Language Arts

Knowing Poe (Maryland Public Television)
http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/

The Literature, Life, and Times of Edgar Allan Poe... In Baltimore and
Beyond. Through the activities on this site, you can introduce learners
(or, be introduced, yourself) to the literature, life, and times of one
of America's foremost writers. Here, you will: explore his worlds, both
fictional and real, from a number of perspectives; examine the complex
choices writers such as Poe make as they create their works; investigate
the "hard facts" about life and death in Baltimore and the United States
during Poe's lifetime; and learn about the continuing impact of Poe's
legacy. In addition to these interactive experiences, there are lesson
plans created by Maryland teachers, primary source documents, links for
further research, and materials for fun family activities related to
Edgar Allan Poe. Don't miss the Classroom Connections:
http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/classconn/ (added 1/26/03, reviewed
1/26/03)

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School,

Explore Island of the Blue Dolphins
http://rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/dolphin/

Created by a team of teachers, a thematic exploration of Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell presented in both English and Spanish. The purpose of this site is to:

1)use historical fiction to engage students in California history
2)build student's background knowledge or schema to better comprehend the literature
3)allow Spanish language learners to access both the literature and the history
4)use valuable resources found on the Internet to do research
5)integrate technology into the Language Arts, Social Studies, and
Science curriculums.

Chart the island, study the wildlife and island natives. Includes
Teacher's Notes somewhat hidden on the "bookshelf"
(http://rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/dolphin/teacher/teachnotes.shtml

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School

 

Jack London's Ranch Album
http://www.geocities.com/jacklondons/

Described as a Pictorial Life of Jack London; it is just as much a tour
of Jack London State Historic Park. Because this site is arranged in an
odd manner, it's important to use the rather unobtrusive menus located
at the top and the bottom of each page. Upon entering the site, you hit
the "additions page" which is a wild assortment of links and should be
located some where else (in Links?). However, this is where the Search
is located. Within every page, there are hyperlinks to more information
and photographs. It's almost like taking a tour and is quite
comprehensive in terms of biographical information. For literary
information, it's back to the "additions page" and Links.

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School

The World of Beatrix Potter
http://www.peterrabbit.co.uk/templates/index.cfm
Step into the world of Beatrix Potter and all of her characters. This
graphic/audio intense site features fun online activities and reading
for children.
Grade Level: Elementary
Content Area: English (Reading)

Care For Animals  
http://www.avma.org/careforanimals/default.asp

This site, presented by the American Veterinary Medical Association, is
an excellent site for helping young children learn about caring for
pets.  Animated Journeys is easy to navigate and contains areas such as
Selecting a Pet and Pet Health. Pet Stories contains stories written by
children and children can use an online form to submit their own pet
stories. Kids Corner contains a mix of activities about animals.

Grade Level: Early Childhood, Elementary
Content Area: Health , English (Reading)

 

 BearTime 

http://www.BearTime.com/
Stories, links, pictures of two adventurous teddy bears, John and El.  Obviously, the folks who wrote these stories have a lot of love for the bears...they travel with them to different locales across the U.S. The proof is in the photos illustrating the tales. This website includes a coloring section (on paper, not the computer) and an invitation to send
in a scanned photo of your bear (new bear pals for John and El).

Grade Level: Early Childhood, Elementary
Content Area: English (Reading)

The Magpie Sings the Great Depression   
http://newdeal.feri.org/magpie/

This website presents almost 200 poems, articles, and short stories and
many graphics and photographs from The Magpie, literary magazine of
Dewitt Clinton High School, encompassing the years 1929 to 1942. Have
students catch a glimpse of student life in New York City during the
years of the Great Depression and the power of literacy magazines.

Grade Level: Middle School, High School, College
 

Weedpatch Camp   
http://www.weedpatchcamp.com/

This site is a wonderful companion to John Steinbecks Grapes of Wrath.
While writing the book, John Steinbeck visited Bakersfield, California
and based his book on Arvin Federal Government Camp which he portrayed
as "Weedpatch Camp." This site includes the history and pictures of the
camp as well as personal reminiscences and music of the time.

Grade Level: Middle School, High School


 

Braillebug  
http://www.afb.org/braillebug/

The American Foundation for the Blind created an age appropriate site
for students to learn out Braille. Under games, students can see what
their name looks like in Braille, or figure out words with a Braille
alphabet close by. Students can also change the colors on this website
to make it easier to read (have students who are designing their own
pages learn about accessibility).

Grade Level: Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, High School,

 

KidzPage 
http://www.ncal.verio.com/~veeceet/kids/kidzpage.html
Poetry and songs for children. Be sure to see "KidzSing Garden of Songs." The words are on the page; sing along with piano background (the player is built into webpage). In addition, there is a lot of fun poetry (Have a Bash with Ogden Nash) and the ability to send your classroom poetry to the site to be published.

Grade Level: Early Childhood, Elementary
Content Area: English (Reading)

 Ad Dissection 101  
http://website.education.wisc.edu/rla/ADSITE/index.htm

High school students take on the roles of scientist and media consultant
to learn about advertising and how a print ad can affect and persuade
readers. Students then apply their knowledge to design an ad to help
consumers (and their classmates) recognize manipulation.

