Language+Arts

The links below are excellent resources for the language arts classroom. Feel free to add other sites that you use and want to share with others.

__Reading Comprehension__
Figment.com share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. "Get the Gist" lesson plan from Read-Write-Think "Create a Magazine Cover" lesson plan from Read-Write-Think Student Interactives from Read-Write-Think Fact Fragment Frenzy from Read-Write-Think - one example of student interactive, includes a demo Summarizing Lesson Plan from BBC Skillwise Make Beliefs Comix - use with students to create a comic strip to summarize a story or article Quia Interactive Find the Main Idea Welcome to the Journalist Desk - old, out of service website but still operational includes short passages with the opportunity for students to pick the main idea TV411 Summarize as you read interactive activity TV311 Summarizing as you read lesson [|Read, Write, Think] - Lesson plans for language arts from the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English [|Literature and Language Arts] - Lesson plans from EdSiteMent. [|Literature Lesson Plans] - These are for middle and high school students. This site is from Discovery Education. [|Poetry Teachers.Com] - Site of ideas for teaching poetry, poetry theater, and poetry contests. [|Using Poetry to Teach Reading] - An article from Reading Rockets. [|Reading Rockets] - News and articles to help improve the teaching of reading. [|25 Ideas for Better Book Reports] - Article from Education World [|Teachers@Random] - From Random House, Bantam, Doubleday, Dell. Ideas for teaching Young Adult literature with books from these publishers. [|Book Discussion Guides] - Guides for books for children and young adults. This site is by the Multnomah Public Library. [|Books R4 Teens] - Book summaries, teaching ideas, related media and texts, and links to related web sites. This site is by the University of Texas at Austin. [|AdLit] - A site promoting adolescent literacy. Explore the teaching strategies and topics sections for teaching ideas. [|The Reading Machine] - 36 links to online games which will reinforce reading skills. For all grade levels from Education World. [|Play Kids Games] - This site has a large number of language arts games. It also says that you may create a page just for your class. [|SCORE CyberGuides] - CyberGuide's link books for students from K-12 to activities on the World Wide Web. These supplementary lessons include objectives, tasks and rubics for assessment. This is an excellent way to enhance student interest in reading and the internet. This site has not been updated in a long time. [|Vocabulous] - Lesson plan with worksheets for improving middle and high school vocabulary. [|Page by Page: Creating a Children's Book] - This excellent site takes you step by step through the creation of the book Zoom Upstream, written by Tim Wynn-Jones and illustrated by Eric Beddows. The site visitor will learn how the author got his ideas, how the illustrator drew the pictures, and how the publishing company prepared the manuscript for publication. By the National Library of Canada. [|Teaching Chicano and Puerto Rican Literature] - A unit for middle school students. [|Folger Shakespeare Library] - lesson plans for Shakespeare's plays. [|Shakespeare in the Classroom] - Teaching ideas for all grade levels. From PBS [|The Project Gutenberg Homepage] - Directory of all books stored electronically. These books may be read online or downloaded to your computer. [|The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1919 edition] - The whole book is now online and searchable. You can also locate poems by author, title, and first line. [|Online American Literature Resources] - Extensive list of links for American literature from Colonial period to 1865. [|The International Reading Association] [|Yahoo's Literature Index] [|The de Grummond Children's Literature Collection] - from the University of Southern Mississippi. [|Books for Children and Young Adults] - links to more literature sites.

__Literature__
Figment.com share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. [|Folger Shakespeare Library] [|Lesson Plan Archive] - Shakespeare [|Cyberguides] – linking with children's literature eThemes/eMints - search by book under L for Literature, find units and web resources to enhance unit planning Schmoop Literature Study Guides [|100 things to do with books] - 100 cool ideas for activities to do when students are reading a book, not necessarily involving technology

__Poetry__
[|Poetry Forms] [|The Academy of American Poets] [|Poets.org] [|Instant Poems] Biography Websites [|oldpoets.com] Children's Poetry Archive Read Write Think Word Matrix - This is a great activity to explore word choice. This lesson plan can be found here.

__**Writing**__
OneStopEnglish - "packed with resources for English teachers. All materials are written and edited by our expert team of teachers and authors and are organized into core subject areas such as Skills, Grammar and Vocabulary, Business and ESP, Exams and Young Learners, so you’ll always find what you’re looking for." [|Structured Curriculum Handbook for Language Arts] Writing Fun - all kinds of writing, student fills out the graphic organizer [|Thesis Builder] - interactive website that walks the student through writing a strong these statement and developing an outline* Read Write Think Word Matrix - This is a great activity to explore word choice. This lesson plan can be found here. [|BBC RAW - Writing Stories] [|BBC Bitesize Revision] - Writing [|Web English Teacher] [|Online Writing Lab Handouts] - rich resource with writing lessons and online handouts covering writing, research, and grammar, generally for high school or college. Look carefully at the process to adapt to middle school students. Lightning Bug - site created by a teacher in Australia that helps students through the process of writing a story, check out the teacher resources page LinkUp - Interactive activity that is customized with vocabulary Word Magnets - Check out the backgrounds to find ways to use Draft It - Cool writing tool that takes you through the writing process [|Learning Resources] - using current events with interactive activities to develop reading comprehension [|World Tales] - Welcome to World Tales. See folk tales, myths and legends from around the world, brought to life by twenty Australian animators. [|Creating Rubrics] - a step by step guide Paragraph Punch [|Language Arts Lesson Plans] - From teAchnology. [|The Teacher's Desk] - Lesson plans for reading, writing, and spelling for students in grades 5 and 6 [|30 Ideas for Teaching Writing] - From the National Writing Project. [|Writing Bugs] - Ideas for topics for students to write about. From Education World. [|Creative Writing Lesson Plans] - From Web English Teacher. [|Everyday Edits] - Students check for grammatical mistakes in these writing passages. [|Teaching Grammar without the Hammer] - Lesson plans from Education World. [|The Grammar Acquarium] - This site offers online practice or printable worksheets for many grammar topics. [|Free Rice] - Selection of the correct definitions of words will send free rice to a starving world. [|Language Arts Worksheets] - For all grades from Education World. Write.com

