English Literature Websites
Writers in the USA: 1860-1960: Brief biographies of seventy-eight writers born in the United States. This includes novelists and playwrights such as Louisa May Alcott, Sherwood Anderson, James Baldwin, Edward Bellamy, Ambrose Bierce, Mary Borden, John Jay Chapman, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser,Ralph Ellison, Hamlin Garland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, Edwin Markham, Arthur Miller, Frank Norris, Clifford Odets, Eugene O'Neill, Dorothy Parker, David Graham Phillips, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Edmund Wilson and Richard Wright.
English Teaching in the UK: This site is maintained by Harry Dodds, a former Head of English in Oxfordshire, and now Senior Lecturer in Education and freelance in English and ICT. Harry has set up this site to be a forum for teachers of English. The site provides nearly 3,000 links links to other websites under headings such as A Level Resources, Booklists, Children's Literature, Classics, Antiquity, Mythologies, Drama and Theatres, Essentials for Teachers, Gender, Hypertext Writing, Key Agencies, Literacy, Literature Resources, Teachers as Managers, Old English Resources, Poetry, Reference Materials, Lesson Plans, Revision Pages, Special Needs, Subject Organisations, Student Self-Assessment and Writing your own Web Pages.
Andrew Moore's Resource website is a site is a collection of guides and tutorials for students, teachers and trainee teachers of English language and literature. The materials are aimed at the upper end of secondary education in the UK, but many are suitable for college and university students. The number of resources on the site is not vast - just over a hundred - but this can be misleading, as each guide is very substantial. The guides currently cover the whole curriculum for GCSE English, and most areas of GCE English Language. There are also plenty of materials for KS3 English, media at KS3, GCSE English literature and media, and GCE English literature and theatre studies. The author is an experienced teacher who has worked as an examiner for English and literature. The resources are written to help students succeed, without letting work take over their lives - at least, that's the theory.
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GCSE English: GCSE Guide is a site developed specifically for students and for those wanting help with GCSE level exams. It has been created in a simple way, with a very wide range of content that enables quick and valuable usage. The site is wholly free to use and is frequently used by teachers, pupils, college students and professors from all around the world. The site includes an English section with every topic necessary for GCSE level exams, coursework advice and practise papers with answers. Finally there is also a Bookshop where carefully selected texts have been added to give that extra bit of help.
First World War Literature: A collection of biographies of men and women who wrote about the First World War. There are sections on War Poets (16), War Journalists (34) and Writers and the War (26). The website also features entries on Accredited War Journalists, Defence of the Realm Act, British War Journalism, War Office Press Bureau and journals published during the war such as Workers' Dreadnought, Simplicissimus, Kladderadatsch and The Masses.
Stories from Rainbow's Edge: Designed to brighten KS2 Literacy Hour, Rainbow's Edge is a small village which contains most of the Nursery Rhyme characters that you have heard about. They spend their time wandering through the village telling their stories. But these stories are not their usual stories. They try to answer some unasked questions and are designed to make you think!
Charlotte Bronte: One of the many websites produced by George Landow and his team at Brown University. The Biographical section includes a 'A Brief Biography', 'Autobiographical Elements in Jane Eyre', 'Charlotte Bronte Chronology' and on a website in Japan, an 'E-text version of Elizabeth Gaskell's 'The Life of Charlotte Bronte'. The 'Political and Social Contexts of Jane Eyre' is particularly interesting with information on 'The Governess and Class Prejudice', 'Class Attitudes in Jane Eyre', 'Age Difference in Victorian Marriages', 'The Position of Middle Class Women' and 'Is Jane Eyre a Feminist Novel?'
Infant Explorer: An excellent website for Key Stage 1 produced by teachers working with the Canterbury Environment Education Centre. Every term a new story designed to be used within the literacy hour is added and so far The Swan Story, In the Autumn and Sebastian's Waddle are available from the site. Each story encourages the children to explore seasonal changes in the environment and includes NLS keywords, photographs, moving graphics and sounds. The story contains interactive sections which encourages the use of email and provides opportunities for the children's work to be published on the site.
Gareth Pitchford's Primary Resources: Illustrated by humorous cartoons, Pitchford has provided a wide range of lesson ideas and resources for primary teachers. This includes a good section on Literacy Hour Resources such as 'Nouns and Adjectives Game', 'Lego Instructions', 'Types of Sentences', 'Conjunctions' and 'Thesaurus Work'. Pitchford, who teaches at Edleston Primary School, also provides materials for Maths, Science and Art and numerous links, including one to Paul Cockcroft's Literacy Hour Resources.
