Linz, Stacia

SLM 521

September 2009

AP ENGLISH SITES BIBLIOGRAPHY

This is an incidental, ongoing list of resources for secondary English teachers. It is a personal list, but is designed to be an evolving collection shared with colleagues, particularly those with an AP concentration, and/or those who teach girls’ studies or in all-female schools (I am collecting with this audience in mind).

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome.

—Samuel Johnson

WRITING

William Safire's Rules for Writers—The New York Times’ classic reference from the tongue-in-cheek master on writing is actually very, very useful, and can me a fantastic mnemonic device for students and teachers. This is a great link, because it’s in a clean form (at Scribd) where you can embed, print, etc. Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3033766/William-Safires-Rules-for-Writers

The Writer's Almanac—Garrison Keillor’s daily dose of good writing and information about good writers is always a springboard—that’s how you become a good writer, you read good writing.[Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®] Would be a fantastic daily activity and journal prompt. Date visited—10/1/09

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org

WORDPLAY

Words at Play—This is a list of links which are tools for teaching vocabulary via wordplay. Anagrams, oxymorons, pleonasms, as well as other resources more specific to etymology and spelling are addressed within this page, with links. Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/wordplay.html

Creative Proverbs--Proverbial wisdom from around the world. Proverbs site, searchable by country. Contains information about the country of origin, for approximately 2,000 proverbs. There is also a proverbs search engine containing many more-- which has worked and not worked for me on occasion. Date visited—9/26/09-9/30/09

http://creativeproverbs.com

BYOD—Build Your Own Dictionary. A playful activity within Merriam-Webster’s Word Central site, coming up with new words and dictionary definitions would be a great homework assignment. Date visited—9/29/09

http://www.wordcentral.com/byod/byod_index.php

Homonym List –A pretty definitive list, useful for assignments with wordplay. Not searchable, just a scrolling situation, but really a definitive and nicely presented collection. Date visited—10/1/09

http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html

VOCABULARY/LINGUISTICS BUILDING

Wordie—“Like Flickr, but without the photos.” This is a social networking/Web 2.0 site for words, lists of words and phrases. You can join for free as a student or a teacher, make your own lists, comment, share, and comment on others. This would be great for a lesson plan which asks students to explore a “safe but personal” social networking site. Date visited—10/1/09

http://wordie.org

Focusing on Words http://www.wordfocus.com/ A rich resource of vocabulary information that will enhance your English-vocabulary skills!

Free Rice - English Vocabulary --a philanthropic game site. For every answer you get right, Free Rice donates ten grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger. Vocabulary questions range from simplistic to complicated; a nice daily secondary activity, and quite positively addictive. Date visited: 9/9/09.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&t=499459229041&s=English Vocabulary

Vocabulary Resources --A hub within Web English Teacher for vocabulary activity and instruction. This is not an age or grade-specific group, so each link needs to be evaluated, but it offers a huge range of interesting places to visit for lesson ideas and information. Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/vocab.html

Vocabulary Resources II—this is a great collection of English language vocabulary resources, from the Word Explorations site. These are links for English words and phrases derived from Latin-Greek elements. Peruse etymology resources, expression sources, self-quizzes, or sign up for “a newsletter for logophiles.” It’s a bit of a hodge-podge collection—but it’s a portal I don’t want to lose. Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.wordexplorations.com/vocabulary-resources.html

Daily Buzz Word—A daily vocabulary word offered through Merriam-Webster’s Word Central site. Another easy stop for a student daily activity or journal/vocab prompt. Date visited—9/29/09 http://www.wordcentral.com/buzzword/buzzword.php

STUDENT PUBLISHING and NETWORKING

Scribd—This was a great find! It’s like Google Docs, enhanced performance—and with a social networking twist. You can upload and manage documents, share, rate, discuss, and browse other people’s work. You can upload a variety of formats, including Excels, PDFs, and Powerpoints into fully translatable and sharable Web documents. Millions of uses for the English classroom! Date visited—9/30/09

http://www.scribd.com

POETRY

The Poetry Foundation -- An absolutely fantastic resource. Search for poetry with a powerful tool, by poet, category, occasion, first line or key word. Contains articles, interviews, podcasts and audio or poems. You can link and share any of the poems to Facebook, blogs, Twitter, etc. This is a great place for teachers or students to come and spend the day! Date visited--8/26/09 http://www.poetryfoundation.org

