Rich Cairn from Emerging America-Collaborative for Educational Services shared an awesome tool in his workshop, "Accessing Inquiry for Students with Disabilities through Primary Sources".   

It's called WordSift. 

According to the website, WordSift was created to help teachers manage the demands of vocabulary and academic language in their text materials.   I remember using a similar type of word cloud tool with primary sources such as a good speech, inaugural address, letter, or piece of legislation.  The tool would make the most used words in the text larger into a visual "word cloud".  It's great tool to help students consider the word choices made by the author(s) and helps them develop meaning and generate questions with text.   

What I love about WordSift is that it took the original word cloud tool and added features like an extra window that shows where the most used word shows up in the whole text so the students can read the word within each sentence it is used in (while still seeing the word cloud in the window above it)!   There's also another window that allows the student/teacher to "mark words" or give importance to the words on the "Academic Word List" or part of the "Marzano & Pickering: Social Studies words" list.  You can even choose the "Marzano & Pickering: Science" word list!  So cool. 

I was working with an art teacher during the workshop and we were wondering if there was an interview in text format of an artist explaining a piece of art.  Wouldn't it be neat to see if the students could take the most used words from the interview and apply it to the art that's being discussed?  I love how this tool has evolved and the possibilities of using this tool with primary sources!  I wonder what will be the next iteration of this tool?

Pre K - 2 3 - 5 6 - 8 9 - 12 13+ Art/Music English/Language Arts Science Social Studies/History Technology Special Education   bestof