writing as a product
the feedback is used to explain the mark that the student gets on a particular paper. When writing is
viewed as a process, feedback is an important tool for learning; feedback is intended to be formative and
to help students to reconsider what they have written and to advance as writers.
Slide 7: Collaboration Software. A second major development that has occurred in writing instruction has
been the use of software that allows students to collaborate. In the past, students were seen as individuals
in front of their piece of paper or their computer having to generate text on their own. Collaboration
software in contrast allows students to work together so that they can integrate ideas. The idea is that
two heads might be better than one or maybe even three might be better than two so that students can
benefit from speaking about what they’re writing, getting the ideas of others, and putting all of that

together. Such collaboration software is used a lot in business and so the process of collaborative writing
also prepares students for work in the real world.
An illustrative example of writing collaboration
"Example of writing collaboration" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Slide 8: Collaboration Software. In our example of “A person I admire” a collaboration between two
writers might have resulted in a suggestion to change the title and to not use the same title that is in the
prompt. This would make the title specific and give the title more of a central position that the essay
could then help to develop. So the suggestion which I’ve indicated here (using myself as the collaborator)
is to replace “A person I admire” with “The Greatest US President.” If students are working together on a
text like this they can have a conversation through these comments to write and discuss and revise using
their ideas.
Slide 9: Collaboration Software. Let’s take a look at some of the important differences that collaboration
software has made in writing pedagogy. If we think of writing alone, the focus is on the individual’s writing
ability, or how well this person can write on his or her own. For collaborative writing, the focus is on
writing in a social context and this is, as I mentioned, something that a lot of students will be doing in the
future. Therefore, this is a possibly a good thing to begin doing in the classroom. If we consider writing
alone, writing is prompted by reading and by thinking. These are the two kinds of inputs and processes
involved in writing whereas when writing is done collaboratively, writing can still be prompted by reading
and thinking, but talking also plays an important role. And talking is another process that allows students
to consider what they are writing and practice what they have to say and try things out. These processes
are really important for language learning as well as for producing good writing products. Third, if we are
thinking of writing alone, feedback comes from teachers and from the computer after the student write
something: the students are on their own while they are writing. In collaborative writing situations,
feedback comes from peers as part of the collaboration process. Feedback can still be obtained from
teachers and computers, but the collaborative process naturally brings about a lot of feedback during the
process of conceptualizing and drafting as well as revision.
Slide 10: Meet our Writing Expert. So I think we are ready to meet our writing expert. Professor Cotos
teaches English at Iowa State University, specifically for graduate students. She has also done research to
investigate how to teach writing in English better by using technology. I asked Professor Cotos how she
became interested in writing.

Slide 11: Meet our Writing Expert. Professor Chapelle: How did you get interested in writing?
Professor Cotos: I became interested in writing when I was a graduate student.

Coming from a different country and a completely different educational system, I
was challenged by all the writing assignments that I had to complete in my
coursework. Even though I knew English well enough, I was not at all confident in my
academic writing skills. I was eagerly waiting for the feedback from my professors,
and I came to realize that the way I was taught to write in my own language was
Prof. Elena Cotos drastically different from the kind of writing expected here. For example, back in
"Prof. Elena Cotos" school, my teachers always emphasized that the main idea has to be developed
by Iowa State gradually, with details that are described using complex sentences and abundant
University is licensed
under CC BY 4.0
stylistic devices like metaphor, hyponymy, hyperbole, and so on. I learned to write
very long, complex sentences and to use flowery language. I came to realize that in
English, the readers have completely different expectations. They want to see the
main idea at the very beginning, and they expect carefully organized details to support the idea. I also
realized that flowery, metaphorical language is not very appropriate in academic writing.
I should say that I learned a lot about writing through teaching when I was a teaching assistant in graduate
and undergraduate writing courses. Since the approach to writing was so different from what I knew, I
spent a lot of time preparing for class, and I learned together with my students. In fact, I often completed
the tasks that I planned to assign to my students myself first, trying to see whether and what I would learn
from that. Putting myself in my students’ shoes gave me a really good understanding of both the writing
conventions and how to best teach them. The thing that keeps me most interested in writing is the
importance of knowing how to write for specific purposes and for specific audiences. For instance, the
purpose of writing an expository essay, which is often assigned to undergraduate students, is to explain
an idea or an issue, and the immediate audience is typically the teacher and other classmates, so students
follow very specific assignment guidelines provided by the teacher. On the other hand, the purpose of a
research article that a graduate student prepares for publication is completely different. In this case, the
audience is a broad disciplinary community whom the student doesn’t even know, but the members of
this disciplinary community have high and very specific expectations of how a research argument should
be presented in a journal manuscript.
Slide 12: Meet our Writing Expert. Prof. Cotos realized that the way she learned to write in her own
language was very different than the way she needed to write when she started writing in English. She
noticed that in her own language they use flowery language, they develop ideas gradually, and they use
long complex sentences. She noticed that in English this style and process doesn’t work.
Slide 13: Meet our Writing Expert. Prof. Cotos thinks that writing is interesting because of the fact that in
order to be successful, the writer has to choose the right language depending on the purpose and the
audience of the writing. She noticed that there is not one correct way to write in English, but instead,
there are a lot of choices to be made and where there are choices, there are interesting things to learn.
Slide 14: Purpose and Audience. Let’s take a closer look at what Prof. Cotos means by purpose and
audience. For example, we have a writer who is a graduate student at Iowa State University and she is

