One class that Jenna show cased in her presentation was Mrs. Edwards class of fourth graders. She wanted her students to improve their ability to “read like writers” and “write like writers.” In addition, she wanted new tools to encourage reluctant writers with new means of expression. In one unit when the class was working on writing, the students were struggling in “showing and not telling” amongst the various emotional states of the characters. Jenna and Mrs. Edwards decided to use Bookbuilder as a means of engaging students in writing their own alternative ending/short story. Much to their delight, the “coach” character within the book was used to great success to promote metacognition amongst the students. Through this means, they were able to iterate how they were “showing” the emotions, and sometimes even the settings, verses stating them outright. Mrs. Edwards was incredibly pleased to see the engagement, motivation, and self-evaluation amongst the students, who created great writing using the online book tool.
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