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Odyssey Writer

Odyssey Writer Helps Teach Writing starting with carefully constructed assignments to stimulate students' desire to communicate, to integrated prereading graphic organizers, easy-to-use word processor with simple revising tools to the grading guides (writing rubriques) provided to parents and teachers in the teaching guides and answer keys,

You will find below answers to the following questions:

What is Odyssey Writer?

How Odyssey Writer help teach the Writing Process?

Who can use Odyssey Writer? Grades?

Is Odyssey Writer always the same? No, it is different by grades. Also, can be put in different modes.

How do I use Odyssey Writer?

Does Time4Learning grade Odyssey Writer Assignments?

How should parents grade writing assignments?

What is Odyssey Writer?

Time4Learning’s built -in online customizable writing program for elementary and middle-school students is called Odyssey Writer. Odyssey Writer can guide students through the entire writing process and make writing more focused, more effective, and even more enjoyable. While some users think of Odyssey Writer as a word processor, this is only a portion of its use. Odyssey Writer, like the buik of Time4Learning's curriculum, is developed, maintained and owned by CompassLearning.

How Odyssey Writer help teach the Writing Process?

USING ODYSSEY WRITER FOR PREWRITING

Odyssey Writer includes many tools for helping any student with the prewriting process. The Note Card tool allows students to type in (or copy and paste) information about their chosen topic on separate “note cards” for future retrieval. This information can then be organized using a traditional outline form, or for more visual writers, can be arranged into a graphic organizer to assist in creating connections between ideas before transferring them to outline form.

USING ODYSSEY WRITER FOR DRAFTING
Once a student has completed the prewriting process, he or she is ready to move on to creating a first draft of their work. The default page when Odyssey Writer is opened is the drafting template, and text can be entered into this page by simply typing as you would in any word processor. Other page types, however, are available by clicking on the “Insert Page” option in the Insert Menu. These pages are useful for creating more specific forms of writing such as Venn Diagrams, comparison/contrasts, friendly and business letters, and newsletters.

If a student wishes to transfer his pre-writing work into the drafting template, he must
click on the outline tab on the left side of the screen and click on the transfer button in the
upper right of the outline window. From here, the student can add, subtract, and edit their
outline into the style of writing they are trying to create. Other tools that a student may wish to use in drafting mode include:

• Using the format menu to format text (including font, spacing, and alignment)
• Using the edit menu to cut, copy, and paste text
• Using the insert menu to insert images, equations, or hyperlinks into project
• Using the file menu to open, save, or print projects
  (Hint: When opening Odyssey Writer from within a Time4Learning lesson, an instruction
  window will usually appear over the drafting page. Once the student has read the
  instructions, he or she must minimize or close the instruction box before beginning to
  type.)

USING ODYSSEY WRITER FOR REVISING AND PROOF-READING

Once students have composed a rough draft, they enter the revision stage. Odyssey
Writer has helpful tools built in to aid in the revision process. The first of these is the
rubric, or self-assessment tool. Before handing in a project, students can check their
work against the rubric to ensure that the project meets all criteria. To access the Self-
Assessment mode, students click the Self-Assessment button located on the toolbar.
Students can use this scoring tool to help them improve their writing and check for
common writing errors.

Another tool that is useful in the revision process is the spell checker. By opening this
option from the Tool menu, students can have their entire document searched for
misspellings. The program prompts the student to either change the item, or allows them
to “ignore” it, or leave it as is.

When all writing has been evaluated and corrected, a student is ready to publish his or her
work, or hand it in. If the project is from within a Time4Learning lesson, the student will
click on the “Hand It In” button on the toolbar when they are finished. They will
click “Yes” to confirm that they wish to hand in the project. However, if Odyssey Writer
is being used for free-form writing, the student may simply wish to print or save their
work, which they can accomplish from the file menu.

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Using ODYSSEY WRITER

Use the improved images from hints!!!

• Hint: OW can be accessed from within an assignment, or from the student launch pad by clicking here.

• Hint: If opened within an assignment, the instructions will come up here.

• Hints for the Tool Menus (see top of pic) and main writing area

• Hints for The Tools Area of the OW main screen (see above)