Word Clouds in the LANGUAGE ARTS Clasrrom

Ways to Use Word Clouds in the Classroom - by Michael Gorman 

http://www.wordle.net/

http://www.tagxedo.com/

http://wordsift.com/

Language Arts

1. When classify parts of speech… make a word cloud for each classification. Remember you can make the classification heading bigger.
2. Make a word cloud to illustrate a student writing. Remember to not put personal information that can identify students into word cloud generator.
3. Have a students analyze their frequency of word usage in a writing
4. Compare and contrast persuasive writing using word clouds. This could include student writings or those found in editorials and papers.
5. Create descriptive word clouds to cover descriptions of themes found in a reading or novel. This could include characterization, setting, voice, and plot.
6. Create a word cloud and have students create a story from what they see in the cloud. They can then make a word cloud of their own story.
7. Have students write different poetry such as haiku, free verse, ballads, etc. Have them then create a word cloud for that poem. This could be neat to incorporate shapes using Tagul or Tagxedo.
8. Have students write a book review and put it into a word cloud. Find write ups of books and create word clouds to promote a book.
9. Copy and paste various author and writers styles to see what can be learned. Identify parts of speech to see amount of adverbs, adjectives, etc. How do author and writer styles differ?
10. Have students predict what might happen in a portion of text that is coming next. This can also be used to have students pick out possible important words and meaning of something they just read.
11. Put words in a word cloud that will be part of spelling tests and vocabulary investigations.
12. Have students analyze a selection from various online encyclopedias on a given subject.