writing an email to her friend in Australia. The friend in Australia is going to be the audience for the email.
Even if there is only one person, we consider her the audience because she is the person that is going to
receive and read the email. She’s the one that we need to write appropriately for. The purpose of the
email is to apologize for not sending an email for a long time. So what does our writer do? She chooses
language that will be appropriate for her friend in Australia--language that will convey the apology that
the writer intends to convey. She chooses this language: “My research has really kept me busy over the
past semester.” And this she thinks is a good way of beginning her apology to her friend. In English an
apology is a pretty good one if it includes a reason why something wasn’t done or why the act that needs
to be apologized for was committed. So that works.
Slide 15: Purpose and Audience. Let’s change the audience and purpose to one that is very important
also for graduate students. What if the audience is professionals in the field and the purpose is introducing
research articles. Our graduate students, after they do their research, want to be able to write an article
and submit it to a journal so it will get published. Okay, so the writer is the same. She’s talking about her
research but the purpose and audience are different. What if she chooses to introduce her research by
saying: “My research has really kept me busy over the past semester.” Will that work? Is that a good way
to start a research article?
Slide 16: Purpose and Audience. No, I don’t think our writer would be very successful if she started her
research article with: “My research has really kept me busy over the past semester.” When the audience
is professionals in the field, that’s a large audience of people that the writer doesn’t know. They don’t
really care that her research has kept her busy over the past semester. Plus, when the purpose is to
introduce a research article, we want her to talk about the research and we don’t want to refer to time
that is specific to the writer’s moment that she is writing. So the language is going to have to be different
for starting a research article.
Slide 17: Purpose and Audience. But what should the language choice be in this context? Let’s take a look
at what some successful researchers have done. You read an article a couple of weeks ago about student’s
perceptions and experiences of mobile language learning and it was published in Language Learning &
Technology. Let’s see how they started their research article.
Slide 18: Purpose and Audience. Their purpose was to introduce their research article; their audience was
professionals in the field. So these authors chose this language: “In recent years, researchers have begun
to investigate language learning using various mobile devices such as mobile phones (e.g., Wong, Chin,
Tan, & Liu, 2010), pocket PCs (e.g., Wong & Looi, 2010), and Apple iPhones (e.g., Jong, Specht, & Koper,
2010),” So their opening statement for their research article is very different from what our writer wrote
to her friend in Australia. This is the kind of language that works for the introduction of a research article;
it opens up by introducing the larger field of research, and by indicating that that there has been some
work done in this area, they set the stage for what’s to come next.
Slide 19: Why Writing is Important. Those ideas of audience and purpose start to give us an idea of why
writing is so important. But I asked Prof. Cotos to tell us why she thinks that writing is so important for
English learners. She said that writing actually helps students to learn English. Let’s listen.

Slide 20: Why Writing is Important. Professor Chapelle: Why do you think it’s important to teach writing
to students?
Professor Cotos: Writing is often overlooked in EFL teaching and learning, as was the case in my English
learning experience. I think my English teachers may have shied away from teaching writing not only
because of its many complicated rules and structures but also because they were not familiar with
different types of texts and different types of audiences. However, I strongly believe that teaching
students to write well is very important. Overall, writing helps students learn the English language better.
You may ask how.
Well, writing allows students to apply and consolidate the vocabulary and grammatical forms that they’re
learning in class and from their textbooks. That means that writing allows students to actually translate
passive knowledge of language structures to active use. Writing also allows students to go back and see
what they produced on paper or a computer screen. It allows them to self-analyze, self-assess, and detect
the language problems or language misuse that they need to be working on. Plus, writing can be
considered a stress-free way to practice language.
Another reason why teaching writing is important is because writing is increasingly used in a wide variety
of situations outside of the classroom. We live in an age of globalization, where English has become the
language of international communication. With advanced technologies, for example, everyone engages
in written communication more than ever before. People of all ages are text messaging, posting on social
media, blogging, and commenting on various types of online posts, so writing skills are key to participating
in the English speaking world. In a sense, writing also keeps communication mobile and fun with all these
devices. Of course, different modes of communication employ different writing styles, different language
choices, and different levels of formality, but for many people, writing is also an opportunity to express
agency and identity and show who they are and what they believe in. Thinking of more formal contexts
like business, education, and employment, writing ability is really high-stakes because well-written
documents are often a person’s way to demonstrate professional expertise. Oftentimes, students’ writing
is the only way to assess their content knowledge or their academic potential and performance. A poorly-
written resume, on the other hand, will never land anybody their desired job, so teaching writing has long-
term benefits because writing skills will be useful to students in a wide variety of situations outside of the
classroom.
Slide 21: Why Writing is Important. Prof. Cotos emphasized that writing allows students to use the
grammar and vocabulary that they are learning in other classes. When students write, they get an
important type of practice: they have to access and combine their language knowledge in new ways in
order to convey meaning.
Slide 22: Why Writing is Important. Students can also observe, analyze, and assess their language
knowledge by looking at the page where they have written. This can be a stress-free way to practice using
English.
Slide 23: Why Writing is Important. Writing is used for many forms of communication inside and outside
the classroom. Everyone engages in written communication more than ever these days. They text

message, post on social media, blog, comment, and email. Written communication has become a fun thing
to do.
Slide 24: Why Writing is Important. But more than just fun, writing is really important because it’s a way
of expressing identity and agency. By identity we mean expressing who we are. It’s not just what we look
like or what nationality we are or what language we speak. It is actually how we use the language, it’s
what we say, it’s the words that we choose to say it, and all of the ways that we use language that create
who we are. It also is involved in defining what we can do with the language that we know. The language
you can control effects what you can do, who you can talk to. When we write, we choose the words and
create the texts that show who we are! Students need to see how important their language choices are.
The importance of language is easiest for students to see in business, education, and government. They
can usually see that those who can handle the language very effectively tend to do well. Through language,
students have the power to write themselves into the places they want to go.
Slide 25: Why Writing is Important. Some people say that, “Success depends on who you know”.
Slide 26: Why Writing is Important. Other people say, “Success depends on what you know”.
Slide 27: Why Writing is Important. I would say, “Success, who you know, and what you know all depend
on how you express yourself in writing. Writing is the vehicle for connecting yourself to the rest of the
world and it provides you a mechanism for writing yourself into the world.
Slide 28: What Teachers Should Know. I asked Prof. Cotos what teachers need to know about writing.
She talked about three fundamental characteristics of writing: register variation, process orientation, and
interpersonal function. Let’s listen.
Slide 29: What Teachers Should Know. Professor Chapelle: What’s the most important thing for teachers
to understand about teaching writing?
Professor Cotos: First of all, it is important for teachers to understand that writing skills include multiple
types of abilities, including the ability to effectively use the writing strategies and conventions of different
registers. What I mean by registers is the many styles or varieties of language that are determined by
social context, purpose, and audience. In fact, this is what teachers of ESL writing generally find difficult
to teach. It is also very important for teachers to understand the relationship between linguistic forms
and communicative functions. We do things with language in different contexts all the time. We ask
questions, we give directions, we argue, we persuade, and different registers employ different language
choices and levels of formality. Teachers should draw their students’ attention to how specific language
choices can help writers better convey specific shades of meaning.
Teachers need to also understand the stages of writing as a process and not perceive writing as just a
product. Writing is generating and shaping ideas that get polished through multiple drafting and iterative
revisions before they make it into the final product.
One other idea I’d like to mention is that writing happens in the midst of social relationships, which is why
writers often carefully choose appropriate linguistic forms. They do that not only to express ideas but also
to present their identity and to create relationships in certain contexts. Because people write for a wide

