I love technology for collaboration! Teaching writing to middle school students is not easy. All students come with different skills and knowledge. With 35 students in a class, it's impossible to sit down one on one and assist students with the writing process. Teaching students to write a literary analysis is particularly challenging because most seventh-graders have little, to no experience. Students need to learn to develop a thesis statement, find evidence from the text to support it, provide the context of the selected quotations , and write insightful commentary on the evidence they selected. Remember, these kiddos are twelve! Graphic organizers are particularly helpful to these young writers. The biggest challenge is providing feedback to students as they are writing, rather than after they turn their work in for a grade. Students need to be able to use the feedback they receive and see the difference it makes in the final product. I...