Language Arts
Hot Sites from Online Information Resources Fall 2000
Name of the site: Shakespeare Resource Center
URL (Internet Address): http://www.bardweb.net/
How does this site support the standard above?: 3.4, 3.5 Contains information on Shakespeare and his works. Students can learn about The man, His Works, The Globe Theater, The Authorship Debate and Elizabethan England. They can read his various works as will as read critical debates over Shakespeare. They can learn how the time period influenced the writing of that period and learn about the various customs of the theater.
Name of the site: Noodle Tools
URL (Internet Address): http://noodletools.com/
How does this site support the standard above?: 3.3.17 Helps students to cite sources of information in correct bibliographic format. It also helps to take the drudgery out of teaching bibliographic citation. Students are a lot more willing to use the Internet to help with research.
Name of the site: Writing with Writers
URL (Internet Address): http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/index.htm
How does this site support the standard above?: Scholastic has provided a collection of authors to help guide students through various writing projects. Biography, Folktale, Myth, Poetry, Mystery, Journal & Writing a book exercises are presented. Authors biographies are provided & even hear excerpts from actual works. Follow the plans & receive a Certificate of Completion.
Name of the site: ABC's of the Writing Process
URL (Internet Address): http://www.angelfire.com/wi/writingprocess/secwplinks.html
How does this site support the standard above?: Standard 3.3 "All students will write in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and form for different audiences and purposes." This site is for students and teachers and helps with all aspects of the writing process: prewriting, writing, revising, editing and publishing. It is separated into elementary and secondary. There is a writing process club "chat room" where you can go for ideas if you are "stuck" in the writing process. There are other links, specifically graphic organizer links. Great help for writers! The only problem is, since the site is hosted by Angelfire, a member page kept popping up.
Name of the site: Media Awareness Network
URL (Internet Address): http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/class/default.html
How does this site support the standard above?: Standard 3.5: All students will view, understand, and use nontextual visual information. Media literacy is an area of education that I strongly feel is very important and is not being addressed in today's society. This web site is for parents, educators, students and community leaders. It defines media literacy, or media education, and has hundreds of links. We are becoming more and more "visual", it has become our main form of communication and students and most adults do not know how to interpret these images. Understanding mass media promotes critical thinking skills and can be used across the curriculum. Showing the student what happens on the other side of the camera helps them to realize how they are being influenced. Having students produce their own media will be important for their futures.
Name of the site: http://www.infomotions.com/alex/
URL (Internet Address): http://www.infomotions.com/alex/
How does this site support the standard above?: This is a collection of public domain documents from American and English literature as well as Western philosophy. The Catalogue has a number of unique features. First, not only can you search for and display texts from the collection, but you can also search the content of located texts. For example, you can search for Mark Twain's " The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn." You can then search the content of The Adventures for the words like" fish and belly" to get a description of Huck Finn's father. You can also search the content of multiple documents simultaneously. Another unique feature of the Catalogue is the on-the-fly creation of PDF files. This feature allows you to create simply formatted but very readable documents for printing; the documents in the collection are not necessarily intended to be read online. A third unique feature of the Catalogue is the free goodies available for downloading. These goodies include complete sets of the collected documents and the tools necessary to search them without the use of your Web browser. While you will still need a direct Internet connection, the search tools provide the means for more complex content analysis and enhance access to texts in the collection.
Name of the site: Global Story Train
URL (Internet Address): http://storytrain.kids-space.org/
How does this site support the standard above?: This site corresponds with standard 3.3. Students need to publish their writing and this is just one of many sites where they can do that. They can start a story or add to one already in progress. A nice way to get student work up on the web.
Name of the site: History Channel
URL (Internet Address): http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/
How does this site support the standard above?: This site would be useful for many of the standards in Language Arts. There is an emphasis on public speaking and what better way to improve one's own speaking than by hearing some of the greatest speeches ever made. A comprehensive listing.
Name of the site: Guide to Grammar and Writing
URL (Internet Address): http://ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
How does this site support the standard above?: A detailed explanation of the writing process is arranged in a hierarchy of levels: sentence, paragraph, and essay. Nothing is assumed here. The lessons begin at the beginning with the definition of a sentence and progress from there. The site includes interactive quizzes, sample forms of communication such as the business letter and a research paper, Power Point presentations to use as teaching aids, and links. When in doubt, you can email Grammar on her rocker and she will answer your questions. Prepared by an English/Humanities Professor, this site strongly supports Language Arts Literacy Standard 3.3.
