But a tag cloud can be more than eye candy.

• Consider using it as a pre-reading activity for LD students or ELL students — copy and paste a section of text and create a tag cloud. Tell students to make sure they know the meaning of the biggest words before they start reading.
• As a post-reading activity, students might respond to their reading by typing in a list of keywords for the text they just read. More important keywords should be entered more than once, creating a bigger word in the tag cloud. Create a Wordle. Compare it to a partner’s Wordle and discuss the differences. What changes would either of you make, if any?

• A student who has trouble with organization or paragraph unity might make a Wordle of a paragraph. Are the biggest words also the words that tell what the paragraph is supposed to be about? If they are, go on to the next paragraph. If they aren’t, figure out why. Revise if necessary.

Teacher Tracy Kranzusch suggests the following:

• Prewriting - generate ideas. It’s like a cluster map. Kids can then post their wordle to their blog and the other students can view them there or in the galleries. It makes for a quick, fun sharing of ideas for papers.
• Postreading - create one using key words and themes/connections between the text and the student’s world. Compare with other students.

Teacher Gretchen Lee adds:

• I’ve used it as a pre-reading activity for whole class novels and lit circles. I’ve gone to Amazon and copied the book blurb and fed it into wordle. Then I project the wordle onto the big screen and have the kids freewrite about what they think the book is about. They share in small groups and come up with one theory. Then I pass out the books. Lots of fun to see the different takes on the words.

Teacher Dawn Hogue blogs about using Wordle as a prereading strategy at the Polliwog Journal.

Wordles might also serve as a starting point for analysis. Here’s a Wordle of the first part of President George W. Bush’s Second Inaugural Address:

And, just for fun, here’s a Wordle of David Letterman’s Top 10 List from Friday, July 18:

Addition 7/29/08 — Dawn Hogue offers some ideas for using Wordle as a prereading strategy.