Mansel Wells's List: HS ELA Featured Sites

Reference:
-Columbia Encyclopedia
-The Encyclopedia of World History
-The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy
-The Columbia Gazetteer of North America
-The World Factbook
American Heritage Dictionary
Roget's Thesauri
Bartlett's Quotations plus three other collections of quotations
Eight English Usage Guides
Collections on Religion & Mythology
Five collections of literary history & literature
Gray's Anatomy
Fannie Farmer Cookbook
Emily Pose Etiquette
Robert's Rules of Order

Numerous Anthologies

Do you need a short clip of video to compliment your activity or lesson? No problem. Browse through one of our subject categories or use our advanced search to find a clip that suits your needs.

Explore the power of language! This collection of video segments, activities and lesson plans from public television focuses on literacy skills for early childhood readers through high school students.

English teachers now have a new free resource to help them infuse so-called 21st-century skills into their curriculum, thanks to a collaboration between the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

This new resource--a framework that provides teacher-created models for how 21st-century skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity can be incorporated into English classes--is part of P21's effort to create curriculum maps that demonstrate how to teach key 21st-century skills in the classroom.

The Learning Center is designed to help educators and students develop a better sense of what plagiarism means in the information age, and to teach the planning, organizational, and citation skills essential for producing quality writing and research.
Our site offers information about:

* Plagiarism defined, in easy-to-understand terms
* Tips on how to avoid both internet-based and conventional plagiarism
* Guidelines for proper citation, and links to help with specific citation styles
* Suggestions for developing good research and writing skills
* Answers to frequently asked questions, including explanations for often misunderstood concepts like fair use, public domain, and copyright laws
* Definitions for important research-related terms
* Suggestions for integrating plagiarism education into lesson plans
* Tips for creating assignments that discourage plagiarism and encourage original thinking
* Information on the causes of plagiarism today
* Help with identifying different types of plagiarism, in particular plagiarism from the internet
* Printable handouts for students on plagiarism, proper citation, and paper writing

Steps to eliminate Plagiarism from your classroom

Blog About Books
Presented by National Geographic for Kids, DogEared is a blog about books—good books, funny books, adventure books; books about animals, friendship, pirates, faraway places . . . every kind of book that kids enjoy. Why is the site called “DogEared”? You know when you read a book and you turn the top edge of a page over to mark your place? That’s called a “dog-ear”! Students mark (“dog-ear”) the Web page so they can return to it often in order to read real kids’ reviews and recommendations. They also share their own opinions and create their own reading wish list—as if it were their own online book club.

Sources of grants and other attainable funding, rich resources for 21st century skills, professional development opportunities, free and inexpensive finds and help with research and assessment. Additionally this site offers a deep e-newsletter archive — searchable by keywords — with resources not found in the print editions.

A list of tools to try in the classroom to get student to use online Web 2.0 tools to collaborate, express and write

Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.

Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections.

* It's a dictionary! It's a thesaurus!
* Great for writers, journalists, students, teachers, and artists.
* The online dictionary is available wherever there’s an internet connection.
* No membership required.

A list of fifty open source tools that you can use to write, edit and organize your work.

Free Software Tools

* Choose the Best Search
Choose the best search for your information need based on an analysis of your topic

* Knowledge Base
Easy-to-search database of how-to articles and expert answers to your trickiest citation questions

* NoodleBib MLA Starter
Simple MLA bibliography tool for our youngest scholars (grades 1-5, ESL)

* NoodleBib Express
Individual citations in MLA, APA, or Chicago/Turabian format

This site is an experiment in teaching great literature in a very different way. Using Google Earth, students discover where in the world the greatest road trip stories of all time took place

100 Words That All High School Graduates - And Their Parents - Should Know!

When you click on a search result for a book from the Library Project, you'll see basic bibliographic information about the book, and in many cases, a few snippets – a few sentences showing your search term in context. If the book is out of copyright, you’ll be able to view and download the entire book. In all cases, you'll see links directing you to online bookstores where you can buy the book and libraries where you can borrow it.

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can:

* Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go,
* Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer,
* View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen,
* Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.

You can browse by author or title.
You can also use it in iTunes.

Searches numerous content partners from the former Marco Polo group. You can search by content area, grade level and media type.

Litscape.com provides free access to great works of classic literature. These works are presented in a friendly format for your reading pleasure. All works are indexed by title, first line, last line, and moral (for fables).

Watch student writing come alive with free online writing tools. Publish student writing online, participate in collaborative writing, or develop interactive fiction. Tools can be used either by students in grades 7-12 or by K-12 teachers. Included: A dozen Web sites with online or downloadable tools for improving student and teacher writing.Watch student writing come alive with free online writing tools. Publish student writing online, participate in collaborative writing, or develop interactive fiction. Tools can be used either by students in grades 7-12 or by K-12 teachers. Included: A dozen Web sites with online or downloadable tools for improving student and teacher writing.