Teaching writing is so much easier using Google. Here are seven of my favorite ways that using Google Docs or Google Slides helps with writing instruction.
Organizing Writing
How many times has a student lost their draft or prewrite in your classroom? I couldn’t begin to count the times.
There are so many strategies for organizing writing papers but the need for those strategies goes away when it becomes digital. Personally, I like to use Google Slides so that the Prewrite, Draft, and Final Copy are all in one neat little package.
But, even if you want to have several documents, they can all go into a folder. The beauty is this folder won’t get left at home or have papers falling out of it.
Paperless
How much time to you spend passing out papers, collecting papers, asking who a nameless paper belongs to? The list goes on.
Besides saving time and trees, it saves clutter.
Quick and Painless Editing
Commenting in Google is quick and painless. Select the section you want to comment on and click comment. This will highlight that section for the student so they know where to look.
Tip: Set up a routine that only you can mark comments you initiated as resolved.
Real Time Writing Assistance
Some students need constant support. When you have a classroom full of students who need that continual support, Google can save you a lot of running around. It also allows you to help those students that don’t want others to know they need help. Open several tabs for the students you want to help in real time.
This is a screenshot of me working with a student who believed he was done with his assignment and wanted to move on to a choice activity. I highlighted part of what he needed to fix and was able to watch him make corrections. He made eye contact with me when his correction was done and I gave him one other quick task to complete. During these 3 minutes, I was also able to comment on another students writing.
I’ve found this real time help can be invaluable for my English Language Learners. I’ll watch them get started and it quickly becomes evident if they understand the task. If they need additional help, I walk over and help them one on one.
Writing Resources at Their Finger Tips
Often while they are writing, I’ll have anchor charts and sentence starters projected onto the screen.
Students don’t always write at the same pace, so another great feature is the ability to include the charts in their assignment so they can access them whenever they want to.
Take the Fear of Making a Mistake out of Writing
As a kid, I remember clearly choosing different words when I didn’t know how to spell something. I’d use a simpler word rather than a new vocabulary word because I didn’t want to have my teacher circle the word in red. Once students know they can right click a word underlined in red to correct the spelling, that fear is gone.
I used to have elaborate systems like writing dictionaries they’d bring to me to have me spell a new word for them. Now, they mange this independently with a simple right click.
Copy / Paste Makes Writing Final Drafts Easier
I had a teacher that made us rewrite our drafts over and over until they were perfect. I hated writing that year. Now, with copy and paste students can turn their drafts into final products quickly and easily.
What is that Resource?
Most of the photos and gifs in this post are from my Compare and Contrast writing resource. This resource focuses on writing simple paragraphs while comparing and contrasting characters, setting, and events. You can use it with any literature you are reading with your students. The settings and events portions could also be used with non fiction.
More Writing Resources for the Google Classroom
These sentence writing resources are a great way to help students refine their writing while practicing typing. Students will practice writing complete sentences by restating the question. This interactive digital resource in Google Slides drag words from the question to create answers. Then students type their own answer stems. Two versions are available for differentiation. Digital graphic organizers take students through the process of writing dialogue. Students learn to use correct capitalization and punctuation with several opportunities to apply the use of quotation marks during creative writing activities. My students loved creating fun conversations. Digital graphic organizers take students through the process of writing meaningful sentence. Students learn to use context clues and synonyms to write complete correct sentences that demonstrate the meaning of a word. 12 editable slides can be used repeatedly for Students write a complete sentence correctly while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides lets students look at full color photographs while responding. After you've introduced the activity, this could become a bell ringer! Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. This resource contains: •a teacher download with tips and instructions. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on ocean creatures like fish, dolphins, otters and sea turtles. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on pets like cats, dogs, birds, turtles, bunnies, and fish. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource were all taken by me of birds, turtles, and more by a pond. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on things found in a garden like ants, snails, bees and butterflies. Students write a complete sentence correctly while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource were all taken by me near or in a lake. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on farm animals like chickens, sheep, and cows. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource were all taken by me of large birds many at a zoo. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on reptiles and amphibians (snakes, lizards, frogs). Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on mammals like bears, giraffes, and zebras. