ELA Resources
State Websites You Can't Live Without:
- Tennessee's ELA Website: This site contains current standards and information regarding ELA instruction in Tennessee.
- Tennessee Blueprints: This link will take you to the current year's testing blueprints listed by subject and grade level. What are testing blueprints? Assessment blueprints are designed to show educators a summary of what will be assessed in each grade, including a percentage of items that will address each strand of standards. This resource is designed to help educators as they plan for the upcoming school year.- tn.gov
- Writing Rubrics and Anchor Papers- In order to prepare your students to be better writers and live up to state expectations, you must use the state writing rubrics. Anchor papers also help you and your students understand what each level of writing looks like. It's always good to have examples of each level posted in your room and to analyze the anchor papers with your class to understand why they represent the level.
- Tennessee's ELA Website: This site contains current standards and information regarding ELA instruction in Tennessee.
- Tennessee Blueprints: This link will take you to the current year's testing blueprints listed by subject and grade level. What are testing blueprints? Assessment blueprints are designed to show educators a summary of what will be assessed in each grade, including a percentage of items that will address each strand of standards. This resource is designed to help educators as they plan for the upcoming school year.- tn.gov
- Writing Rubrics and Anchor Papers- In order to prepare your students to be better writers and live up to state expectations, you must use the state writing rubrics. Anchor papers also help you and your students understand what each level of writing looks like. It's always good to have examples of each level posted in your room and to analyze the anchor papers with your class to understand why they represent the level.
Assessment Resources:
TN Ready Practice Tests and Item Samplers: Click here to access TN Ready practice tests and item samplers by grade level.
Power Schools: This platform has been purchased by our district to allow teachers to build and/or upload tests so that students' progress can be measured.
Other Resources:
- Core Knowledge: This website has free units. It is the basis for the Literacy Units the state is currently piloting. There are a number of units K-8. There are also science and history & geography units. All materials are free to download and some units have a free "interactive" e-book that reads to the student in English or Spanish. Foundational and remediation lessons cab be found on this site as well.
- Florida Center for Reading Research: FCRR offers free instructional resources for teachers K-5 (although many of the word studies would be appropriate for lower 6-8 readers) The centers are my favorite resources.
- Engage New York: EngageNY is a site that has resources to support both ELA and Math instruction. This site was created to assist NY teachers as they transitioned to Common Core Standards. The Tennessee Department of Education links to many of their resources.
- Core Knowledge: This website has free units. It is the basis for the Literacy Units the state is currently piloting. There are a number of units K-8. There are also science and history & geography units. All materials are free to download and some units have a free "interactive" e-book that reads to the student in English or Spanish. Foundational and remediation lessons cab be found on this site as well.
- Florida Center for Reading Research: FCRR offers free instructional resources for teachers K-5 (although many of the word studies would be appropriate for lower 6-8 readers) The centers are my favorite resources.
- Engage New York: EngageNY is a site that has resources to support both ELA and Math instruction. This site was created to assist NY teachers as they transitioned to Common Core Standards. The Tennessee Department of Education links to many of their resources.
This Reading Mama has tips and links to free printables and posters that could be useful K-5 or to remediate skills with older students.
- Achieve the Core: Here you will find lessons, videos, and more to help you teach the Tennessee State Math and ELA Standards.
- North Carolina Public Schools ELA page: North Carolina has gathered a number of quality resources.
Digital Resources:
Monroe County Schools has adopted Clever as a single sign-on platform to access all digital resources purchased by our district. The following resources can be found by accessing your Clever account.
- IXL:(Grades K-8; 10-11) IXL is personalized learning. With a comprehensive K-12 curriculum, individualized guidance, and real-time analytics, IXL meets the unique needs of each learner. Your students will access this on-line resource by logging in to their Clever accounts.
- Moby Max: (K-12) Mobymax is the most comprehensive learning solution available for both students and teachers. MobyMax combines award-winning curriculum covering 27 K-8 subjects with diagnostic testing, automatic progress monitoring, student motivation tools, communication tools, and more.
Reading Eggs (K-2): Reading Eggs makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities.
- Power Schools: This platform has been purchased by our district to allow teachers to build and/or upload tests so that students' progress can be measured.
- Typing.com (K-12): This is a free online typing program we have selected to teach and practice keyboarding.
- BrainPOP Jr. and BrainPOP (purchased by individual schools - ask your principal): These sites have engaging learning games, animated movies, and activities. They are designed with relevance, depth, and humor to encourage kids on their unique learning paths.
- Khan Academy (K-12) At this site, students can practice at their own pace, first filling in gaps in their understanding and then accelerating their learning.
- BrainPOP Jr. and BrainPOP (purchased by individual schools - ask your principal): These sites have engaging learning games, animated movies, and activities. They are designed with relevance, depth, and humor to encourage kids on their unique learning paths.
- Khan Academy (K-12) At this site, students can practice at their own pace, first filling in gaps in their understanding and then accelerating their learning.
