I dedicated this summer to "Crossing the Threshold", a term used when students make the transition from confusion or apathy to that light bulb moment. I sought my own light bulb moments...ways to take writing instruction a step further. I'm employing more digital writing tools in order to kill two birds with one stone (actually I would never kill a live bird) as I attempt to become more organized and efficient with close-to-immediate feedback to my students.
- Google Classroom It's an excellent way to house assignments, and due to recent upgrades, now you can also see all of a student's assignments instead of having to go to each assignment. You can embed Google Docs in Goole Classroom. You can also use Goobric & Doctopus so when I'm grading it imports my rubric and then gives me a google sheet with the scores for the students. There are great YouTube videos for how to use them! Doctopus is an add on to Google Sheets. It "ingests" assignments from Google Classroom into a Google Sheet (like a excel spreadsheet) and then allows you to add a rubric to each student's assignment, is super easy to grade, and keeps track of each student's score. In the past, I would make a new Google doc rubric for each student and add the link to the doc in Classroom. Goobric is MUCH faster. Some who used to use Doctopus and Goobric, have switched to Autocrat Sheets extension that works with Forms and Sheets. Some prefer it. Also, Orange Slice is great for creating rubrics in docs and sending back to students. Alternatively, I've also used Google Keep when I find myself leaving the same comments over and over again on different essays. It's a way to streamline your comments so that you just check a box rather than having to rewrite or copy and paste. Saves lots of time. I think that it's technically a separate app. Look up Google Keep to set up the account. However, after you set up the account, look under Tools in your Google Docs and it's listed as Keep notepad. It should have all of the comments that you created under the App. You just click on the comments that you want to apply to that particular paper. I'm not certain if it will highlight the specific area that you want revised but it is able to tell them what problems you've identified. I know that I've found more details and directions looking at Youtube videos about Google Keep. Hope that this helps.
Check out Alice Keeler's "pull the paragraph". It pulls paragraphs from docs without opening them all, puts them in a sheet, allows you to type feedback, and then will put the feedback on each kid's doc. Pull the paragraph 2 will do multiple paragraphs. She also has a 30 second feedback video add on that looks cool.
She's pretty awesome if you haven't heard of her. For comments - Google Keep. This hack saves so much time. The video below walks you through it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgV1ypW6ZL8&fref=gc&app=desktop - Pinwheel Discussions I'm adding this to my list only because I want to remember how much I love using Pinwheel Discussions as a tool (similar to Socratic Seminar but with a little more freedom and movement) for facilitating effective literary discussions. I used to come up with the 'task' for my students--Pinwheel Discussions are even more engaging when I allow the students to create the task. This link demonstrates Pinwheel Discussions in action. I think I'll make my own video this year... https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/high-school-literature-lesson-plan