Moving Beyond the Printed Word: How Website Design Can Become the Biggest Thing In Education Since the Five-Paragraph Essay

(For a video companion to this article, click here.)

The Great Writing Malaise

In the era of the Culture Wars, education has become a surprisingly controversial field, one where different factions continually argue about school choice, school funding, and what is being taught. Even without injecting politics, however, educators are often divided about best practices. Indeed, these days it almost feels as if education, which thrives on subtle nuances and shades of gray, has developed into a series of high stake dichotomies in constant opposition to one another: traditional discipline vs. restorative practices, teacher-led vs. student-led instruction, traditional grading vs. standards-based grading, etc. The constant wave of change followed by the cross-currents of resistance have often exhausted most educators before they have even entered the classroom and started the lesson of the day.

Yet, in all of this disagreement, debate, and occasional conflict, certain truths remain surprisingly consistent. One such universal truth is this: Everyone loathes writing. Alright, that last statement is a bit hyperbolic. Certainly there are some students who enjoy writing and certainly a fair number of teachers who enjoy teaching writing, yet there has been a consistent disdain expressed by students about having to write essays or even in complete sentences that appears to supersede their collective dislike towards other activities such as reading novels in ELA, solving word problems in math, or even doing pushups in PE. 

The evidence to this writing aversion goes beyond the simple anecdotal evidence of students groaning when they learn they need to write a 5-paragraph essay using proper MLA citation or teachers groaning when expressing that they will be spending the weekend grading those said essays. Research has shown a consistent trend that students enter K-12 education with an intrinsic motivation to write, yet as they progress in grades, this joy turns to apathy and aversion, with both student motivation and performance decreasing (Alves-Wold et al., 2023; Fulton et al., 2023). The scariest aspect of this is that the more writing instruction students receive, the more they dislike it over time.

This intrinsic motivation to write correlates to a noticeable decline in writing quality. Research increasingly indicates that students arrive at college with severe writing deficiencies. These deficits not only pertain to their ability to write complex thoughts, but in recent years have even translated into basic issues in grammar and remedial expression (Ward, 2014). Even in nonliterary-based fields, such as the hard sciences, a pervasive issue with writing has led to professors noting that their students struggle with writing papers, reports, and grants, stifling their ability to progress in their respective fields (Marder, 2019). Importantly, this research ignores the thousands of graduates who instead move into the trades or directly into the work force, undoubtedly facing the same issues with motivation and ability but having their needs go undetected in nonacademic settings. 

The achievement gap in writing appears to be widening with each class of students and presents numerous issues for society as a whole. Although research papers, literary reviews, and evaluative reports might remain a skill reserved for a smaller niche of professionals, nearly every productive citizen needs to have at least a cursory understanding of written expression. Even if not being done academically, writing has numerous practical applications, such as resumes, professional and personal communication, and various financial applications. Beyond these utilitarian purposes, humans also have an innate need for expression, whether it be for personal or creative fulfillment. As mentioned previously, children enter school excited to write (indeed my son, who is in 1st grade, has already written 6 or 7 books about rainbows, colors, ice cream, and even his experience writing books).  Writing is an act that lives in the convergence of academic, personal, professional, emotional, and artistic growth, but we now risk this being undermined by the growing malaise towards it.

Turning Web Design into Two Way Communication

The emergence of the Digital Revolution has witnessed an exponential growth in communication technologies. As high speed internet, mobile technology, and social media have become increasingly ubiquitous with everyday life, education has increasingly utilized them in instruction. The COVID-19 pandemic served as an accelerant for the integration of EdTech, and now even with the majority of students returning to brick-and-mortar campuses, children now often experience a significant portion of their instruction digitally. Learning management systems such as Schoology, Canvas, and Google Classroom have served as a kind of digital hub where students can access learning materials, ask questions, and complete their assignments.

Despite the widespread implementation of learning management systems, many in the EdTech field have expressed increasing worries that these resources are not being utilized to their full potential. For instance, even though educators have researched and written about the vast instructional potentials of Google Classroom, there is also a large number of teachers who continue to struggle with successfully implementing the platform in a meaningful way due to insufficient knowledge and skills in using it (Nxumalo & Shongwe, 2025). This lack of familiarity or comfort in EdTech means that it is most often used in the most conservative way possible, essentially upholding old practices as opposed to replacing them with some more effective or novel. 

