Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi,

I am teaching a writing 1 class at a local community college. The students are from the neighborhood and don't have plans to matriculate. They have all taken and passed Grammar 1 and some have even taken Grammar 2. The college ordered "Get Ready to Write" to use in the class (I had no input). The book is really infantile. My students are all hard working middle-aged people and I find the essays to really be geared towards high-schoolers. My students really need to be able to communicate for more job specific purposes. I want to get them to be comfortable with writing e-mail and responding to classifieds on the web. I also want them to be able to write about their talents and to be able to post advertisements on the web. I thought I could use the book (since they spent 30 bucks on it) to guide mini-lessons and for homeowork. On Tuesday, I jumped in with getting them all e-mail accounts (it took two hours and I have 13 students). Most of my students are house cleaners, handy-men, gardeners, babysitters...and could really benefit from having some internet skills.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what type of assignments and what kind of scaffolding I need to to teach my students how to write on the inter-net? I also want to teach them paragraph development. Am I too ambitious for writing 1? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Mary Beth

Find lots and lots of samples of what you want to teach then and get them to try and find the patterns. How do they start out, what grammar patterns do they use at each stage, what vocabulary holds the sample together, how do you divide the information for easier reading, how do they continue, how do they end? If they do enough samples they will begin to see the general patterns. Let them work in groups with a sample and then share ideas with the group. Make the writing as authentic and useful as you can and give them a typed corrected version each time so they see how it could be done (not correcting with red pencil).

If you have got them surfing, try to parallel activities in the book. Using same topics, but more adult content.
They can then report on what they did and what they found out.

TIP
If you introduce them to hotmail, write
www.hotmail.com in big letters on the board.

Do not give an oral instruction. As some students may be suprised when they type in ...hotmale.com

A different type of adult content.
Yep it has been done.

Thanks for your replies.

We aren't quite surfing yet. I am having a hard time getting them all motivated to use the computer. But I am not giving up. One tip for anyone wanting to do this with their class- the teacher should keep a list of addresses and passwords for the class. I can't believe (although I should) how many students completely forgot their passwords and had to re-register.

Trying to bridge the digital divide in Oakland,

Mary Beth