Timely and Relevant Feedback

d

Hollywood uses text-to-speech technology engagingly to create digital animated "films." Hollywood (Theatrix Interactive)

Ongoing feedback is essential for engaging writers at all levels. Direct reactions from readers help students see their work as others do. Feedback helps students monitor their own effectiveness as communicators and evaluate their success in meeting their own goals or the aims of an assignment. Computers offer opportunities for both kinds of feedback in a timely way.

Text-to-speech (TTS), discussed for its value as a self-monitoring support, can also engage students' interest and motivation. Simply hearing the computer "read" back their work gives many students an emotional boost and encourages more editing and revising. Hollywood, a program for creating digital animated "films" uses TTS to excellent advantage during the composing process. Students select characters and scenes, develop plots, write stage directions and dialogue, create a narrative sequence, and add music and sound. While composing, students can switch between edit and performance mode, and watch and hear their "films" being enacted on the screen. In this way they can immediately evaluate the effect of their composition in terms of its dramatic outcome.

Hollywood is a highly engaging, creative tool which draws students into composing and promotes self-evaluation with immediate, powerful feedback.

d

Alexander Balson's illustrated stories have attracted worldwide attention. Koala Troubles. {http://www.scribbles.com.au/max/jump.html} Netscape Communicator browser window © 1999 Netscape Communications Corporation. Used with permission.

The networked world of computers provides access to a very powerful source of feedback: responses from others Leu & Leu, 1997) Taking the publishing stage of process writing to anew level, the posting of compositions on the Web brings an instant potential worldwide audience. Australian six-year-old Alexander Balson, with help from his father, created a Web site, "Alex's Scribbles: Koala Trouble," which has received almost 300,000 visits as of this writing. The site includes stories, drawings, music, e-mail exchanges, and links to Alex's favorite sites.

Designing and posting a multimedia Web site is highly motivating for students with writing difficulties, even with limited outside response. During CAST's summer program, students with moderate to severe writing problems work enthusiastically for long hours creating their own personal Web sites on a variety of topics.