Language Arts - Middle & High School

Teachers | Professional Resources

Links verified 12/5/2021

1. Aesop's Fables - Short reading passages with a moral to analyze.
2. American English Pronunciation - Fantastic site! Lessons are available on quite a few topics. Each lesson provides the pattern, gives examples, provided practice (a lot of practice), and ends with a quiz. Each word in the quiz can be pronounced for the student by clicking on the speaker icon. This site would be good for Language Arts or ESL classes.
3. A Word A Day archive - archives of words that have been used since 1994
4. Bibliographic Style
   1. Bibme - [Caution: distracting ads] fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It's the easiest way to build a works cited page.
   2. Citation Generator - they support many popular citation formats
   3. Citation Machine - [Caution: distracting ads] an interactive Web tool designed to assist teachers in modeling the proper use of information property (Students are welcome to use this as well)
   4. Citantiosy*
   5. Citing Sources- Guide to Library Research - Documentation Guidelines: Citing Sources Within Your Paper
   6. MLA, APA, AAA, Chicago (Turabian) Citation Guide - from North Seattle Community College Library
   7. Using American Psychological Association (APA) Format from the Online Writing Laboratory (OWL) at Purdue.
5. Citantiosy*
6. Bibliomania - Bibliomania has more than 2000 free texts, study guides and reference resources
7. Best Internet Tools for Distance Learning
8. Catalogue of Electronic texts, a collection of digital documents collected in the subject areas of English literature, American literature, and Western philosophy. Searchable by author or title.
9. A Chapter a Day - Books online divided up into chapters with vocabulary words for the chapter and quotes. Many classical novels here.
10. Chapter Books On-line - Many classic novels online with tools to help students read on line.
11. Class Anatomy - online "class anatomy"- a documentation and analysis of one instructional period.
12. Classic Short Stories - online text of some of the short story classics.
13. Comic Strips - Make up your own comics, using characters, emotions, and more
14. Common Errors in English Usage - Do you "shutter to think" of horrible misusage of the language? Find that and more at this site.
15. Diagramming Sentences - "Understanding the functions of parts of the speech in a sentence and their relationship to one another can be very helpful in learning to construct good sentences" 
16. Drama - The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Audio Radio Shows - "The finest radio drama of the 1930's was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. This site has many of the surviving shows, and will eventually have all of them."
17. Every-Day-Edit - provides daily practice in a wide variety of basic language skills with a daily paragraph having ten built-in errors of basic spelling, grammar, punctuation, or capitalization
18. English 11 - Reading and Writing - practice tests from Virginia Department of Education released SOL tests
19. English Grammar Quizzes - self checking quizzes
20. English Grammar The Easy Way - This site has a very comprehensive collection of brief grammar explanations for students. A great site if you want some concise support.
21. Folktale of the Month
22. Free Rice - a vocabulary site that donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations with each word you define correctly.
23. Grammar - The most common spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes show in an infographic.
24. Grammar Check - check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes
25. Grammar Exercises - many online quizzes 
26. Grammar and Writing - interactive quizzes
27. Grammar Worksheets and Printables - Free English grammar and vocabulary worksheets and printable handouts
28. Guide to Grammar and Writing - Maintained in memory of Professor of English Charles Darling for English courses at Capital Community College in Connecticut. (for use by the college's students and staff and for the general online community)
29. Homonyms and Homophones
    1. A Feast of Homonyms - a Quia quiz
    2. Homonym Practice - a Quia quiz
    3. Word Confusion - choose the Hard level in this FunBrain quiz
30. Idioms - Set one ; Set two 
31. Idioms and collocations - exercises practice collocations - words that 'sound good together' (rush hour/catch a cold/soft drinks), phrasal verbs - two-or-three word combinations (consisting of a verb and particle) that make sense only if looked at together as one single unit (take off/drop out/get over) and idioms - expressions consisting of words that can't be understood literally. from EnglishGateway site 
32. Interactive Grammar Quizzes - Grammar and punctuation. 
