ENGLISH AND THE LANGUAGE ARTS: OPENING NEW DOORS TO LITERATURE
AND LITERACY

Today, reading and writing are being defined by change in even more profound ways. Internet technologies create new literacies, which are required to effectively exploit their potentials. These technologies also make possible new instructional practices to help children acquire the literacies of their future. Traditional definitions of reading and writing will be insufficient if we seek to provide children with the futures they deserve.  We believe the Internet is another door, opening new worlds for you and your students with many exciting opportunities to explore in literature and composition.

Teaching with the Internet: Tricia Abernathy’s Class

Directories for Literature

Directories are well-organized collections of links to important resources in a particular area.  There are a number of great directories for literature:

• The Complete Works of Shakespeare
• Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site
• Imaginary Lands
• Literature Learning Ladders
• WebEnglish Teacher
• Cyberguides
• The Reading Zone of the Internet Public Library
• ALA’s Language and Literature

If you have an interest in Shakespeare, students at MIT have developed a marvelous central site for your classroom needs, The Complete Works of Shakespeare.  This amazing resource contains all of the works of Shakespeare, an electronic glossary for locating the meanings of archaic terms, discussion groups in which your students can ask questions and share ideas, and much, much more.

Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site, is a treasure trove of book reviews, classroom lesson ideas, and technology-related extension ideas sorted by theme, curriculum area, or grade level. This site is a great place to start searching for literature related to a certain classroom theme.

An impressive directory for young adult and children’s literature is Imaginary Lands, a site maintained by Denise Matulka, a youth services librarian in North Dakota.  Be certain to visit another popular site for K-12 literature: Literature Learning Ladders. This wonderful location, being developed by Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson, is a great location we have found for the immediate integration of exceptional books.

Some of the best locations for classic works of literature include:

•Project Gutenberg publishes an average of one e-text every day and currently has about 6,200 e-texts! Here you will find the complete texts of many classic works by authors such as Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Aesop, O Henry, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and many others. Set a bookmark!

• International Children’s Digital Library This collaborative project is celebrating it’s first anniversary of working toward building a digital library of 10,000 international children’s books in at least 100 languages that is freely available via the Internet. You can currently read 324 books online using a Flash-based zoom function and you can search in multiple languages by category, author, title, or region in the world.

• The Academy of American Poets This searchable database includes more than 1200 poems by over 450 American poets organized in a national poetry map. You can also access biographies, photos, and other information about each poet or hear their poems read aloud in the listening booth.

Some of the best central sites for traditional tales include:

• The Encyclopedia Mythica is devoted to myths, folklore, and legends. An outstanding place to begin research in this area.

• Tales of Wonder is an extensive archive of folk and fairy tales from around the world—a must for any cross-cultural unit or for a unit on this genre.

• American Folklore is a unique collection of American folktales, Native American myths and legends, tall tales, weather folklore, and ghost stories from each of the 50 United States makes a great addition to thematic study of multicultural folktales.

• Aesop’s Fables indexes over 655 of Aesop’s fables, many with an accompanying audio component.  The site features a  well-organized table that includes a motto for each. There are links to a discussion board and original mottos for the fables as well as links to a dictionary and a tool that plays soothing music while you read along to your favorite fable!

Other directories for literature contain children’s voices, literature written by children. These sites are great to motivate the writers in your class and show them what is possible. Some of these locations include:

• KidPub A wonderful collection of more than 42,000 stories written by children and maintained by a father in Massachusetts who initially just wanted a place for his daughter to publish her work. Many great stories are located here and great writing activities, too.

• Cyberkids This is a quarterly online magazine written by kids for kids ages 7–11. It includes articles and stories by young writers.

• Global Storytrain In this collaborative writing project children are invited to build one car, or chapter, of each three part storytrain with their own writing and illustration.  Watch this project as it grows.  With over 2,200 stories already written, this site will surely inspire students to try their hand at creative writing.

