Word Clouds

So often as educators we want our students work neat and tidy. But student in general do not think in the organized manner that we adults do. Children love to play with how things look, how words fit together (not sound together) and how creative they can be. Look on any students notebook that has been doodled you will see Word Clouds. Word Clouds are a bunch of words that are linked together in a creative fashion. They are anything but organized. Visually they are a piece of art.

http://wordle.net/ is a tool that students can use to create an electronic worldle. It is a quick little program that may excite students to use new words in their writing or even encouraging a student to write. In Wordle, you can change every aspect of the word art that is created by using different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. One of the things we know is that words have different meanings to students and sometimes it is not how something is written but the intent the words have. With written words we have to add the tone, but with Wordle we can have the students give us the tone of their writing by being creative.

Have some fun with words. Writing is an creative outlet. Let the students that struggle with writing and often organization have some fun with it.