Name of the site: Gander Academy's / Classroom Connect Novel Studies Theme Page
URL (Internet Address): http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/novel_study_connection.htm
How does this site support the standard above?: This site contains links to novel study resources on the web. Themes listed are: book raps, book talks, Literature Circles, Author/Illustrators online, book report ideas, historical fiction, children's book reviews, and novel study guides on-line. It is a comprehensive useful site for teachers featuring in-depth guides to a wide variety of novels that are studied in the classroom. The links to book report ideas, book talks, and Lit Circles are great. Gander Academy is a K-6 Elementary School located in Newfoundland and a 5th grade teacher maintains this page. The site offers information for all grade levels and supports Language Arts Literacy Standard 3.4. (The school's homepage was recently updated, but this page was last updated March 2000, so I hope it will continue to be maintained.)
Name of the site: The MCREL
URL (Internet Address): http://www.mcrel.org/resources/links/hotlinks.asp
How does this site support the standard above?: The Hot Links By Subject/Language Arts link offers lesson plans, activities and curriculum resources. Please pay close attention to Connectionist+, Lesson Plan Library and Related Resources links. They are very helpful!
Name of the site: The Purdue University Owl
URL (Internet Address): http://owl.english.purdue.edu
How does this site support the standard above?: This site offers teachers and students Grammar and Spelling, Writing, English as a Second Language, to research information on the internet and a PowerPoint presentation on how to prepare to write a research paper.
Name of the site: World of Reading
URL (Internet Address): http://www.worldreading.org/
How does this site support the standard above?: This site supports standard 3.4. It encourages children to read critically, also, it provides the opportunity to write and publish (online) a review of the book that they read.
Name of the site: The Prince and I
URL (Internet Address): http://www.nfb.ca/kids/main2.html
How does this site support the standard above?: This site supports standard 3.3 among many others. It is a high-interest site that encourages elementary age children to submit their own Prince and I story each week. A new story will be displayed each week.
Name of the site: Harry Potter Teaching Resources
URL (Internet Address): http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/harry/index.htm
How does this site support the standard above?: This site covers all five Language Arts standards. It is for teachers, by teachers. It is put together by a non-profit organization in England called Primary Resources. I think teachers are smart to use the interest the students have in the Harry Potter books to expand students' reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing abilities. This web site covers each book individually with chapter-by-chapter suggestions for activities. There are also general activities for the whole series. I like the links. There is a link to the official site at Bloomsbury publishers, and many other links. I especially liked the link to Donna hendry's bookmarks of Harry Potter sites.
Name of the site: ABC's of the Writing Process
URL (Internet Address): http://www.angelfire.com/wi/writingprocess/
How does this site support the standard above?: This site supports standard 3.3 on writing. It is divided into sections for prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and publishing. Many links are available for more information and examples. There are graphic organizer links, writing process links for both elementar and secondary students, and descriptive writing links. This site is from Alberta, and was designed to support the Canadian standards. Students may sign up for a "Writing Process Club" for conversation about writing.
Name of the site: Los Angeles TEAM Project
URL (Internet Address): http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/places/language.html
How does this site support the standard above?: Los Angeles School System has a thorough Distance Learning site called TEAMS. Its purpose was to allow teachers to take courses long distance. However this site is full of resources which could be invaluable to anyone working in schools. They have links to other sites and some of these sites are comprehensive electronic libraries. So you can find books online through TEAMS. One interesting link I went into through this was a lesson plan on teaching grammar. It gave me definitions of parts of speech and sample diagrams to use in class. I am not an Language Arts teacher but if I were I would definitely be using this in my day to day teaching.
Name of the site: funbrain
URL (Internet Address): http://funbrain.com
How does this site support the standard above?: I had more fun with this site than I think some students would have. There are many learning games which could be used in class to supplement lessons. I concentrated in with spelling and found two games - Spellaroo and Spellcheck. I went to the intermediate level and found spellcheck a challenge and spellaroo very easy. These two games within funbrain were great ways to reinforce spelling and one which would appeal to our young students. This site is full of games in other areas of the curriculum and should be given more than a glance.