Rhyme Generator -- part of Lulu Poetry.com, this is just a really fun tool which would be helpful to all ages, in poetry, prose, and wordplay. Type in any (English) word and retrieve results for rhyming words, syllables, phrases, homophones and more. Date visited—9/27/09

http://rhyme.poetry.com

GRAMMAR

Web English Teacher--Grammar-- Activities and lesson plans for grammar and parts of speech (also tabs to take you to Mechanics/Conventions and Sentence Structure). No age group is specified (!), but appears to be implied with content. Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/grammar.html

Free Rice - English Grammar – a philanthropic game site. For every grammar question you get right, Free Rice will donate ten grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger. Questions range from simplistic to complicated, but this is a nice daily activity, for students and teachers, and quite addictive. Date visited: 9/9/09. http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&t=351494173394&s=English Grammar

GRAPHICS/VISUAL

Classroom Clipart—an easy stop to find free graphics for presentations and work. Suitable for students or teachers. Pedestrian, but I have always found it useful. Date visited—9/27/09

http://classroomclipart.com/

Wordle --free word cloud generating service based on the text supplied. This can be used to create fantastic visuals for presentations, reports, etc.—and it’s just really, really fun to think visually. Would be a great journal prompt. Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.wordle.net

BIGSPY –This takes all the stories from Digg and puts them into visual format—like a word cloud, making the stories with the greatest number of hits visually prominent. You can make this into a really neat screen saver and keep an eye on what’s “news.” Would be a very interesting component of a media writing/web 2.0 lesson plan. Date visited 9/30/09

http://labs.digg.com/bigspy

RESEARCH/SEARCH ENGINES

Google Caffeine –The beta version of the newest, fastest Google, which was designed to compete with MSN’s new Bing. You can use it now, without any ads. Date visited—9/29/09

http://www2.sandbox.google.com

Google Scholar –A terrific search engine for accessing scholarly articles. Directs students to what’s built right into their own tool bars, even if they are avid “Googlers.” Date viewed—9/16/09

http://scholar.google.com

Deeper Web—a search engine which uses tag clouds, or “Deeper Cloud” (as Google’s deemed it). Free addition for Google users, simply organizes search and allows for navigating the search results differently, through tag clouds. Just a different way of looking at material. Date viewed—9/16/09 http://www.deeperweb.com

ENGLISH TEACHER RESOURCES

NCTE Secondary-- National Council of Teachers of English. A Professional Association of Educators in English Studies, Literacy, and Language Arts. Keep abreast of news, current thinking, research and discussion, subscribe to or read issues of the English Journal. Conference information, web seminars, current events, and access to other secondary level materials. Date visited—9/29/09

http://www.ncte.org/second

International Reading Association --The world’s leading organization of literacy professionals. News from the field, plenty more for subscribers. Free, searchable database of ejournal articles at Reading Online section of the site. Invaluable. Date visited—9/20/09

http://www.readingonline.org/search/search_index.asp http://www.reading.org/General/Default.aspx

Read Write Think--Providing educators and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction. Contains lessons and student materials, grouped by age. This is a product of NCTE and IRA. Date visited—9/29/09

http://www.readwritethink.org

IRA/NCTE Standards-- International Reading Association/National Council of Teachers of English 12 standards for the English Language Arts. Critical to have at your fingertips when planning lessons toward the goal of knowledge and proficiency. Date visited—9/30/09

http://www.readwritethink.org/standards/index.html

LESSON PLANS

Web English Teacher—This is a depot for all kinds of activities and lesson plans, grouped by age and subject within English language arts, as well as a portal for all kinds of interesting, related sites and professional resources! You can spend a lot of time here…Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.webenglishteacher.com

Teachers First--A clean and straightforward site “by teachers and for teachers.” Resources are grouped by subject and grade—without ads. I love the way these reviewed web resources are cleanly displayed. Date visited—9/28/09

http://www.teachersfirst.com/index.cfm

Top English Teaching--printables, power points, exercises, lessons for teaching English. Various grades and levels. Good for meat and potatoes, simple lessons on specifics (ex. “Auxillary verbs”) 9/30 http://www.topenglishteaching.com/english/teaching