__6 + 1 Traits of Writing__
Regional Educational Laboratory Lesson Plans - This is the "official" 6 Traits site. This link is for the lesson plans organized by trait. Scoring Guides - Rubrics Writing Prompts [|Samples of student writing] - organized by trait, grade level and score. Use to these to assess. [|OWL (Online Writing Lab)] - Great resource for lower grades! This is a great site that was developed by teachers to help their students [|An "unofficial" site for teachers using 6 traits] This site is a couple of years old, but has some good ideas [|The Writing Fix] - This is a cool website, although it's hard to navigate. Worth a look because of the //interactive activities//. Read Write Think Word Matrix - This is a great activity to explore word choice. This lesson plan can be found here. [|A Method for Grading Essays in Any Course] [|Write Source Student Models] [|Interactive Six Trait Writing Process] - "The descriptors, rubrics and examples have been standard fare in many classrooms for years, but this site allows students to rate pieces of writing and make immediate comparisons with the ratings given by English teachers. " [|South Dakota School District Resource] [|S Perkins Collection of 6 Traits Resources] [|6 Traits of Writing - Free PowerPoint Presentations] Practice Scoring - Interactive website that allows the user to view and score a sample essay. May be useful as a model in whole class instruction Federal Way Public Schools in Washington state has a number of demonstration papers available online. They have adapted the Traits based scoring for their own purposes. Includes samples from all grade levels. The Traits - scoring practice Herb Budden - Consultant, see his wiki page with loads of writing resources and ideas

__Grammar__
[|Guide to Grammar and Writing Quiz List]- Capital Community College __[|Grammar Ninja]__ __[|Grammar Gorillas]__ __[|Houghton Mifflin English]__ __[|Power Proofreading]__ [|Big Dog Grammar] - Lessons and Quizzes at the end of the lesson [|On line Quizzes] (City University of Hong Kong) [|Online Writing Lab (OWL) Interactive Quizzes] [|Purdue OWL Grammar Exercises] [|Interactive Exercises] (Chomp Chomp) [|Self Study] – English grammar (a4esl.org) [|English – Skillwise] (BBC) [|Study Zone Grammar] [|Grammar Practice Park] [|Review Parts of Speech] [|They’re, their, and there] [|British Council Grammar Games] [|Verb Tenses Explained with Cartoons] [|Grammar Blast]

__Graphic Organizers__
[|Tools for Reading, Writing, and Thinking] [|Houghton Miflfin Resources grade 3-5] [|Houghton Mifflin Resources grades 6-8] [|Education Place Graphic Organizers] Reading Strategies S.C.O.R.E. Graphic Organizers Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers Write Design Graphic Organizers Education Oasis Teacher Vision Printables Tools for Reading, Writing, and Thinking Houghton Mifflin Resources grades 6-8 Education Place Graphic Organizers

Literacy Zone: Interactive Games and Activities Game Zone - online English games World-English Games & Activities To-Learn-English Quia English Games Free English Games EnglishClub.com - ESL English Games

__Other Resources__
One Stop English English-Zone Free-Reading - high quality, open source reading program for grades K-3 [|Cyberguides] – linking with children's literature Novel Links - index of reading strategies to correlate to trade books [|Literactive] [|Into the Book] - K-4, with rich activities, video reinforcement AdLit.org - "AdLit.org is a national multimedia project offering information and resources to the parents and educators of struggling adolescent readers and writers." [|IKnowThat]- Language Arts [|News Flash Five from PBS] - An interactive news site with animated broadcasts and interactive activities are designed to provide users the means to understand how current events relate to and can affect their lives. Stories read aloud and comprehension activities [|Reading Rockets] [|Dig It - Making Predictions] [|Literature Circles] Lexipedia - Visual dictionary and thesaurus Figures of Speech Served Fresh Scholastic - Resources for Teachers teAchnology - valuable resource for everything thing you might possibly need to teach Language Arts TechMatrix - Assistive Technology Tools and Resources for Learning Microsoft Education Lesson Plans ForLessonPlans.com [|Web English Teacher] - Very extensive guide to language arts sites and lesson plans. [|Kim's Korner] - Ideas for teaching middle school English and tips on classroom management. [|Learner.org] - Professional development and teaching resources. Videos marked VoD may be watched online. This site is by the Annenberg Foundation. [|The National Council of Teachers of English] [|Teaching Language and Literature] - Many, many teaching ideas and lesson plans from Education World. Also take a look at their [|Language Arts] page for more teaching ideas.