A Look at Some of the
Interactive Student Materials
ASSET Technology Conference
March 17, 2008
Information compiled by Angela DeChiara and Doreen Redlich
Powerful Plug-ins
{A small application that can be added (plugged-in)
to a program to give it more functionality}.
ReadWriteThink.org provides educators and
students with many interactive plug-ins that
provide students with proactive reading and
language instruction.
Student Material plug-ins support literacy
learning and can be used as part of the lessons
given on this Web site or can be integrated by
the teacher to support the curriculum.
Student Interactive Lesson Plug-ins
Include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Alphabet Interactives
•
Biographies/Autobiographies
•
Bookmaking
•
Fairy Tales
•
Genre
•
Illustration
•
Inquiry Based Projects
Letter Writing
Mapping/Graphic
Organizers
Publishing Tools
Story Elements
Timelines
Vocabulary Building
Writing Poetry/Riddles
Alphabet Interactives
ABC Match is a game that has
students practice letterrecognition fluency while
honing their memories.
Students match initial letters
with pictures, playing either
with a timer or without.
The Alphabet Organizer has
numerous applications for
classroom instruction.
Students can use the tool to
print an alphabet chart or
pages for an alphabet book.
Biographies/Autobiographies
The Bio-Cube allows students to develop an outline of a
person whose biography or autobiography they have just
read.
It can also be used before students write their own
autobiography.
Bookmaking
The Flip Book is designed to
allow users to type and
illustrate tabbed flip books up
to ten pages long. Students and
teachers can use the flip book
for taking notes while reading,
making picture books,
collecting facts, or creating
question and answer booklets.
The Stapleless Book allows users
to create an eight-page book
simply by folding and cutting. No
tape or staples are required.
Students and teachers alike can
use the stapleless book for taking
notes, making picture books,
collecting facts, or creating
vocabulary booklets.
Fairy Tales
Fractured Fairy Tales gives students a choice of three fairy
tales to read. They are then guided to choose a variety of
changes, which they use to compose a fractured fairy tale to
print off and illustrate. Useful for teaching point of view,
setting, plot, as well as fairy tale conventions such as they
lived happily ever after, this tool encourages students to use
their imaginations and the writing process at the same time.
Genre
The Multigenre Mapper invites students
to create original multigenre,
multimodal works—one drawing and
three written texts. The tool asks
students to name the genres for each
section, making the tool flexible for
multiple writing activities.
Illustration - Let’s Have Fun!
The Comic Creator invites
students to compose their own
comic strips for a variety of
contexts (prewriting, pre- and
postreading activities, response
to literature, and so on).
Students can choose
backgrounds, characters, and
props, as well as compose
dialogue.
Teaching high school students to
visualize what they are reading
and to create graphic symbols
helps them develop as readers.
The Literary Graffiti interactive
combines the process of drawing
with analytical thinking.
More Illustration
Teaching K-8 students to visualize what they are reading
and to create graphic symbols helps them develop as
readers. Doodle Splash interactive combines the process of
drawing with analytical thinking about a text by pairing an
online drawing space with writing prompts that encourage
students to make connections between their visual designs
and the text.
Letter Writing
The Letter Generator is a useful tool for
students to learn the parts of a business or
friendly letter and then helps them to compose
and print letters containing all the essential
elements needed for both styles of
correspondence.
Mapping/Graphic Organizers
The Animal Inquiry is and
inquiry based graphic
organizer that invites
students to explore four
facets of animals; basic
animal facts, animal babies,
animal interaction with
others, and animal habitats.
The Circle Plot Diagram can
be used as a prewriting
graphic organizer for students
writing original stories with a
circular plot structure (e.g., If
You Take a Mouse to School).
More Mapping/Graphic Organizers
The Compare & Contrast
Map is an interactive
graphic organizer that
enables students to organize
and outline their ideas for
different kinds of
comparison essays.
The Comparison and
Contrast Guide outlines
the characteristics of the
genre and provides direct
instruction on the
methods of organizing,
gathering ideas, and
writing comparison and
contrast essays.
More Mapping/Graphic Organizers
An updated version of the Story
Map, the Drama Map best suits
secondary students in literary study.
Students can map out the key
elements of character, setting,
conflict, and resolution (shown at
left) for a variety purposes and
activities associated with works of
drama.
The Essay Map is an
interactive graphic
organizer that enables
students to organize
and outline their ideas
for an informational,
definitional, or
descriptive essay.
More Mapping/Graphic Oranizers
The ReadWriteThink Webbing Tool
provides a free-form graphic
organizer. This tool provides a
quick way for students to
rearrange connections in
prewriting and post-reading
activities.
The Plot Diagram is an
organizational tool
focusing on a pyramid or
triangular shape, which is
used to map the events in a
story. This mapping of plot
structure allows readers
and writers to visualize the
key features of stories.
Publishing Tools
Students use the Profile
Publisher to draft online social
networking profiles, yearbook
profiles, and newspaper or
magazine profiles for
themselves, other real or
fictional characters.
The interactive Printing Press is
designed to assist students in
creating newspapers,
brochures, flyers, and booklets.
Teachers and students can
choose from several templates
to publish class newspapers,
informational brochures, and
flyers announcing class events.
Pondering Poetry
The Riddle Interactive
outlines the
characteristics of riddle
poems and provides
direct instruction on the
prewriting and drafting
process for writing
original riddle poems.
With Shape Poems,
elementary students can
write poems about shapes
in four different themes:
Nature, School, Sports,
and Celebrations.
Elements of the writing
process are also included.
Timelines
With the Timeline interactive, students can
generate descriptive timelines that can be plotted
with their choice of units of measure (date, time,
event, entry, or other). Entries on the timeline
automatically become links that allow students to
easily navigate from one point on the timeline to
another.
Vocabulary Building
What’s in the
Bag? invites
primary students
to play with
vocabulary
common to their
environment.
Using Word Build &
Bank, students generate
words by adding a
beginning letter or blend
to a word ending. This
engaging tool helps
students with letter-sound
correspondence.
Word Family Sort
helps students
recognize word
patterns by having
them sort a series
of words into
short-vowel word
families.
Read*Write*Think and Thinkfinity.org
Thinkfinity.org
is a free,
comprehensive
digital learning
platform and is
built upon the
merger of two
acclaimed
programs
Verizon
MarcoPolo and
the Thinkfinity
Literacy
Network.