range of purposes, teachers need to shape writing instruction in ways that provide students with
opportunities to write for varied purposes, trying to create authentic meaning for particular audiences.
That means that teachers should expose students to authentic texts representative of different registers
and help the students focus on analyzing the audience, analyzing the context, and the purpose of those
texts, even before assigning their students certain writing tasks.
Slide 30: What Teachers Should Know. So the three critical aspects of writing are 1) register variation, 2)
process orientation, and 3) interpersonal function. Register variation refers to the fact that written
language varies according to the social context, purpose, and audience. We saw the example of how the
language choice has to be different depending on whether you’re talking about your research to a friend
or introducing your research to a professional audience of journal readers. Process orientation refers to
the fact that writing requires multiple drafts. We saw how this idea has really been pushed forward and
played out through the introduction of word processing in the writing process. In the US and some other
countries this started in the 1980s. Third, interpersonal function refers to the fact that writing builds
identity and relationships.
Slide 31: What Teachers Should Know: Register Variation is Important. Prof. Cotos emphasized that
register variation is very important for teachers to understand. Written language varies according to the
social context, purpose, and audience. So, communication functions are connected to language form. In
other words, the language forms that a student chooses for a particular paper should be justified. In other
words, choices should be made on the basis of the communication functions that the student is trying to
perform. This has an implication for the way we set up assignments: Students need to have an idea of
who they’re writing to and what the function is for. Teachers should draw students’ attention to the
connection in examples. Prof. Cotos points out that writing should start by looking at examples of other
written work that performs the same function as that that the student is trying to perform.
Slide 32: What Teachers Should Know: Writing is a Process. The second important point that Prof. Cotos
brought up is that writing is a process. The process orientation has had a massive impact on the way we
teach writing because writing requires multiple drafts from students and the process of developing a
particular writing assignment has to consist of multiple phases. For example, many of our writing
assignments are carried out through a process of taking the students through a planning process, a
drafting process, revising, editing and proofreading. This is a much different model of writing than is the
idea of students coming and sitting for half an hour and writing words on a page that are then marked by
the teacher. And it’s interesting from our perspective in this course because this process is really carried
out with a variety of uses of technology and we’re going to show you some examples of those in a few
minutes.
Slide 33: What Teachers Should Know: Writing is Personal and Social. The third important aspect of
writing is that it is personal and social. Writing is not only for expressing ideas. It is also for expressing the
writer’s identity and it is for establishing and maintaining social relationships. So writing carries a lot of
functions simultaneously because it is for expressing ideas but it also has these interpersonal functions as
well. In addition, she points out that achieving these interpersonal uses of English can be very satisfying
to students, but it is also difficult. So a person can create a polite, sophisticated, sarcastic, or pessimistic

identity in English. But in order to do so, the person really needs to control the language in order to create
the proper identity.
Slide 34: Advice for Teachers. Prof. Cotos has already provided some useful concepts about writing. I
asked her specifically for some ideas about how to teach writing. And here’s what she said:
Slide 35: Advice for Teachers. Professor Chapelle: What advice do you have for teachers about teaching
writing?
Professor Cotos: Writing is a difficult skill, even for native speakers of a language. Just think: how often
do people write a longer piece of prose, especially now that texting and chatting on the go encourage
short, abbreviated text? It is a difficult skill to teach because teachers have so many things to focus on:
appropriate vocabulary, grammatical and syntactic accuracy, correct spelling and punctuation, cohesive
development of ideas, and content organization that’s appropriate for the target register. Plus, teachers
should also tap into their students’ imagination to help them develop and fine-tune their ideas through
planning, drafting, and revision. All these abilities are certainly important, but I would advise teachers:
don’t try to do it all at the same time. Break these up. Develop activities through which students could
practice different abilities and then gradually combine them.
The most important piece of advice, though, is to provide students with lots of opportunities for practice.
Generally, ESL teachers spend a lot of time teaching grammar and spelling rules rather than helping
students develop writing fluency. Before students are asked to produce an academic essay, they can begin
to exercise writing about simple topics related to personal interest or social events. They could be
encouraged to write every day. For example, keep a journal or blog. In fact, they need to make writing a
habit.
Another thing is that it’s not uncommon for students to see writing assignments only as a means of
assessment. For some students, grading is some sort of punishment. Instead, writing assignments should
become opportunities to build students’ writing skills. Teachers of writing should contextualize tasks and
make them real forms of communication. They should also give students multiple opportunities to revise
their work for a better grade and provide ample feedback on students’ drafts. Note that the feedback has
to be selective, and it has to highlight patterns of issues that reoccur so that students don’t become
overwhelmed and lose focus, which will affect quality. Engaging students in providing peer feedback is
also essential because it gives students a chance to have a real audience and to understand whether and
why what they’re writing may or may not have the desired effect on readers.
One last piece of advice: support students as they compose with a variety of modalities and technologies
because part of writing is learning how to use writing tools. Most students have access to the Internet
nowadays, and this expands their opportunities for writing practice and authentic communication.
Therefore, teachers should explore and recommend tools that can help students write independently and
collaboratively in the modalities that best fit their needs and purposes. A note of caution, though, here:
technologies should be very carefully selected, not offered to students just because they might be freely
available. Teachers have to know why and how exactly they would implement certain writing tools in their
writing classes. They should capitalize on technological strengths but, at the same time, be aware of the
limitations of whatever writing technologies. If you think of Criterion, for example, this software provides

automatic feedback on language errors. The feedback is not always accurate. Teachers then need to
explain to their students how to make best use of automated feedback instead of making all the
corrections suggested by the computer.
Slide 36: Advice for Teachers. Prof. Cotos' advice is that teachers not try to teach everything about writing
at the same time. There are just too many things: content and organization appropriate for the register,
cohesive development of ideas, spelling and punctuation, grammatical accuracy and vocabulary, to name
a few. Each of these needs to be worked on and focused on individually through the process of writing.
Slide 37: Advice for Teachers. Prof. Cotos also suggested giving students lots of opportunities for practice.
She suggested that students be given assignments to write every day in a journal or a blog. It doesn’t have
to be a lot of writing but it’s the doing it every day aspect that is important. She suggests that teachers
use writing assignments to help students learn, not only for grading. She suggests that teachers design
tasks to simulate real communication that is relevant to the students. In other words, these tasks should
make students’ writing interesting. She also suggests providing feedback regularly and selectively. This is
a particularly interesting question. How much? And how regular? And how selective should the feedback
be? It’s clear that teachers providing feedback on every detail of everything students write is neither
possible nor desirable for the students. But the balance of how much feedback and when feedback should
be given and how feedback should be given is something that is very much a topic of research today.
Finally, she suggested exploring the use of computer-generated feedback as well as peer feedback as is
possible in collaborate writing particularly.
Slide 38: Advice for Teachers. And finally, even though I didn’t asked Prof. Cotos specifically about
technology, her advice was that teachers help students to write through different modalities and using a
variety of technological tools. She suggested expanding opportunities for authentic communication with
an audience, and this is something that can be done through the use of the Internet. She suggested using
technology tools to help students learn and she pointed out that it’s particularly important for teachers
to learn what the tools can and cannot offer.
Slide 39: How can Technology Help? Prof. Cotos' suggestions are good ways to bridge into the question
of how technology can help. And we want to talk about a few different ways that technology can help in
the writing process. First, we want to look at how teachers can create a collection of register-relevant
texts that students can analyze for their assignments. As part of the planning process for writing students
need to see texts that are similar in audience and purpose to the ones they’re going to write. Second,
technology can help by helping teachers teach students to search for examples on the Internet to learn
about registers. Third, teachers should take advantage of the use of word processing tools to make writing
a process. Fourth, students should be taught how to use grammar checking tools and they need to learn
what those tools can and cannot do. And then finally, technology is very useful for creating some
assignments requiring the use of collaborative writing tools that allow students to work together. So let’s
take a look at some examples each of these suggestions.
Slide 40: Collection of a Relevant Register. First, students need to be able to look at examples of texts
from the relevant register when they are planning to write something. And the Internet, again, is an ideal
place for teachers to find texts that they can use to introduce an assignment to allow students to do some

