Twitter 25 Word Stories

Challenge your students to write a 25 word story to submit on Twitter.  http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%2325wordstory

Figment

Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you're into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here.

What is Collaborative Writing?

What is Collaborative Writing?

Where's George?

Where’s George: Track US currency -
A great creative writing activity!

Dragon's Den: A Reality TV Simulation for Research Writing (Guest Blogger)

Dragon's Den: A Reality TV Simulation for Research Writing (Guest Blogger) Both my Advanced Composition and First-Year Writing students need to produce better proposals to guide their research over the course of the semester.  First drafts of their proposals generally lack clarity and focus, indicative of new writers stumbling clumsily around a topic rather than pirouetting on the ball of a contentious research question. To address these issues, I designed a scaffolding activity using the television show Dragon's Den as a framework for pitching research ideas. To integrate immediate peer review feedback into the pitch sessions, I used live audience polling as a simple peer-review mechanism for determining which students could proceed to the next stage of the research process, library research.

iCyte

iCyte
Your research. Anywhere.Simplify your world – save, annotate and organize all your research securely in the cloud.

Twist Our Words

Create video sentences with Twist Our Words

How to Cite Twitter and Facebook

How to Cite Twitter and Facebook

AdLit

AdLit.org is a national multimedia project offering information and resources to the parents and educators of struggling adolescent readers and writers. AdLit.org is an educational initiative of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital, and is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and by the Ann B. and Thomas L. Friedman Family Foundation.

Free eBooks at Amazon

From the CBS Early Show news this morning, a direct link to a list of all of Amazon.com's free books (over 16,600!)

FREE eBOOKS

Remember, there is a Kindle app for iPods, iPads, iPhones, so you can download the books and load them onto these devices as well as onto Kindles. You will just need to authorize the iThing with the account you used to download the books from Amazon.

Digital Is... National Writing Project

Digital Is... National Writing Project - The NWP Digital Is website is a teaching-focused knowledge base exploring the art and craft of writing, the teaching and learning of writing, along with provocations that push us to think in new ways about culture and education in the digital age.

PicLits

PicLits - is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.

Google LitTrips- New Resources!

New updates over at Google LitTrips...a great way to experience literature. http://bit.ly/cUcMSC
@kylepace

Digital Book Report Contest

Digital Book Report Contest -

BookJam Author Alan Sitomer Discusses Project Based Learning

Close Me

BookJam Author and 2007 California Teacher of the Year, Alan Sitomer discusses Project Based Learning and Urges Teachers and Administrators to get started with the BookJam Digital Book Report Contest.

BookJam Author and 2007 California Teacher of the Year, Alan Sitomer discusses Project Based Learning and Urges Teachers and Administrators to get started with the BookJam Digital Book Report Contest.

Use NoveList to help students choose age-appropriate books for projects

Access NoveList through Badgerlink.net (it's under EBSCO).  Search by age category, genre, and subgenre to find top-rated modern literature.  Easy navigation, reader ratings, and the ability to print search results make this a great tool for any English classroom.

Top 10 websites to download FREE eBooks

Top 10 websites to download FREE eBooks - rock 'n roll with FREE eBooks in your classroom today!

Looking for a Different Topic for Speeches?

Woices - Listen, create and share FREE geolocalized audioguides.  Share your voice and make the world a more interesting place. 

Have your students create a "walking tour" or guide for a historical marker and post it for the world to learn!

TweenTribune

TweenTribune

Tired of hearing  "I hate to write!" from students?

Here's a solution: TweenTribune turns reluctant readers into willing writers. It's kid-safe, user-friendly and free.

1. Sign up for TweenTribune. It's kid-safe, user-friendly and free. http://tweentribune.com/join

2. Read what hundreds of teachers say: http://tweentribune.com/love

3. Tell a friend: Forward this email to another teacher

3 Free Interactive Movies On The Web Where You Are In Control -  

Your mom told you to never play with your food, but no one ever told you that you shouldn’t play with your fiction. You may know of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and text adventures, but those things are practically relics.

Their more modern manifestation is the interactive movie, and recent years have brought us several high-quality interactive movies available for free right on the web.

Interactive Internet movies, although perhaps a bit gimmicky, are in some ways pushing the envelope with what can be done with a story once you introduce viewer participation. Some have game elements, and some are multimedia experiences that aren’t restricted to just video. All of them give you some control over the experience.

Grammar Bytes!

Grammar Bytes! - 

Comma Splices & Fused Sentences • Fragments • Irregular Verbs • Commas
Pronoun Agreement • Pronoun Case • Pronoun Reference
Subject-Verb Agreement • Word Choice

Prepositions of Time

Prepositions of Time - Get some great tips and videos to help your students understand prepositions.

Conjugate Verbs

Conjugate Verbs - How does conjugation.com work?
Just type the verb that you want to conjugate in any form. Any verb, regular or irregular. Click on “Conjugate.” A new page is instantaneously displayed, with the verb shown in all of its forms, voices and tenses.

FlixTime -- Video Creation

Flixtime - Make an amazing 60-second video - free

Flixtime turns your photos and videos into stunning and unique videos in just minutes! Sign-up for a free account, and upload your images, videos and music. Then, sit back and watch your masterpiece come together!