33. Interactive lessons
    1. Middle School
       1. Bibliographic Blunders (6 - 8) Students use notecards to collect information.
       2. Information Elimination (6 - 8) Students model, instruct, and practice narrowing a topic for expository writing.
       3. One Source (6 - 8) Students compare primary and secondary sources.
       4. Paraphrase Craze (6 - 8) Students practice paraphrasing for expository writing.
       5. Prewriting Tactics (6 - 8) Students organize and group related ideas.
       6. Trailblazing Conclusions (6 - 8) Students develop a sense of ending by using closure and thought-provoking statements.
       7. Trailblazing Introductions (6 - 8) Students develop a sense of beginning by using strong leads.
       8. Which Writing? (6 - 8) Students choose an appropriate format for writing.
    2. High School
       1. Setting (9 - 12) Travel back in time with Shakespeare's Romeo as he teaches about setting through great works of literature.
34. The Internet Classics Archive - bringing the wisdom of the classics to the Internet since 1994
35. Jog Lab - create your own mnemonic by entering target words then choosing jog words from the pull down lists
36. Learn Out Loud - podcasts of novels
37. Middle and Secondary English - Language Arts - Resources to support the curriculum in English and Language Arts for K-12 educators.) 
38. Mindomo - interactive graphic organizer (free registration)
39. Novel Guide-Novel Analysis - literary analysis on the web; an educational supplement for better understanding of classic and contemporary Literature Profiles, Metaphor Analysis, Theme Analyses, and Author Biographies.
40. The On-line Books Page - You may search by author, title, or subject.
41. Plagiarism Checker
42. Plagiarism Checker
43. Poe, Edgar Allen, Quote the Raven - Welcome to TeachersFirst's "Interactive Raven," a look at the vocabulary and literary devices in Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem, The Raven. This unit lets users view each stanza of the poem, pointing out Poe's use of some common literary devices.
44. Poetry
    1. Poetry 180 - Welcome to Poetry 180. A Poem a day for American High School students. Poetry can and should be an important part of our daily lives. Poems can inspire and make us think about what it means to be a member of the human race. By just spending a few minutes reading a poem each day, new worlds can be revealed.
    2. Poetry Index of Canonical verse at the Carnegie Mellon University English server. Poets from Angelou to Wordsworth.
    3. 30 days of Poetry - Each lesson gives you a format to follow and student examples. In many cases your teacher will direct you to write more than one poem in a lesson. This gives you an opportunity to use the form and, most often, create an even better poem in doing so. Enjoy your lessons! 
    4. Types of Poetry - there is a list of at least 40 types of poetry and examples of each form!
45. Proofreading Exercises - online with answers
46. Reading Placement Assessments - tests to download (answer key given)
47. Reading Comprehension - free Reading Comprehension worksheets for Middle and High School students to reinforce skills such as context clues and word meanings
48. Reading Comprehension - for High school students 
49. Reading for Results - Online practice, many concepts
50. Reading for Thinking - online passages and questions for many concepts- middle and high school
51. Reading Keys - online passages and questions for many concepts - middle/high school
52. Reading Passages - vocab, word selection, sequencing and conclusion activities.
53. Reading Passages - vocab, word selection, what did you learn, spelling and more.
54. ReadPrint - free online library, thousands of free books.
55. Reading Skill Stories - written for adult ESL learners, these stories can be a timed reading; there is audio for each story so it can be used for a read-along, and there are questions at the end of the stories. 
56. Root Words
    1. Putting Down Roots - Drag and drop the roots into the blanks to complete the words.
    2. Putting Down Roots (2) - Drag and drop the roots into the blanks to complete the words.
    3. Putting Your Roots into Action - Now that you know five new roots, start looking for them in unfamiliar words.
    4. Root Word Lessons - free interactive vocabulary puzzle and activity sessions use Latin and Greek "roots and cells" to help unlock word meanings.
    5. What's a Root? - In this lesson, you'll work with five roots. Once you know a few roots, you'll see them everywhere.
    6. What's a Root? (2) - In this lesson, you'll work with five more roots. .
57. Sentence-combining exercises - a lesson followed by quizzes
58. Short Fiction on the Carnegie Mellon University English server.