This underutilization is most apparent when researchers have examined just how Google Classroom has been used by classroom teachers. The results have consistently shown that teachers use it to support “educational practices that focus on the teacher and not on the rhythm and style of the student” (Castro-Mendoza et al., 2022). More often than not, this translates into using learning management systems to essentially become a one-way communication where the teachers disseminate information to the students with limited feedback from them. This is most evident from a questionnaire where only 4% of teachers found that using tools such as Google Classroom to obtain student feedback or expression was useful (Preeti Sharda & Bajpai, as cited in Castro-Mendoza et al., 2022). Teachers are thus missing a golden opportunity to use EdTech for its greatest strength: the ability to create interactive engagement.

This interactive quality positions digital learning to be a powerful tool in redeveloping writing instruction in a way that can help eliminate the malaise described in the previous section. Studies have found when teachers use EdTech to foster two-way communication, they not only increase student engagement but also overall motivation, one of the main issues students and educators alike have faced during writing instruction (Ni'mah et al., as cited in Prasetyo et al., 2026). In addition to this, using digital technology in this way “can foster deeper cognitive engagement, encourage social collaboration, [and] promote reflective thinking” (ElSayary, 2025). Essentially, the two-way communication that learning management systems offer, in addition to other forms of EdTech, can create instruction that is more engaging, cognitively rigorous, and supportive of student learning. All of this directly counters the obstacles that writing instruction has presented to students. 

The Benefits of Adding Web Design to the Writing Repertoire

Since the World Wide Web officially entered the scene in 1991, the world has become a vastly different place. Humans from around the world are now able to exchange information and collaborate on projects with an ease that is unparalleled. Perhaps most exciting, however, is the exponential increase in people's ability to contribute to this digital network. While initially, managing a webpage was labor intensive and specialized in a way that made it inaccessible to many, tools such as Google Sites, YouTube, and Instagram have allowed for just about anyone to launch a website and broadcast it across a network of billions of people. In today’s world the internet has been democratized to a point where just about anyone can be a content creator. 

In this era of information abundance, media literacy is not simply a luxury but a necessity. Future generations will not only need to know how to consume media but also how to produce it. Inzolia (2025) perfectly describes this need:

Mastering tools is not enough; it is necessary to cultivate competencies that enable the design, guidance, and leadership of learning processes that are social, collaborative, and responsive to the urgencies of our time…Digital literacy in the digital era is more than a right; it is a shared responsibility that demands commitment, passion, and a renewed pedagogical vision.

Just as Gutenberg not only ushered in a new era of reading but also of writing when he invented the printing press, we now live in a world where a truly educated populace will not only know how to access websites but also the mechanics and process behind creating effective ones.

One established truth in education is that literacy skills consist of both reading and writing, and when students improve in one of these areas, they improve in the other as well. Students developing their writing skills gives them insights into how texts are structured and meaning is constructed, allowing them to apply this knowledge to analyzing the texts that they read (Graham & Hebert, 2011, p. 712). Just like most coaches are former players themselves, writers make strong readers because they are able to understand the core components of the written word such as conventions, syntax, word choice, main ideas and supporting details, and paragraph and sentence structure. As the majority of writing is now migrating to online platforms, it only stands to reason that students should learn how to be digital writers. 

One attractive shift for educators is to incorporate website design into writing instruction. Doing so allows students to experience the full richness of digital tools while also learning how to create meaningful content; furthermore, such skills provide a more authentic medium for publishing, likely mimicking the kind of content creation students will be expected to produce upon graduating. This is not to say that teachers should abandon the traditional essay writing, but rather incorporate components of web design into their instruction. Just as students learn headings and subheadings, paragraph and line spacing, and works cited lists, they could also learn hyperlinks, digital graphics, and page layout, adding a whole new level of richness to the writing process. 

The benefits of this are multifold. The first is that website creation could serve as a direct counter to the writing malaise that most students experience in higher grades. Returning to the example of my son, he has found great joy in learning how to create books. His teacher wisely taught this using a foldable technique for a classroom assignment, and he has since turned it into a hobby. Doing so has given him the satisfaction of being able to write in a way that produces a product that he has been able to share with friends and family. The intrinsic motivation found from an authentic audience serves as a strong motivator for most student writers as “it provides students with an authentic and meaningful purpose that can guide them through the entire writing process, from beginning to end” (Rodriguez, 2020). Just as younger students have shown a remarkable excitement for being able to bring home self-published picture books, providing older students with the opportunity to develop their own personal websites with their work showcased on it, offers the same opportunity to find an authentic audience, only on a much larger scale.