Literature Resources
(Click titles to access.)
Lit 2 Go: Here you will find both audio and text of major classic authors. You can search by topic (i.e. The Civil War – which really gives you a wide range of text options from non-fiction and fiction to speeches), or by Author, Book, Genre, or Readability. Some selections also come with a teaching guide (none of which have impressed me much.) You do not have to download the files in order to hear or read them, but you can if you want to access them when you do not have wifi. The audio and text appear at the bottom of the page after you select your chapter. There are a number of interesting obscure texts like Uncle Tom’s Cabin -Told to the Children, (an adaptation of the original story released to introduce readers between the ages of 9 and 12 to the best known classic novels of the 19th Century) and Vampyre, the first transformation of the vampire from folklore to literature. It predates Dracula by almost 80 years. This site can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, and computers.
American Literature: This site houses classic novels, short stories, fables, fairy tales (the original versions), poems, etc. It’s all free. You can print it, or students can use mobile devices to read it.
American Rhetoric: American Rhetoric houses a speech bank of over 5,000 speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, and more. If it was a history-making event or speech, chances are you can find it here. Go to the website and click “Speech Bank” on the left-hand margin. This will take you to the Speech Bank page. Then search the speeches alphabetically (hint: Speeches are usually organized by first name. Debates like the Lincoln-Douglass debate will fall under “L”.) After the speech, the symbols [T]- text, [A]- audio, and/or [V]-video will appear. There are often multiple audio files to choose from.
Epic Books - This site is currently free for teachers and gives you access to thousands of popular books ranging from A Bad Case of Stripes to Hugo Cabret.
The Tennessee Electronic Library: The Tennessee Electronic Library offers literature and a number of other resources.
American Literature: This site houses classic novels, short stories, fables, fairy tales (the original versions), poems, etc. It’s all free. You can print it, or students can use mobile devices to read it.
American Rhetoric: American Rhetoric houses a speech bank of over 5,000 speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, and more. If it was a history-making event or speech, chances are you can find it here. Go to the website and click “Speech Bank” on the left-hand margin. This will take you to the Speech Bank page. Then search the speeches alphabetically (hint: Speeches are usually organized by first name. Debates like the Lincoln-Douglass debate will fall under “L”.) After the speech, the symbols [T]- text, [A]- audio, and/or [V]-video will appear. There are often multiple audio files to choose from.
Epic Books - This site is currently free for teachers and gives you access to thousands of popular books ranging from A Bad Case of Stripes to Hugo Cabret.
The Tennessee Electronic Library: The Tennessee Electronic Library offers literature and a number of other resources.
Magazines and Articles
(Click titles to access.)
ReadWorks: Free passages. You can search by level, topic, etc. There are also lessons and units available. The questions usually require higher-order thinking skills and there is often a writing task connected to the texts. You can also search for paired texts (although I have better success pairing the texts myself).
Tween Tribune (by Smithsonian): This site is now managed by Smithsonian and requires only a free registration. The TweenTribune team scours the internet for age-appropriate news stories that are of high-interest to tweens and teens. You can access each article at four different Lexile levels allowing teachers to differentiate while students are all accessing the same information allowing for classroom discussions and projects. Students can take quizzes that are scored and delivered to teachers. They can also comment on articles, but teachers are required to approve the comments before they are published.
NewsELA: This free site provides access to current events that can be accessed at 5 different Lexile levels. As a teacher with a free account, you can “Quick Assign” articles to your class as you browse. There are also annotating suggestions in the right-hand margin that you can hide or share with your class during reading assignments. There are also Teacher Resources that can be used as teaching activities with most articles.
NewsELA: This free site provides access to current events that can be accessed at 5 different Lexile levels. As a teacher with a free account, you can “Quick Assign” articles to your class as you browse. There are also annotating suggestions in the right-hand margin that you can hide or share with your class during reading assignments. There are also Teacher Resources that can be used as teaching activities with most articles.
Poetry
(Click titles to access.)
- http://www.gigglepoetry.com/ Giggle poetry has numerous poems and even poems turned into reader’s theaters.
- http://www.poetry4kids.com/poems Kenn Nesbitt’s poetry site. Kenn’s poetry has been published by Scholastic, and there are multiple poems to choose from.
- http://100.best-poems.net/100-best_funny_poems.html This site houses poems by classic poets. You can navigate from this page (the navigation bar is in the right margin) to find love poems, etc . . . You can also search by poets.
- http://shelsilversteinpoems.wordpress.com/ This site hosts an extensive collection of Shel Silverstein poems – even more than you can find on his site - http://www.shelsilverstein.com/books/giraffe-and-half/ Although, his site has cool video readings of his poems.
- http://www.poemhunter.com/ I find this site the easiest to use. Type in the poet and click on his/her name to access numerous poems. Or, type in the title, a quote or lyric to find a particular poem. Classic and modern poetry are both found on this site (Frost – Angelou).