analysis of the texts as they’re planning their writing. Text needs to be at the right level and the right
register in order to provide examples of the type of language that students can use in their own writing.
The Internet is full of examples but for a lot of students the level of the language of many of the texts in
professional journals found on the Internet, found on news sources on the Internet is quite difficult. But
the Internet is full of lots of different types of texts.
Slide 41: Collection of a Relevant Register. Recall our student from the very beginning of the lecture who
was writing his essay on Barak Obama as a person that he admired. Well, the Internet has plenty of texts
about Barak Obama and many are too difficult for a student at that level but the Internet also has simple
texts. Actually, the example here is a text from Barak Obama himself: it’s a tweet. It was one of his first
tweets, I guess probably his first tweet, that he produced after he left the office of president. And the
language has maybe a couple of challenges in it, but overall it’s not all that difficult. He writes: “Hi
everybody! Back to the original handle. Is this thing still on? Michelle and I are off on a quick vacation,
then we’ll get back to work.” So places like Twitter have examples of language that are perhaps usable to
a lot of students at many different levels. That’s just one example, there’s quite a wide variety of language
available on the Internet. And reading activities provide a good opportunity to teach students about
plagiarism as well because in the planning process as we’re teaching students to analyze texts and to get
ideas for their writing, we also need to teach them how not to simply copy the language of others without
using proper quotation and citation. So there are many lessons here to be learned through the use of texts
found on the Internet by teachers and used to build assignments for writing.

Why is Teaching Writing Important and How Can Technology Help?
In this lecture, Prof. Chapelle shows how technology can help both language teachers and
learners with writing. You will learn about many available tools and resources that could assist
you with teaching writing in English.
Warm-up Questions
Before you start watching the videos, please think about how you would address the following
questions.
• Recognizing Register. Writing occurs with a specific audience in mind. The intended
audience dictates the type of writing. Using language one would use to send a friend a short
text message would likely not be appropriate to address a teacher or supervisor.
o How do you ensure that students recognize the importance of recognizing different
registers?
o Do you give them different examples to read?
o Do you engage your students in activities where they have to write to different
audiences?
• Locating "model" or register-appropriate texts. Many have abundant access to a multitude
of documents written for different audiences on the Internet.
o How do you go about finding such register-appropriate texts?
o How do you make sure that your learners don't just copy model texts?
• Writing as a Process. Word processing has contributed to viewing writing as a process that
involves several steps. While in the past, a written document, often in the form of a letter,
was viewed as the final product, word processing applications enable writers to make
changes during the stages of writing.
o How do you engage your students in recognizing the importance of approaching writing
as a process?
o How do you structure your assignments so that the different processes can be
employed?
• Collaborative Writing. This fairly recent development of writing a document in real time
with another collaborator was previously not possible. While co-authors may have sent an
electronic document back and forth via email, modern tools such as GoogleDocs allow for
the simultaneous crafting of a document, all the way from planning to drafting and
editing.
o Do you use collaborative writing assignments?
o What technology tools do you use in your classroom to help with collaborative
writing?

• Grammar Checkers. Grammar checkers are built into most word processing applications.
Some are more accurate than others and thus find often different "mistakes."
o Do you demonstrate grammar and spell checking tools in your classroom? If so, do you
point out the advantages and limitations of these tools?
o Are there grammar checkers you trust more than others? If so, which ones and why?
Transcript

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Slide 44: Make Writing a Process. Technology plays an important role in making writing a process because
writing assignments consist of multiple steps, each of which uses technology in a different way. The
processes that we see in process writing curricula typically include planning, drafting, revising, editing and
proofreading. Word processing is central to all those processes, but several different technologies are
needed. Let’s hear how Lea Johannsen uses technology in developing the writing process for an
assignment in the writing classes that she teaches.
Slide 45: What is the Context. Hello everyone. My name is Lea Johannsen,
and I’m going to walk you through how I help my students develop their
writing process using technology. But before I get into details, it’s important
to give some context. Thinking about your own personal context is also
important before you do any planning on how to use technology. You need
to think about your students and the assignment they will be working on
before you choose how to use technology to help them learn. In this
example, I’ll be talking about a class I taught last semester: English 101B.
Lea Johannsen This class is taught to undergraduate and graduate students at Iowa State
University. The class focuses on writing single paragraphs in academic
"Lea Johannsen" by Iowa
State University is licensed English, and is the beginner level of academic writing classes here at the
under CC BY 4.0 university. One of the first assignments students write is the Descriptive
paragraph. In this assignment students should pick a place on campus and
write one paragraph describing it. The assignment asks student to focus on describing 2 or 3 specific
aspects of the place they picked. It is also focused on using “sensory language” which describes things
students can see, smell, hear, touch, etc.