Grade Level: High School
Content Area: English (General)

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Creative Writing Process
http://www.nzcal.com/hp/adk/index.php

Created by a teacher in Canada, it's a no-frills approach that covers
all of the steps including: brainstorming, mapping, outlines, editing,
references, and reproducible worksheets. It walks students through the
entire process using examples and even includes some word processing
tips.

Grade Level:  Middle School, High School, College
 

Atlantis Quest
http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Lincoln_HS/Burleson/Lessons/Atlantis/index.htm

Anecdotage
http://anecdotage.com/

Anecdotage is home to several thousand anecdotes. Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary defines an anecdote as "a usually short narrative of an
interesting, amusing, or biographical incident." Anecdotage is
chock-full of just such. According to them, their scope is largely
confined to biographical incidents as well as "origin stories,
mythological tales, practical jokes, and wisecracks of the Oscar
Wilde-Groucho Marx variety." If you need a quick quip for a speech or
maybe some catalyst to get your creative juices flowing, this might be
the place. (added 10/25/02, reviewed 10/25/02)

Grade Level: High School,

Extreme Survival 
http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/extremesurvival/extremesurvival.html

This site, created by The Learning Channel, can be used as both a
resource and as a 'jumping off place' for assignments in subject areas
such as writing and reading.  For example, students can read survival
stories from around the world and then write and share their own story. 
This site presents interesting and engaging accounts of escape and
survival.  Students can also have fun with a 'survival' quiz.

Grade Level: Middle School, High School
Content Area: English (Writing and Reading)

Daily Grammar
http://www.dailygrammar.com/
Generously posted by veteran English teacher Bill Johanson from Canyon
View Junior High, Daily Grammar provides simple and clear lessons on the
basics of English grammar. Set up in modules of five examples and a
follow-up quiz, the simplicity of the approach and the explanations make
this a great site for students to use themselves when they feel they
need self-paced remediation or enrichment.
Grade Level: Middle School, High School
Content Area: English (Writing)

Ads.Com  
http://www.ads.com/ads/index.jsp

For teachers looking for a particular television commercial to highlight
a concept of media literacy, this is a great site. Search by brand name,
or when you viewed the ad on U.S. network TV.

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School
Content Area: English (General)

PlainTrain: Plain Language Online Training
http://www.web.net/~plain/PlainTrain
Have you ever looked at a student's written work and thought "What is this student trying to say?" "Plain language is an approach to communication that begins with the needs of the reader." This website explains how to identify the reader, organize ideas, use appropriate words, create simple sentences, and build effective paragraphs. Testing
written work is considered a necessity. However, the information in Digest form, is easier to print, as well as to read.

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School
Content Area: English (Writing)

Tools For College Writing
www.cabrillo.cc.ca.us/divisions/english/290/
This site is designed to introduce basic skills of college writing
strategies. To help ESL students and students with learning disabilities
this website is "voiced" and features an online dictionary.
Grade Level: High School, College
Content Area: English (Writing)

100 words  
http://www.100words.net/

For writers, the challenge is to write every day. See some examples from
participants who wrote 100 words (exactly) every day for a month. Some
are poems; some are stories. The content is suitable for mature students
of writing.

Grade Level: College, Adult/Professional
Content Area: English (Writing)
 

HomophoneZone  
http://www.cooper.com/homophonezone/

You're sure you're having trouble with your homophones? Homophones are
the plague of spellcheckers and shaky spellers, so use this site to
brush up. Lists of homophones are available alphabetically, grouped by
the number of homophones for a sound, and quizzes are available to test
your knowledge of definitions of homophones.
 

Tracking Creativity 
http://tqjunior.advanced.org/4382/
This ThinkQuest Junior Award-Winning website was created by a sixth
grade team and is an example of a creative, easy to use website.
Teachers and students will enjoy the language arts activities, such as
On Your Toes with Odes. In Step with Idioms includes a quiz for
colorful idioms of the English language that could benefit Elementary or
ESL students. Links to other websites show how creativity can sneak into
our lives in many ways.

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School
Content Area: English (Writing)

Electronic Reference Formats Recommended by APA 
http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.html
When in doubt, go to the source. The APA, one of the major style guides
for academic writing, has revised their guidelines for electronic
citations. Keep up with the latest information for citing all your
electronic sources, including electronic databases. Having these
resources online sure beats buying a book every time something changes.

Grade Level: High School, College
Content Area: English (Writing)

Know Play? Reference Lookup  
http://www.kplay.cc/reference.html

Some pages hit at just the right time. Where else can you access (links
to) an online dictionaries, thesauruses, rhyming dictionary, acronym,
and artist lookup? The goal of this site is to simplify your life. It
works for me.

Grade Level: Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, High School, College, Adult/Professional
Content Area: English (Reading/Writing)

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PowerPoint98 in the Classroom 
http://www.actden.com/pp/

An eight-unit tutorial for K-12 teachers on how to use PowerPoint98.
You'll learn about toolbars; laying out, saving, and moving your
information; text; animation; transitions; as well as ways to teach your
students to use it. This tutorial is part of a larger site created by
actDEN which currently offers seven software tutorials, produced in
conjunction with Microsoft K-12 Education.