• Stone Soup This webpage is made up entirely of the creative work of children, ages 8–13. From here, children can listen and read along to recorded stories that were accepted for submission into the printed magazine.

Some of the best central directories for author locations include:

• The Author Corner This non-commercial site provides an extensive set of links to popular authors and illustrators, K-12.

• The BBC Web Guide A great resource from the BBC in the United Kingdom. Go to this site and select “English.” Then search for the name of a specific author or search using the more general term “authors.”

• Authors and Illustrators Although this location features only those authors and illustrators in Houghton-Mifflin’s Reading series, it contains information about a number of popular authors including David Adler, Avi, Paul Fleischman, Jean Fritz, and Gary Paulsen, and includes photos of the authors, a biography, and lists of other books by the author.

• Author Studies Homepage Over 200 authors are featured here, with biographies, photos, interview transcripts, and links to their website. Students are invited to share what they are reading or review student reviews of favorite books, attend real-time online author and illustrator interview sessions or visit several online writing workshops featuring tips from successful authors.

Some contain curriculum materials for using the author’s works in your classrooms. A few of our favorites include:

• Charles Dickens contains all of the works as well as extensive information about his life and about London during the time when he was writing. The perfect site for your study of this author.

• Into the Wardrobe: The C.S. Lewis WWW Site including a biography, an album of photographs, recordings of the author’s voice, many links to other Lewis sites, a listserv address, a usenet address, and even a live chat location. 

• The L.M. Montgomery Institute The official institute’s site for Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables and other works. The location includes information about her life, her books, and sites on Prince Edward Island.

• Knowing Edgar Allan Poe  This website was created by developed by Maryland Public Television to introduce learners to Poe’s work from many perspectives and to guide students as they explore his writing and the facts of his life. Be sure to visit the Classroom Connections portion for critical reading lesson ideas, an online video of “The Raven,” and much more!

• Magic Treehouse Homepage This site features book summaries, links to related websites for further study, online writing opportunities for students, teacher’s guides, and a chance to email the author questions to answer online.

• Charles’ George Orwell Links This site celebrates the life and writings of George Orwell, with extensive links to biographical information, reviews of his work, and many resources to extend the reading of Animal Farm or Nineteen Eighty-Four.

E-MAIL FOR YOU FROM:“Karen Auffhammer” <kauffhammer@msn.com> SUBJECT: Maniac Magee Hello! I have recently read the story “Maniac Magee” by Jerry Spinelli and it is by far one of my favorites. I was so excited to see a site on the WWW on this story. It provides a brief summary of the story, character descriptions, things to discuss with your class, activities and related books. From here you can click to see other popular books that have been reviewed. Karen Auffhammer Curriculum Consultant Central Square Intermediate School Central Square, NY

Central Directories for Writing

There are a number of central sites on the Internet for young writers. These locations are often important sources of support for students who are serious about their writing. Explore these locations, set a bookmark, and invite your students to take advantage of the many resources at each location.

•Writer’s World features a Writer’s Workshop that guides students through writing stories, poems, reviews, and essays with various exercises and writing tips. Students can join or read an archive of unique continuous stories, or exchange questions and writing interests on the discussion board. Be sure to link back to the English Online homepage to access the fully resourced writing units at each grade level.

•Writer’s Web explores topics by the stages of the writing process. Guides, tips, and strategies are offered for older students for getting started, writing first drafts, focusing and connecting ideas, analysis and argument, editing, using sources effectively and writing online. A great resource for high school students!

• Poetry Express If your students need some support for creative writing, this site walks them through the poetry writing process and provides 15 different types of poems to get them started.

• Biography Maker This series of writing supports guides students through the stages of questioning, learning, synthesis, and story telling as part of the process of writing an engaging biography.

• High School Journalism This is the best compilation of resources we have found in this area, created to support and inspire teen journalists and their teachers.