Slide 46: Step 1: Planning. Step 1 for
students in the writing process is
planning. This is where they need to
start thinking of ideas for their paper
and planning ways to write. Online
resources can be a big help, but I know
that I can’t just make my students look
for resources on their own. Instead, I
went out and found some resources for
them, which I then shared through our
course management site and through
in-class activities. One example of a
helpful resource is the text on the left. Descriptive paragraph about a building on campus
This is a descriptive piece from the Iowa
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Iowa State University, used under CC
State website about an important BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-
building on campus. Reading a Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
descriptive paragraph like this will help
students get ideas about the genre they are writing in. I had my students look at this piece online and
find places where the text used “sensory language” to describe the building. That way they had an
authentic example of what the assignment wanted them to use. Another resource I gave my students
was a page from the website Purdue OWL. This website is a very credible source for writing help, and
this particular page on the right lists lots of ideas and strategies for students to use when they are
brainstorming.
Slide 47: Step 2: Drafting. Step 2 for students is the drafting stage. This is where they need to actually
write the content that will go into their essay. Depending on their writing style, students may or may
not have outlined or planned their essay before this step. For myself and for many students, simply
getting words onto the page is the hardest step in the writing process. Therefore, I like to keep this step
as simple as possible. I encourage students to write their drafts using a Word processing program (like
Microsoft Word or Pages), and to focus
on getting all of their ideas written down.
Another technology I sometimes
recommend to students for this step is
Google Docs. Google Docs lets students
access their essay from any device, so
they don’t need to worry about staying in
one place to write. It also tracks how
long they are active in writing, and this
can be helpful for making sure
they are putting in enough time Word processing software
and effort for each assignment. "Draft of assignment on Microsoft Word" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Slide 48: Step 3: Revising. When they are revising, students need to be focused on the content of their
essay. They need to make sure that they are actually fulfilling the goals of the assignment. In my case, I
want to make sure that they have picked one
place on campus and are focusing on 2 to 3
aspects of that place. To help students check the
content of their essay and revise, I provide them
with an assignment sheet and a detailed rubric. I
share these documents with students using a
course management system (in my case, Moodle).
Once a document has been posted on the Moodle,
then students can download and access
these documents whenever they would like. Files in Moodle
This allows them to go over the content of This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by ISUComm Moodle Courses, used
their essay and make sure that it fits what under CC BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use
in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
the assignment sheet is asking them to do.
Slide 49: Step 4: Editing. Once the essay has been revised, I have students focus on editing. Editing is
when students should focus on major grammar and spelling errors. There are a lot of tools to help
students do this. My favorites are Grammarly and Spellcheck. Grammarly is a system that monitors
student writing and offers feedback on errors they make in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I really
like it because it doesn’t just fix the mistake, it also gives an explanation so that the student can learn
why what they typed is wrong. There is a free version of Grammarly that students can download, or
they can also purchase a more in-depth version of the software. Spellcheck is a similar tool that’s built
into most Word Processing tools. It underlines mistakes in spelling and grammar, and suggests
corrections. I always tell my students to look at the Spellcheck feedback, but to still look for errors
themselves, since the program sometimes misses errors.
Using Grammarly for Editing
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Grammarly, used under CC BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the
AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

Slide 50: Step 5: Proofreading. The final step in the writing process is proofreading. Proofreading
assumes that students have already found all of the major errors in an assignment, and that they are
now focusing on little things like punctuation and formatting. At this step, I encourage students to use
the Purdue OWL website again, this time focusing on their pages on MLA formatting. This style of
formatting might be new to
students, and Purdue OWL
has detailed instructions
and lots of examples for
them to look at.
Proofreading might also be
when students ask
someone else to look at
their draft and give
feedback. I have students
use Google Docs or email to
share their writing with
their peers or with me. Student email
"Student email" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Slide 51: Using Grammar-Checking Tools. Grammar checking tools provide

some new opportunities for students to get help with their writing, particularly
during the editing phases. But grammar checking tools are not perfect. Let’s
listen to some of the things that current grammar checking tools can do as well
as what they can’t.
Slide 52: Grammar Checkers. Grammar checking tools have been around for a
Prof. Volker Hegelheimer number of years, just like spellcheckers. What I would like to do in the next few
"Prof. Volker Hegelheimer" minutes is really to talk about what grammar checkers can do. We will look at
by Iowa State University is built-in grammar checkers in word processing applications. So, I will show you
examples of GoogleDocs, Microsoft Word and also Grammarly. I will also talk
about some advanced grammar checkers, or Automated Writing Evaluation
(AWE) and the feedback that these kinds of tools provide.
Slide 53: Student Text. As Prof. Chapelle indicated, these grammar checkers are often used during the
editing stages of writing. So what I have here on the screen and what you have on your transcript (which
you should download so you can follow along), is a student text that was written by a student with an iBT
TOEFL score of about 80 or maybe 85. He was taking an ESL writing class at a major US university. And this
text represents what that person was able to write. So take a look at it, read it and think about what kind
of feedback you might give as a teacher.

After the first month of university study, I find that there was difficulty for me to fit into the study life in
the US. I have trouble in the understanding of teachers and writing article on some subjects. Actually, I
attended a study abroad school in my home country where teaching way is similar to that in the US.
However, I did not value the time in that school and spent less time on study. When I recall the life in that
school, I regret about I was doing in that time.
However, I made a lot of wrong decision when I studied in that school. I took a large amount of time on
the IELTS study while ignored the subjects in that school we had social science, communication skills,
mathematics and science class in that school. Meanwhile, the teachers taught us some skills about time
management, weekly plan and monthly plan. We also have some homeworks which asked us to write
some essays and reports. All of them were similar to those in the US. Now, I realize that it is an excellent
opportunity to prepare for the study in the US. But I did not spend much time on those subjects. Every
time when we have some important assignments in that school, I often begin at 4 or 5 hours before the
deadline. As a result, the score in the essay and report were very low.
When I begun the study in the US, I start to realize that how important the study in that school for me. I
did not learn any study skills from that school so that I had to learn some study skills from the Internet.
My hardships are not only in the homework but also in time management. I found that I do not know how
to manage my time. Actually, these kinds of skills we have already learnt from that school. So I think if I
can attach importance to the study in that school, I can have much better score in study now.
Slide 54: Google Docs. What I’m

demonstrating here is a series of word
processing applications that are frequently
used. And what I did is the following: I
copied and pasted the text into
GoogleDocs, which is what you see here. I
also copied it into Microsoft Word and then
I copied it into Grammarly just to show you
what kind of feedback these tools provide
in terms of grammar. Now the first one,
GoogleDocs as you can see is fairly simple in
that it doesn’t really provide any grammar
feedback.
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Google, used under CC BY 2.0. This
derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher
Even when you click on spelling it will tell you that sponsored
Program, all the by words
the U.S.are spelledof correctly
Department State. but there is no
feedback on grammar.

