Web site creator: Michelle Bergey, fifth grade teacher, Twentynine Palms Elementary School, Twentynine Palms, California

"Writing is a hard -- and very time-consuming -- subject to teach, so it's often overlooked in a busy classroom. However, writing well provides fantastic benefits to students," California teacher Michelle Bergey told Education World. "A lot of research shows that students who are taught to write have a better vocabulary, develop better reading skills, and do better on standardized tests than students who are not taught to write well."

In an effort to improve her students' writing, Bergey spent the summer of 2000 creating the Ace Writing Web site. Her goal was to have enough curriculum material for the entire year, so her teaching team could focus on quality instruction rather than on planning.

To lead students through the new site -- and through the intricacies of learning how to write -- Bergey created "Professor Pen." In the section "How to Get an A in Writing," for example, this virtual host displays the district's writing rubric and discusses in detail each of the five areas of writing students in Morongo Unified School District are graded on -- content, organization, vocabulary, language mechanics, and editing. In other student sections, Pen shares his favorite online word games and offers links to writing resources and to online publishing opportunities for young writers. The teacher section of the site, although "Pen-less," provides more resources, from lesson plans to assessment tools to printable writing success certificates.

In fact, Ace Writing contains enough activities, links, lessons, tips, tools, and devices to provide a year of interesting and valuable writing lessons -- and, hopefully, a lifetime of academic success.

Article by Linda Starr
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