Sites that Encourage Writing

Writing is more than an integral part of literacy. It is a means of reinforcing reading concepts because kids get engaged in creating the visuals. It is also a wonderful way to ignite creativity …

Before you go through the list, you may want to read

• Writing Milestones for Children by Dawn Little.
• Seriously Fun Writing with Kids by Melissa Taylor

Creative Writing Sites and Activities

Crayola Literacy Resources – Crayola offers resources that encourage kids to write – there are printable pages like My Diary, and Rhyming Mini Book, plus a slew of lesson plans around book reports, storytelling and the craft of writing.

Dr. Seuss Story Maker – Choose characters, backgrounds, music, and what characters say using Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!

Glogster  – On this site you can use text, images and sound to express yourself by creating your own Glog. Glogster Edu is a special part of Glogster that’s safer for students to use. Here’s theBook Chook’s Review.

Grammar Girl – Mignon Fogarty offers help with her “quick and dirty tips” for solving writing problems like grammar, capitalization, etc. You can listen to podcasts and follow along with a transcript, too.

A Guide to the Types of Essays – Not only do you learn about the types of writing, the site offers how-to’s on creating that type of essay.

Little Bird Tales – This is a website that encourages kids to create their own digital books. Free for 90 day trial.  Here is the Book Chook review

MakeBeliefsComix – On this site, students choose characters, emotions, thought or talk balloons, dialogue and story lines.Prompts for dialogue and story structure guide the student writers along the way. There is also a teacher resources section provides 21 ways to use the comics in class. Read the Book Chook Review for more information.

Myths and Legends – A site for kids where you can find out about existing myths and legends, create your own with pictures, sounds and words, or read some created by other children.

National Geographic Kids – Photo Fill-ins and Cartoons are two places on the National Geographic Kids website that encourage children to fill in captions by typing in a text box. If you’re looking for quick, colorful and humorous activities to encourage writing, these two could be the ones.

National Writing Project 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing – The National Writing Project’s 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing offers successful strategies contributed by experienced writing project teachers. Since NWP does not promote a single approach to teaching writing, readers will benefit from a variety of eclectic, classroom-tested techniques.

Nota Inc.  – Offers two products: Scrapbox (for team note taking) and Gyazo (instantly capture everything). (From the site) We want to build services that take less effort to make something great in order to help people do more productive, creative things.

PhotoPeach – (From Nota site) PhotoPeach is a social slideshow service that allows users to create a custom flash slideshow in four steps. Users can pick photos from their computer or from Facebook, Picasa, and Flickr, then drag and drop to arrange them. Next, they can title the slideshow and choose background music from our default selections or by YouTube search (we place a small youtube player to get the sound). Once they enter the slideshow it will play automatically, and users can leave comments on each photo (it auto-pauses). These comments can be related to a zoom on a part of the photo, and sound-effect smiley faces can also be added. All shows are private by default, but we provide a complex link so anyone it is shared with can view that particular show without registration.

PicLits – PIC-LITS is a great way to encourage your child to try writing some poetry.

Stories from Old Japan – Interactive animation system that allows you to create stories about Old Japan using backgrounds and characters from Pictures of the Floating World.

Storybird – (from the site) Storybirds are short, visual stories that you make with family and friends to share and (soon) print. Collaborative storytelling for family and friends.

StoryJumper –  is another exciting webspace where children can write stories for an authentic audience.

Writing a Comic Script – Create your own comic strip choosing between a character and background options, and then insert your own, unique dialog.

Xtranormal – This site allows you to create your own stories and movies.  Choose your own characters, actions, sounds, and backgrounds to make your script come alive!  (The Book Chook review)

See also Vocabulary Building Tools