Comments on: The Great Gatsby Wordles

By: Karen Hand

Karen Hand — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 02:56:35 +0000

I just discovered Wordle through a 23 Things project I’m involved in at school, and had the same idea about running chapters of texts through to create maps of significant words & ideas. (Coincidentally, I also used Gatsby, since it’s the next text we’re covering.) I’m thinking of using it as you suggested, as a way to clue students in to what motifs and characters might be worth tracking.

I’m also thinking I might have students upload their own essays and responses to Wordle to see which words figure prominently in their own writing - hopefully, they could see that the ideas they intended to be important show up that way, but it might also reveal some weak word choice, and give them ideas about where they might be able to come up with more precise or vivid vocabulary.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:38:03 +0000

Mrs. S,
You asked me what I do with wordle back in February. Sorry I am just now getting around to answering.

I like to do the following:
1. put these up in front of the class
2. have students pick two words from them and write about the significance of the words in the context of the chapter AND/or the whole book
3. after the write for a few minutes, I open the floor to discussion.

Alternatives:
*Use it as a quiz.
*Have students write and then make a people (a wordle using people–okay that was dumb) so they can discuss similar ideas.
*Discuss how these words relate to the themes of the novel
*Break them into groups and assign a color (form the wordle) and allow them to pick the most significant words for their color.

I hope this helps.

Ben

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:30:13 +0000

Heather,
I am glad you came my way. I hope you were able to use the Gatsby stuff. RMWP is doing VERY well. We just had a conference (With Kylene Beers and Bob Probst). We expected 30 to register, but by the time the conference came around we had 200. It was great.

If you ever want to write for Teacheng.Us, let me know.

Ben

By: Mr.S

Mr.S — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:21:06 +0000

Thank you for posting this!

I just tried this today and it went quite well. It was especially useful as a way to hook in students who have a difficult time with analysis. By having them choose a word, I at least had a place to build from instead of a blank slate. From that point I was able to craft questions that could lead them to deeper thought.

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:40:51 +0000

Ben–

Just searching for some fresh ideas for Gatsby. I had been looking over these wordles a full five minutes before I realized I was on your site! Hope things are going well at the RMWP. We’re gearing up for DC and ISI–busy times!

Take care,
Heather Adkins

By: Tabatha

Tabatha — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:35:48 +0000

I love Wordle and I’ve been trying to come up with some creative ways to use them in the classroom. What do you actually DO with the Gatsby Wordles?

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:28:53 +0000

That is a great idea! That would also be a great way to look at word usage in one’s paper. Thanks for giving me an idea, Tammy.

By: Tammy Gillmore

Tammy Gillmore — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:10:33 +0000

Thank you for allowing us to use these!

We are writing a paper based on chapters 1-5 right now…going to have the Wordle their paper and place on their cover.

Thanks again!

By: Using Screen Grabs » TeachEng.us

Using Screen Grabs » TeachEng.us — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:32:07 +0000

[…] allow you to take a snapshot of a specified area of your screen. That is how I made the thumbnails for my post about using Wordle with Gatsby. Below are some options for both Mac and Windows users (I have divided them […]

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:55:43 +0000

If you mean the individual pictures coming up on a different screen when you click on them, I just did that as an option through this blog.

However, I made the thumbnails by doing a “screen grab” on my Mac computer. In fact, the original size was done with the screen grab, but I chose to make them appear small when I wrote that post in my blog. I will do a post this week on doing screen grabs on both Mac and Windows computers. Keep an eye out for it.

By: sharon

sharon — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:49:43 +0000

Thank you for the info on wordle, I am wondering how you created the thumbnails and the pop out image of the love song. I havnt been successful in doing similiar fro the site ?