My daughter cannot organize her writing at all. She becomes frustrated beyond belief when she tries to put her ideas on paper. Can you give me a list of suggested technologies?
Your daughter’s challenges echo those of many struggling writers, and while there are no quick and easy fixes, there are technology resources that can help. Tools known as “graphic organizers” may be particularly useful to your daughter as she works to get her ideas on paper in a coherent manner. These tools help students generate and organize their ideas through building visual relationships among them.
Graphic organizers can be as low tech as an arrangement of sticky notes on a sheet of paper or as high tech as online, interactive tools like bubbl.us(opens in a new window), a free website which allows you to create and share colorful mind maps, and ReadWriteThink’s Essay Map(opens in a new window), a free step-by-step guide to organizing essay content. View this list of graphic organizers(opens in a new window) from our sister site, AdLit, for more free options.
More complex software solutions, like Draft:Builder(opens in a new window), have features that help students arrange their ideas, create an outline, and transition from an outline or concept map into a draft. This customized matrix(opens in a new window) from the www.TechMatrix.org(opens in a new window) shows many software solutions that use graphic organizers to support writing. Compare products’ features, and click on a product’s name in the column header to see a full review of its capabilities and purchasing information.