Publishing Student Work on the Internet

The Internet provides new and exciting opportunities to publish your students’ work. This can be done at many locations on dedicated especially to publishing or on a weblog or homepage. You can take advantage of these locations to engage students in comprehensive writing process activities, which include prewriting, drafting, revision, editing, and publishing. Think about submitting it to one of these locations:

• International Kids’ Space Children share their works of art, short stories, and music with others.

• Storyteller from EdByDesign Students can add to the compilation of more than 32,000 stories and have their writing rated by an experienced team of editors.

• Kids Newsroom  A weekly news magazine featuring news, games, information, and articles submitted by kids and schools from around the United States.

•Telling Stories with Wildlife Art This site represents a unique twist on publishing with opportunities to frame stories around online wildlife art through the eyes of a frontier explorer, field guide writer, or museum curator.

• Midlink Magazine This site is home to the award-winning student’s digital magazine for students ages 8–18. It invites submissions based on classroom projects that reflect the creative learning process.

• Kids on the Net  Submit creative writing pieces, access writing tips from successful authors, and explore an interesting guide and models to writing in new online media formats.

Grammar on the Internet

Though the content is the same, grammar sites on the Internet present this information in a manner that is certainly different from the way we learned.

• Guide to Grammar and Writing This excellent central directory features interactive quizzes, information on the principles of composition, grammar logs about English grammar and usage, and much, much more! Be sure to set a bookmark here!

• Hacker Handbook Resources Flash-animated interactive lessons engage students in constructing grammatically correct sentences.  Includes a companion site with student and instructor resources for composition.

•Traditional Grammar: An Interactive Book  provides your students with a step-by-step guide through 12 text-based modules, each followed by a series of interactive quizzes.

• Wacky Web Tales Younger students will love applying their understanding of grammar and parts of speech at this interactive online equivalent to MadLibs.  Students can choose from many original tales or create their own for their online peers to complete.

Keeping It Simple: Using the Internet Workshop

These examples might inspire you to think of your own creative ideas for developing Internet activities that integrate new and foundational literacies.

•  The Magic Treehouse In small groups or with a partner, students can witness the real devastation caused by recent tornadoes, learn how experts tame a tornado, and find directions for creating their own tornado in a soda bottle. You can also use Internet Workshop to invite older readers to make these text-to-world connections.

• Annette Lamb’s Newberys on the Net Students can explore the “Classroom Connections” section of informational links paired with awardwinning titles such as Holes, Island of the Blue Dolphins, or The Watson’s Go To Birmingham.

• Lord of the Flies—After reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies about a group of young boys who are isolated on a desert island, visit Personality and The Lord of the Flies, an excellent example of how to integrate character analysis, critical thinking, written response, and just one website into your Internet Workshop. In this lesson, students review personality types of famous people as described at Kiersey’s Four Temperaments and then associate characters from Lord of the Flies with the personality types listed. For their written response, students compare and contrast two of the characters in the novel from the perspective of each individual’s temperament.

• Julius Caesar Unit—Take advantage of the activities developed at Cyberguides to add to your unit on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. This site contains resources and directions to help students complete four compositions about this classic work: an opinion/comparison-contrast essay, an expository essay, a statement of opinion, and an argumentative essay. Use Internet Workshop to share works in progress as well as completed works. This will prompt conversations about the play and about students’ different interpretations of character, plot, and theme.

• Fairy Tale Character Studies—Engage your class in a study of Cinderella tales from around the world. Nearly every culture has its own version of this classic tale. Compare and contrast different versions to infer what these differences might suggest about the culture associated with each story. Begin with beautifully illustrated versions from your library such as Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe. Then have students explore the Internet for other versions. They may wish to start with  D.L. Ashliman’s collection of Cinderella Stories. Then have students begin exploring the Internet using various search engines for even more versions. For a collection of other fairy tales with many versions to explore, set a bookmark to The SurLaLune Fairy Tales Site.