ESL Printables--searchable site for English teachers for foreign or a second language…but I am certain it would be outstanding for use in remedial groups and towards overlearning and support of all students. Date visited—9/30/09

http://www.eslprintables.com

GO-TO LISTS, FOR FUN & FAST FACT

Fair Use Chart—A quick and dirty fair use and copyright matrix for teachers. This page also defines copyright and fair use, contains reference information, and answers common question. Date visited—9/29/09

http://home.earthlink.net/~cnew/research.htm#Fair Use Matrix for Teachers

One Hundred Books-- A list of one hundred critical books selected by the National Education Association (1999). Grouped by age To help make these books more useful, we have added book and author links to any TeachersFirst resources and lesson ideas.http://www.teachersfirst.com/100books.cfm

Teacher's Top 100 Books for Children NEA survey of top 100 books for kids (overall, not by age or theme). Interesting as a reference point, and to be culturally conversant. http://www.nea.org/grants/13154.htm

http://www.webenglishteacher.com

BULLYING & RELATIONAL AGGRESSION

The Ophelia Project Bullying and relational aggression resources and support. You can also purchase the curriculum “It has a name: Relational Aggression” here. Date visited—9/25/09

http://www.opheliaproject.org/main/index.htm

GIRLS’ STUDIES

Distinguished Women Encyclopedia of distinguished women, with bios and photos. 9/29 http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/index.html

BLOGS to FOLLOW

Dangerously Irrelevant--ruminations on technology, leadership and the future of our schools. I love Dr. Scott McCleod’s blog, but I will admit, for me as a tech-newbie, this is like being allowed to stay up late and listen to the grown-ups talk after dinner. These are completely fascinating conversations on the latest technology as it relates to leadership and teaching. I don’t always understand it all, but think it’s critical to my personal and professional development to keep reading. Date visited—9/27/09

http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org

Web 2.0: ParticiFaction---“Join the faction of educators participating in the exploration and implementation of Web 2.0 technologies.” This is a fascinating blog to watch—really well written, fast-paced, entertaining and kept current. Date visited—9/30/09

http://particifaction.blogspot.com

Chalkdust –Web English Teachers’ blog (Carla Beard). Posts and issues relating to the same categories contained on the teacher-driven site. Date visited—9/28/09

http://webenglishteacher.com/blog

Word Daze—Word Daze: The Word Lover’s Almanac; One humble high school English teacher’s humble attempt to make every day of the year relevant to the study and appreciation of the English language. Author and teacher Brian Backman’s blog—whoa! There is a lot here to keep up with, but it’s inspiring and will inform what I want to teach. Date visited 10/1/09

http://www.worddaze.blogspot.com

The English Teacher's Companion—Thoughts about teaching, literacy, and English Language Arts in the twenty-first century. Jim Burke’s blog is nicely done—it’s not particularly playful or too personal, but it is informative and well-thought out. Date visited—9/29/09

http://jimburke.typepad.com

NCTE Secondary blog—National Council of Teachers of English blog. The driest of the bunch, still, important reading. It’s tagged really nicely to check out the archives for specifics from communication to lesson planning to positivity. Date visited—9/29/09

http://nctesecondary.blogspot.com

MORE RESOURCES/TRY/MISC

Pecha Kucha -- Japanese for "chatter", this is a new presentation art-form developed by two architects: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. You have to say what you need to say, and be done. This would be a fascinating final exam format. Date visited—9/30/09 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-09/st_pechakucha

Read Write Think Further resources—Hundreds and hundreds of other links related to English language instruction, endorsed by the IRA/NCTE (underlying Read Write Think) . Don’t want to lose this link! Date visited—9/28/09

http://www.readwritethink.org/resources/index.asp

Top 50 Edublogs -- top 50 edublogs, p-12. Collected by Dr. Scott McCleod, of Dangerously Irrelevant. To watch and share. Date visited—9/30/09

9/30 http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/06/top-50-p-12-edu.html