Amazing Writing Machine: Desktop publishing software program that enables students from first through fifth grade to narrate stories to peers and adults by integrating graphics into their text.

Audience-driven writing: Student writing focused on accommodating the final product to a specific audience, beyond the classroom.

Benchmarks: Identification of the knowledge, level of comprehension, and skills that students should possess at developmentally appropriate levels.

Brainstorming: Stimulating bright ideas by a creative, non-judgmental, group interaction.

Co: Writer: A software program that, as students type, predicts the intended word by offering a list of possible correct choices. Students select and then insert their choice from the list into the text being written.

Collaborative teaching: Methodological perspective from which teaching is seen as facilitating, modeling, and coaching learning through dialogue and collaboration with students.

Cut and Paste Functions: A word processing function which allows the writer to highlight, select, and copy text, and either place it in another area of the document, or remove it entirely from the work.

Desktop publishing (DTP): Software type which enables users to produce text formatted for publication directly from a desktop computer.

Distancing Effect: A condition which is caused by a feeling of alienation in students when they see their work on a computer screen. As a consequence, students become less effective in making revisions.

Drafting: An early stage of the writing process characterized by composing thoughts into a cohesive text.

E-mail: Communication form based on the exchange of computer stored messages via telecommunication over the Internet.

Editing: A later stage of the writing process in which students examine their papers for grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Expanded audience: Growth in the scope and nature of audiences for student writing that is facilitated by technology and that adds school peers and students around the globe to the traditional audience of teachers, peers, and family.

Grammar Slammer: A grammar checking program that uses grammar-based activities to teach writing skills through sentence and grammar checks.

Graphic organizers: Visual representations, such as webs, diagrams, and content maps, which can be used in prewriting to help students organize their ideas on a specific topic.

Hyperlinks: Connections which allow users to jump from one location to another within or between documents.

Hyperstudio: Software program, commonly used in schools, which allows students to create multimedia documents. Student documents can include text, graphics, sound, and motion video.

Inspiration: A software program designed to create flow charts and content maps that can be used in prewriting to help students organize their ideas on a certain topic.

Invention Strategies: One of three categories of prewriting strategies, invention strategies help students generate ideas or invent information for future writing. Through drawing, brainstorming, gathering background knowledge, and recording observations, students can begin to identify and relate information to use in their writing.

KidPix: This software program, that facilitates writing and is useful during prewriting, is designed to develop creativity and idea generation through the drawing of pictures.

KidWorks2: A software program that facilitates writing and is useful during prewriting; it is designed to develop creativity and idea generation through the drawing of pictures.

Microsoft PowerPoint: Presentation software with which students can make a series of slides including text, graphics, sound, and/or video to accompany their presentations.

Move: A word processing function which allows the writer to use the computer's mouse to highlight and change the location of text, from one part of a document to another.

Multimedia composing: Production process during which students collect, generate, store, and manipulate images, sounds, video, and text to create computer documents that combine these features.

My Words: A grammar software program designed to alleviate spelling problems by allowing writers to create an individualized word bank which contains words they have difficulty spelling.

Neatness Effect: A condition which occurs when a word processed and printed paper's neat appearance creates the illusion in the writer that no revisions are necessary.

Organization strategies: One of three categories of prewriting strategies, organization strategies help students group thoughts into a logical, readable sequence of ideas. Organization strategies include crafting story boards, creating webs and diagrams, and making outlines.

ParaMind: A software program designed to help students brainstorm ideas for writing and other projects by recording thoughts and ideas on the computer.

Presentation applications: Software designed to create word and picture sequences which enhance presentation of information.

Presenting phase: Stage of the writing process in which students focus on how best to present their work to the intended audience.

Prewriting: A set of strategies that help students generate and organize thoughts before drafting their compositions. These strategies include invention strategies, refinement strategies, and organization strategies.

Product-driven writing: Student writing focused on creating a final product which satisfy a set of product-associated criteria, rather than explicit or implicit teacher expectations.

Productivity tools: Set of helpful implements that include desktop publishing, spreadsheets, and multimedia used in combination with word processors to enhance text production.

Publishing phase: Stage of the writing process in which students focus on how and where to display their work in a meaningful manner for themselves and their intended audience.

Recursive: Characteristic of an action capable of being indefinitely reapplied to the results of its own application.

Recursive writing process: Reoccurring process in which students, as progressively enter and often reenter the various stages of the writing process, are led to rethink previously completed steps and results in writing.

Refinement Strategies: One of three categories of prewriting strategies, refinement strategies are designed to help students refine and focus a large number of ideas into one or two that may be used for writing. In this phase students are encouraged to delete ideas that may stray too far from the desired focus.

Revising: The composing stage in the writing process, which emphasizes changes of style and content while examining the paper.

Speech synthesizers: Computer device allowing the electronic creation of text from raw data.

Technology: Application of a systematic approach or method to solve a problem. Today, the term almost always implies the used, in one way or another, of computers.

Word Web: A software program that generates content maps which may be integrated with most word processing programs.

Word Works: A spell and grammar checking software program which is designed specifically for students and may be integrated with Word programs.

Word processing: The use of a computer to create, enter, manipulate, and print text.

Word-predicting tools: Function of several word processing programs that, while the student is typing, predicts the intended word by offering a list of possible choices. Students may then insert their choice from the list into the text being written.

Write This Way: A word processing program in which a speech synthesizer is integrated with a spell and grammar checker.