• Studying Indigenous Peoples’ Literature—If you engage students in a project studying Native Americans or other indigenous peoples, be certain to set a bookmark for Indigenous Peoples Literature, an outstanding site developed by Glenn Welker, or the Native American Lore Index Page, which indexes over 150 Native American stories. Have students explore these sites to find out information about the culture behind each of the books they read.

• Jan Brett’s Stories—If you and your class are reading one of many excellent stories by Jan Brett, invite students to visit the Jan Brett Home Page, and then share what they have discovered during Internet workshop. A similar activity could be done with any author page. This is especially useful to build background knowledge about the author and his/her works.

Using Internet Project

Examples of Internet projects that emphasize the language arts include:

• Flat Stanley: A Travel Buddy Project There are many variations of this project, but in its most basic form, students begin by reading the story Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. They learn that Stanley is squashed flat by a falling bulletin board and then he visits his friends by traveling in an envelope. Students get involved by making paper Flat Stanleys, pack him up with a beginning journal and send him to primary grade classrooms around the world. When Flat Stanley arrives, he has to keep a journal describing his adventures, the cultures he visits, the sites he sees, and the people he meets. Other activities such as calculating mileage and locating Stanley on the map are also used to integrate social studies, science, math, and language arts. To see different examples of this Flat Stanley project, visit Doing A Travel Buddy Project or Flat Stanley Visits Asia. For specific ideas about other projects like this, visit Travel Buddies from oz-TeacherNet.

• SchoolWorld Endangered Species Project In this ongoing project, students from around the world research and report on an endangered or threatened mammal, reptile, insect, or plant and then submit their work to this online database for others to read. Unique collections such as this illustrate the power of students collaboratively constructing age-appropriate knowledge bases of information that can then serve as references for others. Science, geography, and language arts are integrated within this learning unit.

• Middle School Student Created Document Based Questions The purpose of this collaborative project is for students to evaluate primary and secondary documents as intelligent consumers. Students locate one or two primary documents that relate to change, progress, or power issues in their curriculum and then create two questions for each document. Documents and questions are posted on the website and other students are invited to submit their answers for publication. You could design a similar project based on other concepts such as persuasion or propaganda. A similar project for students in Grades 2–4 can be found at Primary Student Created Document Based Questions homepage. These projects integrate critical thinking, visual literacy, social studies, and language arts.

• Monster Exchange Project This very successful Internet Project is entering it’s eighth year and still going strong! Classrooms are paired with other classrooms from around the world. Each student designs an original monster, draws a picture, and writes a description. The classes then exchange descriptions via email and students are challenged to draw their partner’s monster from the written description. This project integrates reading comprehension, writing and revising skills, creativity, and teamwork.

• Newsday Project Eager to find authentic expository writing opportunities for your students? Why not have students publish newsworthy articles about current local, national, and global issues.

Using Webquests

Below we describe a range of webquests that can enhance your language arts curriculum.

• Solving Mysteries: Canine Sleuth Training  This web-based activity would be a great introduction to a genre study on Mysteries! Students build background knowledge about what it takes to be a good detective as they seek to gather information about a crime, the surrounding scene, shreds of evidence, and potential suspects in order to solve the Mystery challenge. The mystery itself is actually one of a series of 30 mysteries archived at MysteryNet’s QuickSolve Mysteries. After solving this mystery and graduating from the Sleuth Training Academy, students are prepared to read and solve other forms of “chillers,” “magic tricks,” and “solve-its” available from this website before trying their hand at writing their own mystery to enter into the growing compilation of “Mysteries by Kids.”

• The Samurai’s Tale This middle school webquest was developed by California teacher Dan Fickett to enhance his students’ reading of Eric Haguard’s novel The Samurai’s Tale. Assuming the role of investigative reporter, part archeologist, part detective, and part psychologist, students report historical, cultural, and thematic discoveries and interpret their meanings with respect to characters and events in the novel. They apply reading strategies that focus attention to important details while also learning more about inferencing and characterization. All of the strategies that we describe as new literacies are integrated in this student quest to draw connections between themselves and the past sons of samurai.

