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Show I -7 1 1 n I j r .... ....,-..--. - - n .. .. ammuMet, . V mmMm'immmmmmmmmmmmm, - . . '- With the help of IBM's WANDAH program, high school teacher David Partenheimer is generating a lot of excitement in the English department. ; f Computerized writing aid taps pupils' creative writing skills by NAN CHALAT Record staff writer "I never want to use a typewriter again," said Park City High School student Katherine Willard. Willard is just one of many instant converts to the school's new WANDAH WAN-DAH writing program. The acronym stands for Writers Aid and Authors Helper, a computer-assisted word processing and composition editing program developed by IBM. Park City High School recently received a $40,000 grant to try out WANDAH software, still in the developmental stage, in a pilot program, pro-gram, said high school writing instructor in-structor David Partenheimer. Only six high schools in Utah were chosen to test the new teaching aid, which might become a prototype for writing programs nationwide, he added. ad-ded. I Partenheimer, who joined the high school faculty this year, said the program pro-gram already is a success. "It motivates students to generate ideas and then it makes it easy for them to make corrections on their papers. I've already seen unbelievable progress." pro-gress." WANDAH is based on an established teaching method called process writing, Partenheimer said. The program guides students from the initial steps of formulating an idea, through outlining and organizing organiz-ing the concept, to editing the final copy. Initially, students practice "freewriting," a nonstop writing exercise ex-ercise geared toward "getting ideas out," Partenheimer said. Next, WANDAH asks for a "nutshell" of the idea and then an outline. "Writing is not just a process of communication. It is also a way of thinking. And recently it has been acknowledged that those skills have diminished among students," Partenheimer said. The Park City School District shares Partenheimer's concerns and hired him specifically to expand the high school's writing and journalism jour-nalism programs. Among his credentials are nine years of teaching experience at the high school and university levels and a doctorate in literature from the University of Utah. Partenheimer said part of the decline in writing skills across the country is caused by large class sizes and the inherent difficulty of grading essay-type papers. "It takes a teacher 25 times as long to correct a composition as it takes to correct an objective exam which can be scanned by a computer in under a minute, he said. r ; . Educators, however, have reaffirmed reaf-firmed the importance of developing writing skills in all subject areas from literature to science, Partenheimer said. "There is no subject in which writing is not important." im-portant." Partenheimer said he hopes all teachers at Park City High School will encourage their students to work on writing skills. He added his goal is to open the language lab to other classes and eventually to the community so they can have a chance to work with WANDAH. Judging from ' the crowd of students that was still working on computers in Partenheimer's classroom after school last Monday, students are excited about tapping their creative writing skills. , |