The Digital Writing Workshop Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is the book that every English teacher in America should be reading. Troy Hicks takes the traditional writer's workshop, introduced by well-known educators, such as, Donald Graves and Nancie Atwell, and reinvents it to include the all important digital element.
On page 5, Hicks discusses the purpose of his book, which relates to the obvious changes in technology; he explains how to create a writing workshop that goes beyond paper and pencil to implement a workshop that emphasizes 21st Century skills. Hicks addresses RSS, blogs, wikis, and podcasts, and he provides a companion website to support the book at the Digital Writing Workshop Ning.
I love that Hicks discusses how to introduce NPR's This I Believe series into the classroom. His ideas, thoughts, and rubrics are more than enough reason to buy this book. If your high school is not implementing this writing assignment at some level in your school, I highly suggest that you visit the website and buy Hick's book to discover why it is a keeper.
The most important element that Hicks brings up is on page 104 when he discusses why we are missing the point when we assign digital projects as assignments. Is the font, the colors, or even the number of slides used, make a project relevant? None of this really assesses whether a student can effectively create a worthy digital product. As an English teacher who understands that digital elements and images are connected to words on a deeper level than just using the required number of pictures in the slides, I know this is true, but assessing and creating a rubric is difficult. The Digital Writing Workshop demonstrates not only how to use new technologies, but also provides teachers with charts of effective digital writing. If you have just purchased this book, turn to page 115 to figure 6.2 to see what I mean.
I have used wikis and nings with my students, but this is the first year I have ventured into letting my students support their own personal blog. Hicks created a Blogger's Matrix that includes assessments for teachers to use with student bloggers in the classroom. I plan to incorporate these assessments into my classroom.
I was excited to find a book called The Digital Writing Workshop. The title alone inspired me, and I knew that this would be a book that would be an invaluable resource in my classroom.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Digital Writing Workshop

We believe new technologies can advance both the teaching and learning of writing. The National Commission on Writing in American Schools and Colleges, The Neglected R : The Need for a Writing Revolution, 2003.Years later and we re still waiting to see how it can really be done.THE WAIT IS OVER. In clean, clear prose that unravels the labyrinth of new terms and applications, Troy guides us towards a writing workshop for this age. His steady, smart advice eases the transition between the elements of writing workshop we know matter to the tools that can take each to a new place, one comfortably familiar, but with a decidedly updated feel. And this man has his priorities straight. He focuses first on the writer, then on the writing, and lastly on the technology. -Penny Kittle Author of Write Beside ThemTroy Hicks holds sight on good writing workshop instruction. Where others have talked about new technologies and how they change writing, Hicks shows you how to use new technologies to enhance the teaching of writing you already do. Chapters are organized around the familiar principles of the writing workshop: student choice, active revision, studying author s craft, publication beyond the classroom, and assessment of both product and process. In each chapter you ll learn how to expand and improve your teaching by smartly incorporating new technologies like wikis, blogs, and other forms of multimedia. Throughout, you ll find reference to resources readily available to you and your class online. He also includes a practical set of lessons for how to use wikis to explore a key concept in digital writing: copyright. New literacies are developing around us at what sometimes seems like the speed of light. It s hard to keep it all in focus. Let Troy Hicks guide you through the complexities of what it all means for your classroom so your students writing can grow right in step with our changing times and technologies.

Click here for more information about The Digital Writing Workshop