Slide 55: Microsoft Word. When I paste the exact same text into Microsoft Word, as you can see here on
the screen, you can see that several highlights are made. Underlined in blue and some in red. As you can
see “homeworks” which is meant to indicate the plural, which should not be in plural it has an “s” on it.
It should just be “homework”. But it also underlines several other items here; “actually” is underlined a
couple of times. In this case, the grammar checker identifies redundancy. Some of these words are not
necessarily needed in writing so
rather than saying “actually, I
attended”, why not just say “I
attended or instead of saying
“Actually, these kinds of skills” we
could just say “these kinds of skills”
or “as a result”. So, there’s some
feedback here. Microsoft also pick
up on the first sentence in the third
paragraph “when I begun the study
in the US” really should be “when I
began the study in the US”. So, it
underlines errors, and does a fairly
good job at underlining at least
"Example analysis table for collected articles" by Iowa State University is licensed
some of these errors. under CC BY 4.0
Slide 56: Grammarly. This third

example is of pasting the exact same
text again into the word processing
interface for Grammarly, a tool that
you looked at earlier and a tool that
you will be looking at again as part of
this lecture in this week. What you
can see here is that Grammarly also
identifies several possible mistakes
when I type this into the application.
Here it actually provides suggestions
for how to remedy the mistakes or
how to fix the mistakes. So, the first
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Grammarly, used under CC BY 2.0. This
example is “I find that there was derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program,
difficulty for me to fit in to.” sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Grammarly indicates that it should be
“a difficulty” or “the difficulty”. It also
identifies enumeration where in the second paragraph it says, “meanwhile the teachers taught us some
skills about time management, weekly plan and monthly plan”. So Grammarly indicates that after that

second “planning” there should be a comma. It does identify that “homeworks” is a mistake; it should be
“homework”. And it also gives you the correct version of the word “begun” which should be “began” at
the beginning of the third paragraph here. Now, something to point out here, this Grammarly version that
I am using is the free one. So it only checks some of the most basic mistakes here. It does indicate that it
found five “advanced issues.” However, in order to see the advanced issues, we have to upgrade to a paid-
for version. For the purpose of this course, I don’t feel this is necessary. So have a look at this. You will be
able to review Grammarly, GoogleDocs or whichever word processing application you’re using as part of
this week.
Slide 57: Teacher Comments. After having looked at three-word processing applications and the kind of
grammar feedback that they provide, I think it becomes obvious that when you look at teacher
comments, and in this case I just provided feedback as I would have done to a student writing this type
of essay. So, I
inserted teacher
comments here
using Microsoft
Word’s
commenting
feature. And as you
can see, I did not
do all three
paragraphs. I
started with the
first two
paragraphs and I
provided quite a bit
of feedback that
would help the
student improve
their writing. Now, "Teacher comments" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
very little of what I

as a teacher am focusing on in terms of grammar but also in terms of organization was really caught by
word processing applications or the grammar checkers embedded in word processing applications. So,
we are looking at a very different kettle of fish here. This is quite different. I think it is important to
realize that no matter how many of these mistakes grammar checkers are able to identify, there is
always need for a teacher to go in and indicate that there are mistakes here. If you just look at this first
example where the student writes: “after the first month of university study I find that there was
difficulty for me to fit to the study life in the US”. While we understand what the person wants to say, I
would suggest this correction: I would say, “It was difficult for me to adjust to life as a student in the
US”. So those are the kinds of feedback that automated systems cannot provide at this point in time.

Have a look at my feedback and then you will see that the feedback that teachers provide is invaluable.
It can be augmented by grammar feedback of course, but teachers have an important role to play.
Slide 58: Automated Writing Evaluation. I feel it’s important to also mention that there have been some
developments recently - actually developments have been going on for a long time - but more recently
with much more success in the area of Automated Writing Evaluation. That is really a different set of tools
other than just grammar checkers or spell checkers. In addition to obviously catching problems that have
to do with mechanics such as spelling errors or with some grammar items such as subject-verb agreement,
missing articles, run-on sentences and so on, these tools provide a richer set of feedback to writers. They
go beyond mechanics and grammar and also look at organization or provide feedback on organization, for
example on the absence of presence of a thesis statement or whether or not a topic sentence is used. So,
they provide a lot of help for beginning writers and also for advanced writers. So as part of this week’s
activities you’ll be able to take a look at some of these tools. Now, you can read about these tools, it’s
more difficult to try them out because they are all not for free. However, you will be able to look at them
and find out more about them. And if you have the resources or if it is possible to get a trial version, you
can certainly do that.
Slide 59: AWE Recommendations. I would like to summarize suggestions for using AWE tools in the
classroom. These stem from a recent journal article my colleagues and I published. The reference is
available in the transcript. The highlights I want to mention here are the following:
First, using tools such as AWE tools or other tools that provide consistent feedback may impact student’s
writing practices. Students often write their assignment the night before and then submit it and they will
often not take a second look at it. When on-going and immediate feedback is available, it may be possible
to encourage students to go beyond this once-and-done approach to writing and engage in active
planning, drafting, revising, and editing processes. This could transform their approach to writing.
Second, AWE tools have an impact on linguistic accuracy. We also have found that using AWE correcting
feedback system may really improve linguistic accuracy. That means that students who use such tools
become better writers. Third, teachers continue to play a significant role. Another point that is true of all
tools that I have experimented with in the classroom is that the instructors’ use and perception of the
utility of these tools is key in getting students engaged in trying these tools out and seeing the value (and
the shortcomings) of these tools.
Reference: Li, J., Link, S, & Hegelheimer, V. (2015). Rethinking the Role of Automated Writing Evaluation in ESL
Writing Instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing. 27, 1-18
Slide 60: AWE Tools. Last but not least, I would like to at mention at least some of the more popular
Automated Writing Evaluation tools that are available on a commercial basis. The transcript contains links
to these tools as well.
• Turnitin is a product that is used quite a bit at US universities – especially in first year writing
programs. One component within the Turnitin application that is particularly relevant for writers
is called Revision Assistant. Turnitin also provides so called “plagiarism checking services” – This
is a service that checks to see if the paper students submitted was written by the student and not

merely copied from another source. With so many paper being available on the Internet, it is
becoming increasingly more difficult to verify that students submit their own work and that they
give appropriate credit to the sources they use as they complete papers.
• Another AWE tool that I have used and that we used here at Iowa State for a number of years is
called Criterion which is produced by the Educational Testing Service or ETS. We used that for
several years and we were quite happy with it.
• The last one is called MyWritingLab, a product by Pearson.
I will have links for you in the course so you can take a look at them and you read more about them. Please
keep in mind that there are other products as well, but I cannot list all of them in this short segment.
• Turnitin: http://turnitin.com/
• Revision Assistant: http://turnitin.com/en_us/what-we-offer/revision-assistant
• ETS Criterion: https://criterion.ets.org/ and https://www.ets.org/criterion
• Pearson MyWritingLab
• http://www.pearsonmylabandmastering.com/northamerica/mywritinglab/educators/index.htm
l
Slide 61: Using Collaborative Writing Tools. Many teachers today are using GoogleDocs for collaborative
writing activities. Sock Wun Phng will describe how teachers can use Googledocs to create a space where
students like to collaborate.
Slide 62: Using GoogleDocs for Collaborative Writing.

https://youtu.be/Nw4EAwRUz2c Hi! This is Sock Wun. In this segment,
Huong and I will be simulating a collaborative writing project on Google Docs.
In this simulation, we are students who have been tasked with a partner
writing assignment, and we are using Google Docs to work on the assignment
together.
First, we need to create a new document. I will click on New and Google Docs.
Sock Wun
"Sock Wun" by Iowa State

