Language+Arts

Language Arts Links • [|**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**] • **[|American Library Association (ALA)]** [|Scholastic.com Teacher Resources] [|Middle Web Language Arts resources] 8th Grade Curriculum Materials

Some of the best central sites for traditional tales include: 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:
 * • [|**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!**
 * • [|**][|**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.**

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.**

[|Character Scrapbook]

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.