• EGallery of Tragic Heroes in Literature and Life In this webquest, high school students are challenged to immerse themselves in an authentic task to design a website for an I-Zine to teach others about the archetypical pattern of the tragic hero during their unit study on Greek mythology. There is a separate Teacher’s Resource page and a comprehensive rubric evaluation that make this webquest an exceptional one for use in high school English classes.

Using Internet Inquiry

Here are several ideas and examples for using Internet Inquiry with Internet Workshop as you engage students in Language Arts and Literature:

• Why Does the Caged Bird Sing? This literature inquiry project is an example of an open-ended inquiry project that follows a “spiral path of inquiry”. The stages of asking questions, defining procedures, gathering and investigating data, analyzing and manipulating data, reporting findings, and reflection mirrors the central functions of new literacies we describe in this book.

• Living Museum of Literary Authors— Invite students to complete Internet Inquiry on the author of a work they are reading. Have them conduct research using some of the author resources described earlier in this chapter to discover everything they can about their author. Then, invite them to dress up as the author and prepare a display, sharing information they discovered about this person. Have students pose in their costumes as other classes visit your living classroom museum of literary authors reading the displays and viewing the authors. Your students may enjoy a visit to the American Writers: Journey Through History before they begin this project to gather ideas about how author information can be organized for visual presentation.

• Going Beyond the Letters: Creating New ABC Books— If you have younger students who are not quite ready for high levels of open-ended inquiry, you can still engage them in an exciting project that integrates each step of the inquiry process as they explore a common theme to create an original ABC book.

Rich, informational websites designed for developing readers of all ages such as Enchanted Learning’s Zoom Units in geography, animal science, space, and geology or Ben’s Guide to Government for US Kids can be an incredible inspiration for thematic ABC books on so many different topics.  Students can be assigned a certain theme to explore within one of these websites or use a children’s search engine such as Yahooligans or KidsClick to seek examples beginning with each letter of the alphabet.

Some webbased examples of student-created ABC books include:

• Rainforest ABC Book
• Beanie Baby ABC’s in 4th Grade
• Surfing for ABC’s
• Children’s ABC View of Earthquakes Facts and Feelings

Comparing responses to literature on the Internet will provide many opportunities for integrating the language arts while opening windows into the diverse opinions and perspectives of students around the world.

Visiting the Classroom: Germantown Academy’s Fifth Grade Classes in Pennsylvania

Take a few minutes to explore this amazing Fifth Grade Homepage. It highlights student writing projects including dragon poetry, Native American myths, scary stories, student-designed webpages, creative writing samples of an Endangered Earth unit, and much, much more. Their Fifth Grade’s Back to School Page introduces students to the year ahead, reminding them of summer reading tasks and pointing them to pertinent Internet resources for future homework assignments. Be sure to pay a visit to their ever-growing collection of book reviews for kids written by fifth graders and compiled at GA Super Readers. This collection serves as an inspiration to other teachers searching for authentic activities that integrate reading, writing, appreciation of literature, and electronic publishing.  Finally, a link back to Germantown Academy’s school-wide Curricular Technology Plan Implementation site provides an excellent example of how teachers are designing instruction that addresses curriculum standards and school-wide technology competencies while engaging students as active and purposeful learners.

New Literacies in English and Language Arts

Interestingly, the Internet functions as both the source of new challenges in this area as well as the source of excellent instructional supports. The fact that text, images, video, and audio can so easily be downloaded, copied, adapted, and uploaded again to another source makes it difficult for students to truly appreciate the notion of intellectual property and copyright.  To learn more about these challenges, you can read the helpful explanation of Copyright of Fair Use in the Classroom, provided by University of Maryland or explore the Copyright Cyberbee website for access to an interactive copyright quiz, a comprehensive copyright lesson for middle school students, and other informational pieces. For further explanation of fair use policies for educators, Technology & Learning’s Online Educator’s Guide to Copyright and Fair Use is a very helpful guide.