University is licensed
under CC BY 4.0

Creating a new Google Doc
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Google, used under CC BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-
Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
I will rename the Document so that we can easily find it later.
Renaming the Google Doc

Now, I want to share the doc with Huong so that we can work on it together. I will click Share and type in
Huong’s email. I want to make sure that the share setting is set at Can Edit. Then, I’ll include a message
and click Send.
Sharing the Google Doc
Once Huong accepts the invitation and joins the Doc, an icon will pop up here. Next to that, the Chat
function becomes available. Whenever there’s more than one person in a Doc at the same time, the Chat
function is available.
The Chat function on GoogleDocs

In the chat, we are planning the paper. I asked her what we should include in the paper so that I can start
working on the outline. All of this happens in real time, so I can see when Huong is typing her reply. Once
she replied with the components that we should include in our paper, I started typing out the outline.
Outlining on GoogleDocs
Once I finished the outline, I asked Huong for her input. She thinks it looks good, but she also thinks that
it should be more detailed and fleshed out. I agree, so I went back into the outline to add in more details.
Here, we’re just working on building up the outline together. As you can see, all of the edits being made
occur in real time too, so here, I’m just reading what Huong is adding to the outline. When I think of
something, I can also edit the Doc at the same time, even while Huong is typing.

Collaborative outlining on GoogleDocs
After we have a better handle on the outline, I started drafting our introduction.
Drafting on GoogleDocs

Now, let’s talk about the Comment function. I finished the draft of the introduction, so I’m leaving a
comment to get Huong’s input on the draft. How I do that is I highlight the portion of the Doc I want the
comment to attach to, then I click on this button that pops up on the right.
The Comment function on GoogleDocs
Likewise, Huong can leave comments on places she wants me to take a look at. I can reply to her
comments like so. It looks like she’s asking me for more information on this bullet point because it sounds
too general to her, so I’m replying to her comment to explain my rationale.

The Comment function on GoogleDocs
It looks like Huong has taken a look at my comment and responded. She provided an idea for us to
incorporate my suggestion. Now that the issue has been resolved, I can click on Resolve over here. That
removes the comment so that everyone in the Doc knows that the issue has been addressed.
Resolving comments on GoogleDocs

GoogleDocs also has this Explore function that suggests related content for the Doc. It pulls images and
web pages from the Internet that are related to our topic.
The Explore function on GoogleDocs
I decided to search for something specific to see if I can find some resources for us to incorporate into our
paper. I found a link to a Lynda tutorial on how to use COCA, which is the tool that we are evaluating for
this paper. I want to share this with Huong, so I clicked on the link to go to the web page, copied the link
from the URL bar, and sent it to Huong via the Chat function.
With all of that being said, GoogleDocs is a great tool for collaborative writing. The Chat, Comment, and
Explore functions especially are useful for all stages of the writing process from planning to drafting,
revising, editing, and finally, proofreading.
Slide 63: Technology for Teaching Writing. This is the end of the lecture on using technology to support
the teaching of writing. We thank Prof. Chapelle and her colleagues for their presentation. We also hope
that you will find the lecture and the associated activities useful as you explore the use of technology on
your own.

Learn More About Useful Word Processing Features
[The video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS_t00UnDOE&feature=youtu.be ]
We would like to share with you a few lesser known capabilities of word processing applications that are
great tools for teachers. Reading papers and providing feedback to students are a large component of
any writing intensive class. More often than not, students now submit their papers electronically. While
some teachers prefer printing out the papers and grading them by hand, others use tools that are part
of many word processing applications. We would like to show you four such options you may find
useful: Tracking changes, inserting comments, comparing documents, and reviewing a revision history.
Directions: Copy the sample student essay (see below) and experiment with these four options in your
word processing application and/or in GoogleDocs. This is an ungraded assignment primarily intended
to expose you to useful technology options for teaching writing.
• Tracking Changes. With Microsoft Word, it is possible to review a paper so that any comments
or corrections are easy for students to see. When “Track Changes” is activated, teachers can
make changes to the text while keeping the original text visible.
• Inserting Comments. Teachers can also insert comments to provide feedback learners can
address as they revise papers. This option is a less intrusive than going in and making changes to
a student's work. The comments can be more about higher level writing issues such as
organization.
• Comparing Documents. A third useful feature is to compare two documents. This is particularly
useful when students are allowed to submit a second, revised draft of the same paper. Often, it
is difficult to assess how much work students put into the revision process. A simple way to
gauge the number of changes students have made is to compare two versions of the same file.
Microsoft Word will highlight the difference from the first to the second draft.
• Reviewing Revision History. With GoogleDocs, another way to assess the revision process of a
paper is to view a paper’s “Revision History”. It allows instructors (and students) to see what
changes were made over time.

Here is a brief video tutorial illustrating all four options. You can use the transcript of the video tutorial
for taking notes if needed.
Sample Student Text for Practice:
After the first month of university study, I find that there was difficulty for me to fit into the study life in
the US. I have trouble in the understanding of teachers and writing article on some subjects. Actually, I
attended a study abroad school in my home country where teaching way is similar to that in the US.
However, I did not value the time in that school and spent less time on study. When I recall the life in
that school, I regret about I was doing in that time.
However, I made a lot of wrong decision when I studied in that school. I took a large amount of time on
the IELTS study while ignored the subjects in that school we had social science, communication skills,
mathematics and science class in that school. Meanwhile, the teachers taught us some skills about time
management, weekly plan and monthly plan. We also have some homeworks which asked us to write
some essays and reports. All of them were similar to those in the US. Now, I realize that it is an excellent
opportunity to prepare for the study in the US. But I did not spend much time on those subjects. Every
time when we have some important assignments in that school, I often begin at 4 or 5 hours before the
deadline. As a result, the score in the essay and report were very low.
When I begun the study in the US, I start to realize that how important the study in that school for me. I
did not learn any study skills from that school so that I had to learn some study skills from the Internet.
My hardships are not only in the homework but also in time management. I found that I do not know
how to manage my time. Actually, these kinds of skills we have already learnt from that school. So I
think if I can attach importance to the study in that school, I can have much better score in study now.
Tutorial Transcript:
Teacher’s Corner: What I would like to do over the next several minutes is to show you some of the
options that are available within Microsoft Word or other word processing applications.
I’m going to show you how to turn on “Track Changes”, how to Insert
Comments, how to Compare Documents and then how to review the revision
history within GoogleDocs.
Let’s start out by going to Microsoft Word and what you see here. […] This is
the same text that you have available to you. What we can do here is simply
clicking on (the) “review” (tab) and we can turn “track changes” on.
Prof. Volker Hegelheimer
Everything that I do in the document you can see here. We can start by
"Prof. Volker Hegelheimer" changing “begun” to “began” for example. It will show you changes that
by Iowa State University is

you’re making in the text. I can change “homworks” to “homework”. I can say here instead of “I find that
there was difficulty” that a (better choice would be) “I find that it was difficult for me”. We can do that
and then we can delete this. (All changes) will all show up on the side so students know exactly what you
did to the document. That is the “Track Changes” feature.
Track Changes Feature
"Track changes feature on Microsoft Word" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Now at the same time, you can also insert comments and this would done by simply clicking on this “New
Comment” button. But first, for example if I want to go to this first word here and click on new comment.
And I could say, “please include a title”. So these comments can be used to address more higher level
issues that language learners have.
The next aspect that I would like to show is to compare documents. Let me set this up a little bit for you.
So we have two texts here: One is the original text that the student submitted. The other is the revised
version of the text that the student submitted. Now often times I find that students will tell you that they
have made a lot of changes from the first draft to the second draft and that is sometimes not the case.
With Microsoft Words, you can actually compare the first draft with the second draft.