Grade Level:  Middle School, High School,

DiscoverySchool.com Lesson Plans
http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/

Part of the larger DiscoverySchool.com Teacher Section, you can find
hundreds of original lesson plans, all written by teachers for teachers,
organized by subject, grade, or both. A side menu and a drop-down menu
make browsing easy. Covers a wide range of subject for grades K-12.
 

Reference Desk

www.refdesk.com

Fill with access to information on thousands of topics.  An indispensable resource for both teachers and students.

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
www.grammarbook.com

Quizzes for drill and practice on punctuation and other grammar rules.
Grade Levels: Middle and High School

AncientScripts.com
http://www.ancientscripts.com/

According to the site creator, Lawrence K. Lo, "The aim of Ancient
Scripts is not to replace texts books or instructional web sites.
Instead, it is designed to give an introduction to writing systems,
which hopefully will tantalize the reader into searching for more
information on the web or in books and publications." Major divisions
within the site are: 1) Writing Systems; 2) Phonetics; 3) Historical
Linguistics; 4) Extra (ramblings, games, etc); 5) Bibliography; and 6)
Web links. Quite extensive and written in a style that is accessible to
young learners. Nice graphics too.

Grade Level:  Early Childhood (K-2), Elementary, Middle School, High
 

 

Web English Teacher
www.webenglishteacher.com

K-12 English and Language arts teaching resources: lesson plans, WebQuests and classroom activities.

Graphics Library Index
http://www.jsmagic.net/free/

Direct links to free graphics of the sort we're always looking for. In
return for providing a link back to the site, you may use any of these
graphics. According to the site, these images have been collected from
various newsgroups and public domain sources, and all are believed to be
free of copyright (always a good idea to double-check). Sections
include: African American related, Out West, Kith 'n Kin (vintage
graphics), "Hot" Desktop Wallpapers, Backgrounds, School Daze, Creature
Corner, Baby Book, and Seasonal.

Grade Level: Early Childhood (K-2), Elementary, Middle School, High School
 

Pro Teacher
http://www.proteacher.com/

Lesson plans, materials, ideas

English Online   
http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/

This site is a vast professional development resource for teachers of
English in New Zealand and worldwide. Educators will find over 150 fully
resourced and downloadable teaching units, professional readings,
selected links and discussion forums.

Grade Level: Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, High School
Content Area: English (General)  

ABC Teach 

http://www.abcteach.com/
This is a great site for teachers of young children with many ideas for
classroom use. March is National Reading month, so the site includes a
reading chart that encourages students to read different types of books
as well as signs, cereal boxes, and a variety of different types of
material. For creating books, there are shapes that can be printed,
copied, and cut out for shape books where students can write a story.
Printable research cards are available for students to use when they are
learning basic research skills.
Grade Level: Elementary
Content Area: English (Reading/Writing

 PubList
http://www.publist.com/
PubList uses sources such as R.R. Bowker's Ulrich's "International
Periodicals Directory" to provide bibliographic data for more than
150,000 domestic and international print and electronic publications
including magazines, journals, e-journals, newsletters, and
monographs.and hyperlinks to some publishers. This site provides quick
and easy access to detailed publication information including, titles,
formats, publisher addresses, editor contacts, circulation data, and
ISSN numbers. Each periodical listing also includes a link to the source
records.
Grade Level: Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, High School, College, Adult/Professional
 

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  Texas Information Literacy Tutorial
http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu
To familiarize a large number of students with fundamental research
skills, the Digital Information Literacy Office at the University of
Texas at Austin developed this online tutorial. TILT is a Web-based,
educational site designed to teach undergraduates fundamental research
skills. In each module students will learn concepts and practice them
through interactions. At the conclusion of each module, they can test
their comprehension and receive immediate feedback. Each module takes
less than 30 minutes to complete.
Grade Level: Middle School, High School, College, Adult/Professional
 

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 The Online Journalism Review 
http://ojr.usc.edu/
The Online Journalism Review is a Web-based journal produced at the
Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern
California. This site covers a full range of journalistic issues in all
media, but with a particular emphasis on the Internet. A great resource
for Journalism students at high schools or colleges. OJR's Guide to
Online Reporter Resources is a great place to start students that want
to do journalism research online.

Grade Level: High School, College
Content Area: English (Journalism)

 Ad Dissection 101  
http://website.education.wisc.edu/rla/ADSITE/index.htm

High school students take on the roles of scientist and media consultant
to learn about advertising and how a print ad can affect and persuade
readers. Students then apply their knowledge to design an ad to help
consumers (and their classmates) recognize manipulation.

Grade Level: High School
Content Area: English (General)

Ads.Com  
http://www.ads.com/ads/index.jsp

For teachers looking for a particular television commercial to highlight
a concept of media literacy, this is a great site. Search by brand name,
or when you viewed the ad on U.S. network TV.

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School
Content Area: English (General)

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