E-MAIL FOR YOU From: Susan Hunsinger-Hoff  (shunsin@germantownacademy.org) Subject: Successfully Integrating Technology Into An Interdisciplinary Curriculum Our Fifth Grade Webpage was initially designed as a means to publish student work.  Onramps such as the one created for our interdisciplinary study of “Endangered Earth,” have provided students and teachers with current web resources for use at home and school, helping the children stay on track with their studies.  Programs like “Super Readers” enable students to use email to submit their reviews for editing and to publish their book reports for others to enjoy and use for selecting books they might like to read.  I also designed a course for fifth graders entitled “Acquiring a Sense of Metaphor” using Blackboard. Susan Hunsinger-Hoff Fifth Grade Teacher and Divisional Technology Coordinator Lower School, Germantown Academy, Ft. Washington, PA

The Internet also provides a host of web-based tools to support your students’ efforts to gather and share information correctly. David Warlick’s permission templates for students and teachers  are designed to help appropriately and efficiently seek permission for using information retrieved online.

For assistance with citing informational resources, you can choose from many resources to locate one that best supports your needs:

• Long Island University’s Citation Style for Research Papers
• David Warlick’s Citation Machine This site has an electronic form that students can fill in to quickly generate a citation in either MLA (Modern Language Association) or APA (American Psychological Association) format. Once generated, the citation can easily be cut and pasted into any word processor or electronic document.

• Oregon School Library’s Citation Maker and How-To Guides for Elementary Students—and Secondary Students— The citation maker at the above two sites automatically generates formatted citations and enables you to maintain a list of citations to save and print out later.

A Final Thought

As you work with the Internet in your classroom, you and your students will discover many new ways to exploit this potential. Be certain to share your successes with others by posting Internet Project ideas for others to join or describe your successful experiences on a mailing list, inviting others to learn from your successful experiences.

Additional Language Arts and Literature Resources on the Internet

A+ Research & Writing for High School and College Students This page of the Internet Public Library will show your students how to write the perfect research paper.

Aaron Shephard’s Readers Theater Page This site contains readers theater scripts you can print out and use in your classroom. It also links to ideas for writing and publishing, parents resources, and storytelling.

African-American Biography Resources This collection of biographies and primary source documents all centered around Black History and prominent African-Americans is sure to encourage an appreciation of diversity within your language arts curriculum.

American Writers II—The Twentieth Century This is the product of a C-SPAN initiative to bring together writers, scholars, historians, and actors to examine the lives and work of selected twentieth-century American writers who have influenced our nation’s history. From here, you can also access C-SPAN’s American Writers: Journey Through History.

Animal Diaries K-6 Home to a worldwide K–6 Internet project developed in the Netherlands in which students write stories about animals (endangered or otherwise) from that animal’s point of view. Participants include students from countries like Brazil, Denmark, Sri Lanka, Puerto Rico, Japan, and the United States. 

BarbWired Set up in New Zealand so that young people between the ages of 12 and 19 can contribute and read articles about their issues and interests. This great model of online student publishing provides links to resources to start your own online classroom newspaper.

Bartleby Great Books Online All the great ones are here for free from Agatha Christie to Emily Dickinson, from W. E. B. Du Bois to T. S. Eliot, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Robert Frost. Read away!

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations Who first coined the phrase “Snug as a bug in a rug?” Using this classic work of famous quotations will quickly tell you it was Benjamin Franklin. This online resource is a tremendous source for great quotations. It contains a wonderful search engine with cross links to famous authors. Set a bookmark!

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Home Page Here is the homepage for the whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels each year. It’s great fun and an energizing assignment to any writing class tired of the same old, same old.

The Children’s Literature Web Guide This site contains a comprehensive and organized array of links to literature resources including online works of literature, resources for teachers, locations about movies developed from literature, resources for parents, resources for storytellers, discussion groups about literature, lists of award winners, information about authors, and much more!

