The first website I would like to share is Poll Everywhere
This website would be a great addition to any class blog or website.
It allows you to create polls that your students can take. Alternatively each student could make their own polls.
This site would be great for exploring ideas and facts for both informative, imaginative and persuasive texts.
For example you could do a poll asking questions about a character or plot line (see images below for ideas), or from informative texts e.g. Which gold mining tool would you choose and why? For persuasive texts you might poll: Why shouldn't kids have to do homework. Then, using the top 3 responses from the poll you could begin to write a persuasive text.
There are many options for creating a poll. You can sign up for a free account and this allows for one active poll at a time with 40 responses. There is also the option to not sign in and make one poll. Also, you can pay for an account and this will allow for multiple polls to be active at once.
When you make a poll you can either choose to make it open ended - so the students can type in their responses, you can choose to make it multiple choice or you can choose to make it a pictoral poll.
The website has a short video that explains how to make each type of poll. I didn't watch it as I found it was really easy to navigate the site.
This is a great tool and a fantastic website to use to incorporate the 'Questioning' comprehension strategy into your teaching - especially if you have the students create their own poll.