Name of the site: Official Peter Rabbit Site
URL (Internet Address): http://www.peterrabbit.co.uk
How does this site support the standard above?: I am a huge fan of Beatrix Potter and her stories of the rabbits in the north of England. In fact I have visited the writer's cottage. I wanted to find a site for books I remember as a child. Some of the read along sites were for books new to me. One web site had read along books written by the webmaster. But this site is pure and magical. Not only can you take a ride through the brambles and cottages of Peter Rabbit, you can do so in a foreign language. I tried French and realized my French is not that great. Hint: this would be a great site for beginning foreign language students as well The music is great and would appeal to the young and old alike and the artwork of the site are her drawings. I would recommend this to one and all.
Name of the site: Reading, English, Communication ERIC site
URL (Internet Address): http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/
How does this site support the standard above?: This is an ERIC site sponsored by Indiana University. It is geared mainly to teachers but there is much to be gained by parents. This site would support the Language Arts/Communication standard by giving teachers much needed lesson plans on language arts, reading, spelling, storytelling and much more. The lesson plans are simple and easy to follow which I found a definite plus. Sometimes lesson plans online go into such detail and have such a list of supplies that the lesson is just too much work for teachers who need simplicity in their lives. I found one great lesson plan for reading. It involved using the phone book and being able to find information in it. They gave a list of questions you could ask the students who were researching with the phone book such as "if your mother needed special medicine at 2 o'clock in the morning, where would she call?" These are the kind of questions which make an assignment interesting. For an inspiration for a new unit in reading/ language arts/communication, this site would be a great resource.
Name of the site: Houghton Mifflin Education Place
URL (Internet Address): http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/
How does this site support the standard above?: This site supports Language Arts Standard #3.4. This site, published by the Houghton Miffflin Company, offers excellent resources for the classroom teacher, reading specialist, and media specialist. The reading home page offers an author spotlight, classroom activities, games for children, and a monthly theme. The theme included activities, projects, and Internet resources. TECHER VIEW POSTING (www.eduplace.com/tview/) has lesson plans for teachers that are literature based. This page is arranged in grade order and then in alphabetical order, by the title of the book. I used this site to locate information for a lesson plan for the book Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears. When I found a lesson plan, the following information was given: 1. Reading level 2. Read-aloud level 3. The author of the lesson 4. Summary of the story 5. An activity Users of this site are encouraged to submit their own Teacher View lesson plan.
I have this site bookmarked. I to refer to it when I need a fresh idea for a story.
Check it out!
Name of the site: The Children's Literature Web Guide
URL (Internet Address): http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html
How does this site support the standard above?: When you open to this site, the home page offers much useful information about children's literature. the author of this site id David Brown from the University of Calgary in Canada. This site offers information about children's lit book awards, resources for teachers, parents, authors, and illustrators. It has recommended book lists. It has information about authors and directs you to their web pages. I have used this site for this purpose. When I begin an author study, I like to search this site to obtain as much information I can about the author. It also has an index with other sites for author information. I use this information to inform the students about the author. Perhaps a parallel exists between the book and the author. Students can identify the purpose of the story, as they see it, with the intend, or point of view, of the author. This site also gives the user information about children's publishers and booksellers. This site clearly supports standard 3.4. The biographic information about the authors gives the reader insight to the author life, purpose for writing, and the types of books the author felt the need to write
Name of the site: Story Arts Online
URL (Internet Address): http://www.storyarts.org/
How does this site support the standard above?: This site supports N.J. Standard 3.4 which says in part that students will be able to identify elements of a story and identify various literary forms. This is a colorful website contains information on using storytelling in the classroom across the curriculum. There are lesson plans and activities, as well as an idea exchange section, links, and a story arts theater. Some of the ideas include using folktales, songs or pictures to find a story or write one. The links take you to lesson plan sites and educational resources for teachers among others. In the Story Arts Theater you can click on a story to hear it read out loud. This is a section that looks like it would appeal to younger students especially. You can also sign up for a free online newsletter.
Name of the site: Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site
URL (Internet Address): http://www.carolhurst.com
How does this site support the standard above?: This site could support several areas of the language arts standard, including 3.4. This site contains a large amount of material on using children's literature in the classroom. In the Curriculum Areas yoou can find information on several genres, including mysteries. This section also contains themes across the curriculum, such as the Civil War, and describes a variety of books on the subject. The Authors section gives a list of authors with decent-sized articles about the author and their work. This area also contains links to other sites. For example, under Phyllis Naylor there is a link to a site on the Alice books. You can go directly to Amazon.com is you wish to purchase any of the books. However, the ISBN and publisher are also included for you. The Professional topics contains articles that are all apparently written by Carol Hurst. The journal where they appeared is given, but not the date of the issue. A free quarterly online newsletter is also available from this site.