Some might dismiss the idea of website design as being gimmicky, essentially serving as a Trojan Horse that tricks students into writing. Making such an argument, however, is profoundly shortsighted and ignores the richness that such assignments offer. This is because pairing the writing process with website design offers an opportunity for students to develop multimodal literacy. This means that students are able to “use both linguistic and non-linguistic resources to construct meaning” in a way that “integrates multiple literacy and language skills learners already have to support writing growth” (Smith et al., 2021, as cited in Zeng, 2024, p. 35). Adding multimodal components to literacy is an established way both of strengthening students’ reading and writing skills and differentiating instruction to meet the diverse needs of learners. Understanding this aspect of web design makes it readily apparent that incorporating it into writing instruction renders it as a powerful instructional tool that increases both the rigor and relevance of any writing assignment. 

Critics of this would also be wise to remember that having students develop websites as part of their writing instruction is not as incredibly novel as it might seem. Afterall, is this not simply creating a portfolio, even if it is in a digital form? Furthermore, doing so through an online format allows students more tools to utilize to help develop and express their voice and increase their instructional autonomy. Website features such as embedded videos or audios, graphics and animations, featured quotations, and photo carousels serve as tools that can reinforce the central components of their writing while also helping them craft their unique voice. Studies show that digital multimodal writing serves as an “asset-based approach” that helps student writers “to gain agency, reclaim voices, and draw upon their rich semiotic resources” (Zeng, 2024, p. 1). Thus, students are able to create living, interactive portfolios that can grow with their own proficiency in writing in a way that paper-based portfolios simply cannot.

Getting Started/Booting Up

I would be being horribly insensitive if I were not to acknowledge the elephant in the room…or classroom in this instance. Teachers continue to remain dedicated, student-centered, and overworked. It would be profoundly unwise for any education advocate to simply drop another task on their already full plates, especially one with as much intricacies as web design. For this to become truly effective, education administrators will need to ensure that teachers are provided with opportunities to not only learn the instructional value of these resources but also to develop their own proficiency in them.

One potential solution of this is to use structured time during professional development hours (often known as professional learning community time) where teachers can meet and explore the technology together. Through working together, teachers can develop collective efficacy using web design and educational technology to improve writing instruction. They can share ideas and strategies, but more important than that, they can develop resources together and significantly reduce the planning time for developing web design-themed lessons. For this to be successful, digital technology needs to be presented as something to supplement and support what teachers are already doing as opposed to simply being an added task.

Ultimately, incorporating web design into writing instruction presents both students and educators with numerous opportunities that can strengthen student literacy in a meaningful and profound way. Doing so offers the potential to increase motivation, provide students with opportunities to deepen their literacy skills, and learn an additional set of subskills that will make them model digital citizens. For nearly 500 years, writing was in the Printed Word Era. With the emergence of the internet, it has entered the Digital Era, and it is time for writing instruction to follow suit.

References



Alves-Wold, A., Walgermo, B. R., McTigue, E., & Uppstad, P. H. (2023). Assessing writing motivation: A systematic review of K-5 students' self-reports. Educational Psychology Review, 35, Article 52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09732-6

Castro-Mendoza, J., De la Cruz-Valdiviano, C., & Mendoza-Yépez, J. (2022). Google Classroom in educational service: A systematic review. Journal of Positive School Psychology, 6(2), 1930–1939.

ElSayary, A. (2025). Students' perceptions of the impact of interactive technology on engagement in STEM classes. Contemporary Educational Technology, 17(1), ep542. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/14112

Fulton, K., Lin, T.-J., & Newell, G. (2023). Dialogic literary argumentation and close reading: Effects on high school students’ literature-related argumentative writing and motivational beliefs. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1214773.

Graham, S., & Hebert, M. (2011). Writing to read: A meta-analysis of the effects of writing and writing instruction on reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 710–744. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566

Inzolia, Y. (2025). Digital literacy: Fostering possible futures through higher education. UNESCO IESALC.

Marder, E. (2019). Living science: Love writing. eLife, 8, Article e45734. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.45734

Nxumalo, S. A., & Shongwe, M. (2025). The affordances of Google Classroom in enhancing economics curriculum implementation: Issues and critiques. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 13(1), 73–82.

Prasetyo, A., Aulianda, R., & Rahayu, S. (2026). The effectiveness of Learning Management Systems (LMS) in enhancing learning experiences toward achieving SDG 4: Quality Education. Journal of International Systems and Educational Development, 15(1), 38–47.

Rodriguez, M. (2020, January 9). The importance of audience. Two Writing Teachers. https://twowritingteachers.org/2020/01/09/the-importance-of-audience/

Ward, D. (2014). To learn to write, write. Unfortunately, students aren't. Now what? Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Kansas. https://cte.ku.edu/learn-write-write-unfortunately-students-arent-now-what

Zeng, H. (2024). Multimodal writing for promoting multilingual adolescents' writing growth: An integrative research review. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 20(1), 34–54. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1427580.pdf