Compare Documents Feature
"Compare documents feature on Microsoft Word" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Revision History
"Revision history on GoogleDocs" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
The way to do this is by clicking on “tools” and it says “track changes”, then you click on Tools : Track
Changes : Compare Documents and then you identify the two relevant documents. So I have “student text
1” and then the revised document “student text version 2”. So here we have those two documents, the
ones that we’re going to revise. If I click “ok”, Microsoft Word will produce for you basically a document
that shows the differences. It tells you what the students did between the first and second draft. And in
this case, as you can see, the student deleted a few words here, added some words here. So there was
really not much in terms of changes that the student implemented between the first and the second
version.
The fourth aspect that I would like to show you and something that I encourage you to experiment with
is not within Microsoft Word but within GoogleDocs. Within GoogleDocs what I have done here is I have
also inserted the exact same text that you have access to. I also added a comment, which is a very similar
procedure as in MS Word: Comments go here”, you click on “comment” and the students can actually see
that and they can make adjustments based on your comments. Something else that is not available on
Microsoft Word but is available in GoogleDocs is by clicking on “File” and then looking at what’s called the
“revision history”. Now, the initial look of this may not look very impressive because everything is in green
and if I look at the different versions, one is from 10:24 there was nothing there because I copied it and
pasted the text in from MS Word. It is possible to look at a more detailed revision list. This will actually
tell you what happened at different times what was done. So, you can go through here and see when I

changed “begun” to “began”. I made some changes near the top of the document, so it shows what was
there before and then it shows the changes that were made. And it also shows who made the changes.
So, if you have a writing collaborative assignment that includes multiple authors you can actually tell who
made the changes to the document. I find this particularly useful for writing instruction. I use this quite a
bit in my classes. During this brief tutorial, we talked about tracking changes, inserting comments,
comparing documents, and I showed you how to use the revision history.
What I would like you to do is to try this on your own and to see how you might be able to use it in your
classroom.

Discussion: Share How You Use Technology for Teaching Writing
"Teacher teaching using smartboard" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
This discussion forum is intended to help you understand the content of the lectures better and
transfer that knowledge into your daily teaching practice. Please try to connect the uses of the
available tools for teaching writing introduced in this unit.
Directions:
In the lectures, Prof. Chapelle and Prof. Cotos provide key aspects in teaching writing. In
addition, Prof. Chapelle, Prof. Hegelheimer, and other presenters of this unit showed different
uses of available tools in teaching and learning writing. Based on your understanding of the
lecture, please answer one of the two questions below in a 100-word post.
1. Which uses of technology covered in the lecture would you like to implement in your
teaching practice? Why?
2. What are some issues that you might encounter when implementing those uses in your
teaching?

Summary
Finishing Up Week 2
Week 2 was all about the connections between reading and technology and writing and
technology. You learned about the importance of reading and writing, and saw many free
resources and technology tools to help you in your teaching of reading and writing. Hopefully
you were also able to explore some of these resources and technology tools. Make sure that
you download the Week 2 module packet so that you can return to our materials in the future.
Looking Ahead
Next week, we will focus on using technology to assist with listening and speaking. It will be an
exciting week where we look at numerous technology options available for listening and
speaking, from short lectures to news, to music. As you are getting ready for Week 3, reflect on
how you and your students approach listening and speaking:
• How do you go about finding appropriate listening and speaking materials for your
students?
• How do you approach using a listening text in class? For example, do you have your
students listen to it several times? Or, do you start out with scaffolding such as pre-teaching
vocabulary or presenting the context before your students listen?
• Do you use popular music as a source for listening?
• How do you get your students to speak in class?
• Do you also teach pronunciation when teaching speaking?


Unit 2 Packet: Technology For Teaching Reading and Writing

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Unit 2 Packet: Technology For Teaching Reading and Writing

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Unit 2 Packet:

Technology for Teaching

Reading and Technology ............................................................................................................... 5

Introduction to Reading and Technology ...................................................................................... 6

Text Readability Tools ................................................................................................................. 20

Discussion: Reflecting on How to Find Reading Texts ................................................................ 27

Connecting Reading and Writing Using Fanfiction ............................................................... 28

Writing and Technology .............................................................................................................. 34

What is the Technology-Writing Connection? ........................................................................... 35

Learn More About Useful Word Processing Features ................................................................ 63

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

"Student writing an essay" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0

• Watch the lecture: Introduction to Reading and Technology. (40 minutes)

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• Watch the lecture: What is the Technology-Writing Connection? (30 minutes)

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• Met our reading expert, Professor Tammy Slater

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[The video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlE2-

Slide 1. Technology for Teaching Reading. In this module, we explore how

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Voice of America website’s article on President Obama’s trip to Europe

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American English website and link to resources

Slide 8. Clicking on Resources, I’d find a lot of choices of things to read.

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Slide 10. Here’s an example of what one of the

Slide 11. Under Resources, I also found the text

Slide 12. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

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This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Slide 16. Meet Our Reading Expert.

Prof. Chapelle: How did you get interested in reading?

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Slide 17. Meet Our Reading Expert. Professor Slater shared a

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Prof. Chapelle: Why do you think it’s important to teach reading to

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In the initial stages, students can be offered simplified text. We

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Side 28. What Teachers Should know. Professor Slater also

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This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Slide 39. Advice for Teachers.

Prof. Slater: Literacy development is a critical part of learning a language

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Slide 40. Advice for Teachers. Professor Slater’s

Slide 42. Advice for Teachers. Professor Slater

Slide 43. Advice for Teachers. As students engage

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Exploring Free Reading Resources Online

• Voice of America (VOA) News

• Automatic Readability Checker

[The video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYCMW0qu2jc&feature=youtu.be ]

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Huckleberry Finn download page

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Download PDF button

This should take it

PDF Document So let’s take the text

Copied text in word processing application

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This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered