Writing is one of the most important skills students can learn in school. Writing skills are linked to reading skills and to overall academic achievement. Luckily, there are loads of interesting and engaging websites to help make writing instruction fun. To help you get started, here’s a list of the best writing websites for teaching and learning.
Storybird
With 9 million members and 800,000 participating K-12 classrooms, Storybird is the world’s largest language arts program. With Storybird, students can create short, visual stories on their own or with friends. In addition, this writing curriculum is aligned with Common Core standards and offers over 600 lessons, quizzes and writing prompts created by seasoned educators and authors.
Cost: Free trial, subscription
Writing A-Z
With thousands of downloadable and projectable resources for writing instruction, as well as a collection of interactive online writing tools, Writing A-Z helps teachers meet the needs of every student at every learning level. In addition, teachers can track students progress, making individualized instruction a snap.
Cost: Free trial, subscription
Story Jumper
StoryJumper is a free storybook creation site for students in grades 1-8. Students create their own original stories, then add their own artwork or access images from StoryJumper’s library. Kids can write alone, collaborate with classmates or even connect with students around the world. In addition, the site includes teacher guides, writing projects, templates and more.
Cost: Free, Prices vary for printed books
Boomwriter
Boomwriter features an expansive, curated collection of story-starts created by renowned authors such as Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) and Jeff Bruel (Bad Kitty). Students read the first chapter of a story, then write, edit and revise the next chapter themselves online. As a class project, teachers can assign all students the same story starter. Once all the stories are written, students can anonymously read other entries and peer assess, and vote for the best version of the story.
Cost: $12.99 per book
Write About
WriteAbout is an authentic classroom writing community and publishing platform built by teachers for teachers. Access units and lessons, free choice and creative writing tips, journaling lessons, quick writes and more for students K-12.
Cost: Free, Premium and Premium Plus versions
Storium.edu
This innovative, collaborative writing game revolves around digital story cards that represent different aspects of storytelling and character development. Along with visual cues, the cards serve as writing prompts, helping students figure out what to write next at each step of the game. Students take turns playing story cards and adding to the story. Paragraph by paragraph, they collaboratively write their own original story simply by playing the game.
Cost: Free trial, subscription
Elementari
Elementari integrates coding into writing as students create and publish simple interactive and animated digital stories. Using the online platform, students write and code, share, and remix interactive stories using professional illustrations and sounds. Teachers can monitor progress and offer personalized feedback to help students grow as writers.
Cost: Free trial, subscription
Writable
Access 1000+ writing assignments and prompts organized by collection, genre, or grade level with Writable. Scaffold instruction and motivate your students to become purposeful, proficient writers. Also available: Skills activities, graphic organizers, quick writes, response to reading, and much more
Cost: Free trial, subscription
Magnetic Poetry
Just like the fridge magnets we all know and love, this tool offers a selection of words and screen space for students to create their own poetry. They can request more words, start over and even share their poetry electronically. Magnetic Poetry is a perfect choice as a writing station or an option during creative play.
Make Beliefs Comix
Students of all ages love creating their own worlds through comic strips. MakeBeliefs Comix provides story ideas and comic starters as well as a gallery of comics for inspiration. Students choose from a wide cast of characters with different looks and moods and then write the words and thoughts for them. Also featured on this site: videos, writing tools, lesson plans, a special needs section and an ideas exchange.
Cost: Free
Sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, this site offers high quality, standards-aligned education materials for students K-12. Featuring hundreds of lesson plans, calendar resources, printouts, and interactive tools such as story maps, plot diagrams, timelines and more, Read, Write, Think is a must-have tool for writing instruction.
Cost: Free
PicLits
PicLits is an e-learning website that utilizes photography and keywords to improve students’ literacy skills with an emphasis on interactive, visual learning. Inspired by an image, students create a caption, sentence, story, paragraph, poem, or even a quotation to capture the essence, story, and/or meaning of that image.
Cost: Free
iWrite
iWrite offers free online creative writing and illustration activities for kids in grades 1-8. In addition, they help writers take advantage of innovative online writing clubs, camps, workshops, and publishing opportunities. iWrite TV offers videos on topics like brainstorming, genre and theme, setting and description and more.
Cost: Free
Grammarly for Education
Grammarly helps students polish up their communication skills. A great student writing aid, it allows students to check their writing for typos, commonly confusing words, tricky sentence structure and more. And Grammarly has hundreds of informative blogs such as How to Write a Research Paper, How to Write a Poem, Grammar Tips and more.
Cost: Free basic plan, Subscription Education options.
StoryboardThat
StoryboardThat is an easy drag-and-drop creation platform with cross-curricular applications for writers K-12. With over 3,000 lesson plans and activities, teachers can create materials and lessons for their classes which will help students can take ownership of their voice and learning.
Cost: Free trial, subscription
Grammar Girl
One of Writer’s Digest’s 101 best websites, Mignon Fogarty offers “Quick and Dirty Tips” with blogs and videos such as Top Ten Grammar Myths, Can You Start a Sentence with And and more to help students become the best writers possible.
Cost: Free
NaNoWritMo Young Writers Program
NaNoWritMo’s Young Writers Program supports young writers and K-12 educators as they participate in National Novel Writing Month each November, and offers smaller writing challenges year-round. Kids can track their word-count goal for the month and draft their novel right on the site. Plus, they can get support from published authors and an international community of fellow novelists.
Cost: Free
Power Poetry
Power Poetry- the largest online poetry community in the world-is a safe, creative, free place for teen poets and teachers. Chock full of resources, there are lesson plans, classroom activity guides and printable worksheets to help you in the classroom.
Cost: Free
Poetry Foundation Teen Section
The Poetry Foundation offers a variety of articles, videos and podcasts to help teens in all aspects of poetry. You’ll find tips on understanding and writing poems along with featured poems by famous poets. The Poetry Foundation also has a Children Section as well as a Teacher Section.
Cost: Free
Time4Writing
Time4Writing offers free writing resources for students K-12 in seven main categories. Each category includes a selection of fun writing games, instructional videos, printable writing worksheets and other writing tools. This site also offer online courses with writing instruction by certified teachers.
Cost: Free resources, Fees for online courses
What are your favorite writing websites for the classroom? Share in the comments below!
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