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on big cats like lions, tigers, and snow leopards. Students write a correct complete sentence while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides let's students look at full color photographs while responding. The pictures in this resource focus on monkeys and apes. This resource contains: •a teacher Help your students learn to write paragraphs while practicing tech skills like typing, spell check, and copy/paste. Digital compare and contrast graphic organizers take students through the process of writing a compare and contrast parcagraph. Compare and contrast characters, settings, and events using piece of literature. My students loved filling out the Venn Diagrams and writing their Students write a correct complete informational paragraph while responding to picture prompts. This digital resource in Google Slides guides students through the writing process while they look at full color photographs. This resource contains: *a teacher Digital graphic organizers take students through the process of writing an opinion paragraph. Opinion Writing Prompts and Opinion Writing Graphic Organizers are organized into 5 Google Slide Decks. One deck has a blank for the prompt so you can edit the prompt to be anything you'd like. Bell ringer with a positive quote for students to respond to. This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a quote a day. Students write a paragraph in response to a quote each day. Great Bellringer / How do you help students develop a growth mindset? Give them the opportunity to set goals, track their data growth, and reflect. This paperless customizable technology resource gives your students a digital journal to use year round. The three main sections of this interactive journal are Goal Setting, Data Tracking, and Reflection. Goal Setting With this bell ringer, your students can respond to a quote by famous African Americans for Black History Month. This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a quote each day. Students write a paragraph in response to each quote. Looking for a Chinese New Years Activity? This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a Chinese Proverb or saying. Students write a paragraph in response to each quote. Great Bellringer / With this bell ringer, your students can respond to a quote by Martin Luther King. Perfect for MLK jr Day or Black History Month. This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a Dr. Martin Luther With this bell ringer, your students can respond to a quote by famous women for Women's History Month or any time of year. This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a quote each day. With this bell ringer, your students can respond to a quote by famous Irish people and some Irish proverbs for St. Patrick's Day. This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a quote each day. With this bell ringer, your students can respond to a quote by famous American Presidents for President's Day. This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a quote each day. Students write a paragraph in response to each quote. With this bell ringer, your students can respond to quotes by George Washington. Perfect for Washingtons's Birthday also known as President's Day. This digital resource in Google Slides allows students to choose a prewrite template to fit their response to a George Washington's quote each day.Sentence Writing Resources for the Google Classroom
Paragraph Writing Resources for the Google Classroom
If you are just getting started using Google in your classroom, check out this post. For more posts about writing, check out this, this, and this.
This is incredible! Thanks so much for sharing all of the tips that can be implemented w/ Google Slides! It’s such a great tool to help students become better writers.
Thanks, Lyndsey. As soon as I started using it for writing I wondered why I hadn’t started sooner.
Your post really rings very true for me and what my students experience–fear of making mistakes and fear of misspelling words. I often just couldn’t start because pencil seemed permanent and I always substituted rich vocabulary for words I knew how to spell. I watch my students do the same. This is great support for all writers and particularly for reluctant writers!
Thanks, Kim. Isn’t it nice how technology can help take away some of the fear and obstacles our students face?
This is what I was looking for!!!! I used Google Slides with my students last year for their presentations. However, this is ingenious! Thank you.
I’m so glad you are inspired to try some of these ideas in your classroom.
This is what I have been looking to do with my Inclusion students. Great ideas showing assignments can be scaffolded my to fit the needs of my students!
Thanks! I’m working on a post about intervention in the digital classroom. It should be up in the next week. Check back, it sounds like it will help you, too.
Great post! When kids created in slides do they just keep adding slides as needed? And when you give them a resource do you just add it to their slide in the order of wherever it fits? Thanks so much.
Hi Debbie, Google Slides is very much like PowerPoint, the kids can add as many slides as they need. When I give them a resource, I send it to their google email address. I give each resource separately and they have it in their Google Drive. My district currently doesn’t allow us to use Google Classroom which will distribute assignments for you but it is simple to email it to them.
I’ve always wanted to go paperless. I’m making use of google classroom this year. Do you have your students do all their writing on the computer? I teach 4th grade and although I do have access to chromebooks for the class, I may not have access everyday. Any suggestions?
Hi Kevin,
I don’t have students exclusively write on the computer. I feel like the fine motor work of writing on paper is important too. If you don’t have access everyday, you can set a schedule when it comes to writing. Have students work online on some projects and have students write in a composition notebook for others. Maybe you could use the notebooks for responding to journal prompts and the chrome books for working on more formal types of writing.
These are excellent ideas on how to use Google Slides in the classroom. I used Google Classroom with my fourth graders last year to do majority of their assignments. It was great for the student and the teacher to be able to work so closely together on their work. The comments feature was the best. I used it got math too and could students could get individual help on how to fix problems they missed. The possibilities are endless!
Is there an easy way to have all of each student’s work in an individual folder in Google Drive? I want to have all of the students’ work in a folder with their name on it, but I don’t have time to manually move all of their work myself.
You could have it all under your account, create a folder for each student, and have them work inside of that. It would all be automatically saved. If you want them all to get the same item, copy it to each folder. You would need to monitor closely to make sure that they don’t get into another person’s folder. Before we got Google Classroom this year, I had students work on larger writing assignments this way.
This is amazing! Any chance I could purchase some of your templates? Are you on TPT?
Hi Ashleigh, You can find my resources for the Google Classroom in this section of my TPT store. 🙂