Do The Right Thing  Sponsored by the Grid Club, this is part of England’s official Department for Education and Skills website for 7–11 year olds. It features unique interactive word games involving imagery, idioms, and favorite sayings as well as links to reference materials. Be sure to check out the “Grown-Ups” link.

Electric Soup Accepts submissions of student writers of all ages. There are currently 17 volumes of writing, which when read in order, illustrate the progression of new literacies developed as they become more adept at collaboration and communication using the Internet and other ICT.

Electronic Text Center Collection  Home to more than 70,000 electronic humanities texts in 13 languages and an awesome collection of over 1,800 free e-books, all compiled by the University of Virginia. Check it out! 

English: BBC Education Web Guide This is a set of links for the English curriculum in the United Kingdom, right from the BBC. Learn English from the English. What a novel idea!

English Online Educators will find over 150 fully resourced and downloadable teaching units, professional readings, selected links, and discussion forums.

Face To Face December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001: two days that changed the world forever. Face to Face explores what it means to be an American with the face of the enemy. These are real stories of fear, anger, hatred, loyalty, and trust. Respond on the discussion list or complete an activity.

Favorite Poem Project A collection of 50 short (and free) video documentaries that showcase individual Americans reading and speaking personally about poems they love.

Five Paragraph Essay Wizard For students needing practice with this measure of writing proficiency, this site provides great models of expository, narrative and persuasive writing, and tips for mastering essay writing.

Garbl’s Writing Resources Online This resource is maintained by Gary Larson in Seattle, Washington, who has over 30 years of experience as a writing instructor, an editor, and coordinator of media relations. This site is a comprehensive annotated directory to resources on the writing process, tips for writing persuasively, a list of online writing experts, and an interactive message board to discuss questions and interests about writing with others.

Gifts of Speech: Women’s Speeches from Around the World This site is dedicated to preserving and creating access to speeches by influential contemporary women from around the world. It’s a great resource for expanding biographical studies with links to speeches that have never before been published in print-based texts.

Information Please A one-stop online reference for students and teachers including a dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas, and almanac. Also includes a link to FactMonster for younger children.

Kathy Schrock’s Citation Guides Needing more information about copyright issues in the K–12 learning environment? Look no further than this huge compilation of online references and tools. 

Kids Newsroom Kids news and stories written and posted by kids. A weekly news magazine featuring news, games, information, and submitted articles from kids and schools from around the United States.

KidStack Collections of Children’s Literature This collection compiled by librarians links to hundreds of online children’s classics in English, Spanish, and French. Four other collections of literature for readers of all ages are also housed here, linking you to nearly a million and a half online documents!

Literacy Web  Created at the University of Connecticut, this resource is designed to promote the use of the Internet as a tool to assist classroom teachers in their search for best practices in literacy instruction, including the new literacies of Internet technologies. You can locate information sorted by grade level, literacy topic, or level of research.

Lynch Multimedia Shakespeare  Simplified prose versions of six of Shakespeare’s plays—great for introducing children to his work. There are RealAudio additions to add to the experience as well as a separate classroom version to facilitate group reading.

Magazines This is a central site with links to many outstanding online magazines for kids. A treasure trove of resources.

Moving Words Explore this inspiring example of how new interactive forms of text (e.g., hypertext, animation, video) and diverse perspectives can change our notions of literary response.

Multicultural Resources Here you will find articles about multicultural children’s literature as well as reviews and a host of literature selections organized by cultural groups. It is a real treasure for teachers serious about multicultural literature.

Online Poetry Classroom  Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, this website contains instructional materials, teachers’ forums, and a searchable database of 450 poets and more than 1200 poems to support high school language arts teachers with free online poetry resources.

Paradigm Online Writing Assistant Here is a great resource to help your high school writers polish their writing skills with a variety of formats including: informal essays, thesis/support essays, argumentative essays, and exploratory essays. It also helps students to document their sources appropriately. 