59. Short Story Elements - online interactive quiz from Quia
60. Short Story Elements - online quiz 
61. Skimming and Scanning - links that contain lessons and activities to practice these skills.
62. SparkNotes - Study Guides, Message Boards, Complete Texts of an enormous amount of various types of literature taught in High Schools. You must register to get to the guides, but registration is free.
63. Story Elements Questioning Cards - Great for independent work after reading a book.
64. Story Modules - modules designed to test comprehension of a news story (Click on Story Archives on the left to find the stories)
65. Student's Internet Research Guide - This research guide is designed to help students explore the ins and outs of conducting effective research on the Web. The guide also provides help with proper citation formatting. Games and quizzes are included and could be printed.
66. Style Manual by William Strunk Jr. - Reference site to find verse, authors, fiction, nonfiction links.
67. Suffixes
    1. Suffixes Make New Words - drag and drop the suffix to the correct root word to make a new word
    2. Suffixes Say a Lot - pick the best definition of the capitalized word
    3. Success with Suffixes - fill in the blanks with words ending in "er"
68. Summarizing and Paraphrasing - online exercises and lessons.
69. Timed Reading - Read this passage and time yourself!
70. Visual Thesaurus - Really cool way to look up synonyms. It is just a trial version but you can look up a few words at a time without paying.
71. Vocabulary Enrichment
    1. Analogy Quiz1 - Determine which choice has a relationship similar to the original words or phrases. (HS Level)
    2. Analogy Quiz2 - Determine which choice has a relationship similar to the original words or phrases. (HS Level)
    3. English Grammar Vocabulary Words - comprehensive word lists for each building block of grammar
    4. Sentence Completion - Fill in the missing vocabulary words. (Middle/High School level)
    5. Sentence Completion Quiz - Fill in the missing vocabulary words. (Middle/High School level)
    6. Vocabulary Enrichment - Each Quiz picks 10 questions from a fifty word list and you can hear the word spoken, allowing you to not only learn its definition, but how its pronounced.
    7. Vocabulary University - Vocabulary puzzles to enhance vocabulary mastery. These exercises help prepare for SSAT, PSAT, GED, SAT and ACT tests, they supplement personal vocabulary acquisition, and are being used in home-schooling and ESL programs
    8. Vocaboly - Vocabulary test - Multiple choice, different formats
72. The Word Detective on the Web is the online version of The Word Detective, a newspaper column answering readers' questions about words and language.
73. World Wide Words - Each week you will find at least one short article or extended definition of a word which is too new to appear in most dictionaries
74. Word Counter - counts words and characters Word Counter Online SIte
75. Words Count - Vocabulary exercises - self checking
76. Writing Tests - ( Scroll down to the bottom of the page to get to this section )These tests cover vocabulary, writing style, mechanics, focus, and understanding of the topic. Answer key given.

Professional Resources

1. The Compact for Reading Guide is a user-friendly handbook designed to walk your family-school compact team through the steps of building and implementing a Compact for Reading. It provides information, strategies, examples, and checklists to help parents, educators, and community members develop effective, workable compacts that can improve your school, increase family involvement, and increase student skills and achievement in reading.
2. Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children - The focus of this report is prevention. The report sketches a picture of the conditions under which reading is most likely to develop easily - conditions that include stimulating preschool environments, excellent reading instruction, and the absence of any of a wide array of risk factors. 
3. Starting Out Right (A guide for promoting children's reading success) - Parents want to provide their preschool children with a good start in literacy. A school district tells its teachers to change the way they teach reading. Preschool caregivers want to be sure that the children they care for are ready for school. A mother attending a school meeting hears confusing messages about the best way to teach beginning reading. A corporate executive wants the company to support an after-school tutoring program, but is not sure where to start. This book is for all these people. It is written particularly for parents and others who can influence the education and development of young children, especially policy makers, caregivers, and teachers.