Triptico - Word Magnets

Triptico - Word Magnets - Great for your Smartboard! Create classroom activities for vocabulary, grammar and lots more!

BibMe

BibMe - Welcome to BibMe! The fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It's the easiest way to build a works cited page. And it's free.

Humorous Rules for Writing

Humorous Rules for Writing - "Since the 1970s at least, lists of humorous rules for writing have circulated around schools, universities, and offices. The humor depends on each rule contradicting the very advice it gives, such as "Don't use no double negatives." " Check out the rest of the article and learn the rules!

Pro Con Lists

Pro Con Lists - A Pro/Con list can help you make more informed decisions by weighing all the positives and negatives. Great for writing your pro con papers!

English Verb Conjugation

English Verb Conjugation - How does conjugation.com work?
Just type the verb that you want to conjugate in any form. Any verb, regular or irregular. Click on “Conjugate.” A new page is instantaneously displayed, with the verb shown in all of its forms, voices and tenses.

Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels - These resources are a work in progress. Only notes from my most recent presentations have been included.

Lightning Bug

Lightning Bug - THE writing companion for young authors. Helping you to write a story from beginning to THE END. GREAT resource!

Tell a Story with Video

The Pigeon Creates a Search Story - Check out this video to get your creative juices flowing.

The Book Seer

The Book Seer - Type in book title and author of a book & let Book Seer recommend others! It is great!!!!

Online Linear Algebra Course from MIT

Online Linear Algebra Course from MIT - The entire course online.

The Brainstormer

The Brainstormer - Brilliant story creation tool - great for interactive whiteboards! Awesome for creative writing or story starters!

The Adjective Detective

The Adjective Detective - What it is: The Adjective Detective is a fun way for your students to learn more about adjectives, superlative adjectives, and comparative adjectives.

Engaging Language Arts Learners with Newer Technologies

Engaging Language Arts Learners with Newer Technologies

View more presentations from Karen Chichester.

What Would Romeo's Facebook Page Look Like?

What Would Romeo's Facebook Page Look Like?- "This is such a great template that can be used in any subject out there. I would use this in my Lit Classes and have student create a Facebook page for characters in a story. Imagine what Romeo and Juliet would post on their pages after a wonderful evening on the balcony. What might Tybalt post on Mercutio's wall after a exchange of harsh words in town? I love being an English teachers because it really allows me to do almost anything I can think of when it comes to projects. English is not the only class that you could use Facebook templates for though."

Huzzah! Better, Bardier, Shmoopier Guides to Romeo, Lear, & Othello

Huzzah! Better, Bardier, Shmoopier Guides to Romeo, Lear, & Othello - We made a major upgrade to our Learning Guides for these classics. All new themes, close readings of quotes, enhanced character analyses, and loads of historical context.

Gotbrainy

Gotbrainy - The site is full of videos and pictures that illustrate words that are commonly found on the SAT. This is a great way to engage students and make studying less tedious.

Have your students create their own!

Click on the link and learn a new word. http://www.gotbrainy.com/videos/1524

BooksShouldBeFree

BooksShouldBeFree.com
Your source for free audio books. Download one in mp3, iPod and iTunes format today.

How Yoda Helps Students Master Shakespeare

How Yoda Helps Students Master Shakespeare - Check out this link with great resources.

Boys Trail Girls in Reading Across States

Boys Trail Girls in Reading Across States - A new study on gender differences in academic achievement, offering what it calls “good news for girls and bad news for boys,” finds that, overall, male students in every state where data were available lag behind females in reading, based on an analysis of recent state test results. At the same time, in mathematics, a subject in which girls have historically trailed, the percentages of both genders scoring “proficient” or higher were roughly the same, with boys edging out girls slightly in some states and girls posting somewhat stronger scores in others.

Check out the rest of the article

Weboword

Weboword - Build your Vocabulary Visually!

12 Resources for Grammar and Punctuation Usage

12 Resources for Grammar and Punctuation Usage - There are many different websites that can be used to teach your students about grammar and punctuation usage. Some of the best are interactive and can serve as fun reinforcement tools for those who are working to retain what they have already learned. Check it out!

Can You Trust the News?

Can You Trust the News?
Teacher Guides on...How to Teach Students to Recognize Good Journalism

Motivating Boy Writers

Motivating Boy Writers
Check out the blog! The goal of the blog is to promote boys writing.

Widgets to Cure Writer's Block

Widgets to Cure Writer's Block - Tons of different ideas to get your kids writing.

What if... William Shakespeare wrote The Big Lebowski?

What if... William Shakespeare wrote The Big Lebowski? - The Two Gentlemen of Lebowski- a play.

Text to Speech Tool

Use this website to turn text into speech, translate text or look up terms.

http://www.dictie.com/make-it-say#

Grammar Bytes- Grammar with an Attitude

Grammar Bytes- Grammar with an Attitude - Great interactive site with interactives, handouts, presentations and more.

Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling - nice poster

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Bob- palindromes

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Bob- palindromes - An homage to early Bob Dylan (the lyrics consist entirely of palindromes) - from "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2003 album "Poodle Hat"