Poetry Aloud: A Directory of Poetry Readings on the Internet Looking for a way to entice students into the world of poetry? Invite them into a virtual listening booth by encouraging them to explore these online links to audio files of various poetry collections.

Reading Online This is the free electronic journal of the International Reading Association. It contains a wealth of resources including sections on the electronic classroom, new literacies, and an international forum. Special features include the use of many multimedia resources and discussion forums where you may comment on articles you read. Set a bookmark!

ReadWriteThink  This site, sponsored by the International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English, and MarcoPolo, leads you to an evergrowing very current list of standards-based lesson plans for all areas of language arts and reading instruction. Set a bookmark to this one for sure and consider submitting your own lesson plan!

Resources for Writers Here you can find all the handouts for spelling and grammatical work developed by the Writing Lab at Purdue University.

Stories from the Web  Managed by the Birmingham libraries in the United Kingdom, this site has grown from a research grant project to stimulate reading, writing, and creativity among 8–11 year olds to an interactive online resource for 8–14 year olds to read, write, and respond to stories and poetry.

TALK: Technology Assisting Literacy Knowledge Explore this Classroom Literacy Guide to find model lessons that integrate software, the Internet and best literacy practices. Select Language Arts Content Area lessons to get started.

TeenLit  This interactive site administered by two secondary teachers in Michigan publishes poetry, short stories, essays, and book reviews from teen writers. Authors can also visit the writer’s workshop for writing tips, join the very active writing discussion boards to critique others’ writing or receive feedback on their own.

The Doucette Index  This index is a search engine limited strictly to children’s and young adult literature. It will find instructional resources on the Internet related to your literature needs. 

The Reading Zone of the Internet Public Library Your students can read answers to questions from authors such as Virginia Hamilton, Timothy Gaffney, Shonto Gegay, and others, read biographies and view photos of many more authors.  Discover links to many authors’ homepages, read original stories or listen to them being read aloud, enter a writing context, see the book recommendations of other students, and much more. Set a bookmark!

Write Site Homepage An interactive language arts and journalism project for middle school students in which students take on the role of journalists—generating leads, gathering facts, and writing stories—using the tools and techniques of real-life journalists.

Writing with Writers: Scholastic Series Students get advice from real authors of 10 different genres as they are walked step-by-step through the brainstorming, writing, and publishing process. Teachers’ guides and extended resources are available for each writing unit.

Online Communities for English and Language Arts

American Association of School Librarians Several electronic discussion lists to support the exchange of ideas and curricular resources with library media specialists.

Homepage: http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/AASL/ Professional_Tools10/Electronic_Discussion_Lists2/Electronic_ Discussion_Lists.htm

CHILDLIT A list devoted to discussion and critical analysis of children’s literature.
         Subscription address: listserv@rutvm1.rutgers.edu
         Homepage: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mjoseph/childlit/about.html

Childrens-Writing A discussion list for children’s writers and illustrators, and anyone interested in writing or drawing for kids.          
          Subscription address: majordomo@lists.mindspring.com

Folklore A folklore discussion list.
          Subscription address: listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu

KIDLIT-L A listserv on children’s literature.
         Subscription address: listserv@bingvmb.cc.binghamton.edu 

RTEACHER A forum for conversations about literacy in both traditional and electronic contexts.  This is a very supportive and diverse group of educators interested in using the Internet for literacy education. We also discuss non-Internet aspects of literacy education.
         Archives:  http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/rteacher.html
         Subscription address: listserv@bookmark.reading.org
         Homepage: http://www.reading.org/virtual/rt_listserv.html
         Archives: http://www.reading.org/archives/rteacher.html

STORYTELL A discussion list for those interested in storytelling.
         Subscription address: STORYTELL-REQUEST@venus.twu.edu

TAWL A listserv discussion group on teaching from a whole language perspective.
         Subscription address: listserv@listserv.arizona.edu