William Shakespeare: Created and maintained by Jeremy Hylton at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, this website contains the electronic version of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. A powerful search-engine enables the user to search all the material for selected words or phrases. There is also a chronological and alphabetical listing of the plays, a collection of the most popular Shakespearean quotations, and a detailed glossary. Another section deals with the most frequently asked questions by users. The discussion area is very popular and often involves pleas for help with essay titles such as "Comic Female Monologues" and "Triumph and Tragedy in Shakespeare's Life". There is also a comprehensive list of other Shakespeare resources on the Internet.
Absolute Shakespeare: Created by James Hodge the Absolute Shakespeare contains Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and poems. Study Shakespeare with plot summaries, essays, character analyses, quotes, biography, pictures, timeline, trivia, the Globe Theatre and links.
The Victorian Web: The Victorian Web is the result of Brown University's Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship Intermedia Project. At the moment there are 44 British writers on the website. This includes Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lord Tennyson. Each author has an overview page where the material is listed under the following headings: Biography, Works, Victorianism, Science, Literary Relations, Visual Arts, Themes, Setting, Characterization, Image & Symbol, Narration, Genre, Religion and Philosophy and Related Websites. These sections might include one page of information or a list of twenty or more pages. This site is a great research archive and fully deserves the many awards it has received.
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Robert Louis Stevenson website is managed by Richard Dury at the University of Bergamo. The website receives considerable support from the Robert Louis Stevenson Society based in Australia and Edinburgh's Robert Louis Stephenson Club. Material is listed under the following headings: Life and Works, E-Texts, Images, Museums and Library Collections, Events, Bibliographies and Links.
Children's Storybooks: This websites provides a collection of illustrated stories for young children to read online. Titles include Round Bird Can't Fly, Kitty Wants a Box, Buzzy Bee, The Counting Story, Alphabet, Animals Can See at the Zoo and Farm Animals. Some of the stories have linking activities such as Riddles, Maze and Colouring Book. The website also includes online stories for older children and young adults.
Free Resources for English Teaching (FRET): This website provides free, printable resources, lesson plans and schemes of work for teachers of English language and literature at secondary level. Taking the strain out of your job so that you don't need to... um... fret! The site is organised according to the National Curriculum Orders for English covering reading, (poetry, prose, drama, media, non-fiction) writing and speaking / listening in the relevant key stages so just think of FRET as your online, Departmental filing cabinet. Contributions also welcome.
Native American Stories: A website that features stories from native American tribes, which include contemporary, humorous, tragic, and older 19th century narratives about traditional tribal lifeways. There are also traditional stories, myths, legends, tall tales and teaching stories. The website, produced by Paula Giese, also includes a collection of biographies of late 19th and early 20th century authors.
Under5s is the site for everyone involved in pre-school education and childcare; teachers, nursery nurses, students, child minders, nannies, and of course, parents. The creators of this website believe that preschool is the most important stage for learning; positive experiences provided at this time having a lifelong influence. The authors also believe that education should be fun, and actively encourage learning through play. The site has free information and resources, including - topic webs, lesson plans, worksheets, colouring pages, activities and more. It is also an interactive site with message boards, feedback forms and polls.
Storytellers: Native American Authors Online is an collection of websites for published authors. Most of these sites have been constructed with the collaboration of the author. The rest are either the author's independent site or a site constructed for a college course. A special emphasis has been placed upon poets as there is less information available for these writers. Included on each site is a photograph, a short biography, some of the author's writing (typically poetry), the awards the writer has won, a list of publications, including anthologies, and a bookshop where these books may be purchased. A calendar of the public appearances for the authors is available, and virtual greeting cards with portraits of many of the authors can be sent. Links to related websites are also provided.
Poetry Class: The Poetry Class website reflects the ethos of taking the fear out of poetry. What this site offers is plain language, printable poetry workshops for immediate use in classrooms, a glossary of terms, interviews with poets, recommended books, and key stage requirements tagged to particular poetry workshops on our site. Poetry Class vet each external poetry site listed in our resources section to ensure that it matches its standards for clear language, contains useful information about (or examples of) poetry and poetic forms, and is easily navigable for all users.
Representative Poetry On-line includes about 2,350 English poems by 368 poets from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the work of living poets such as Marge Piercy and Mark Doty. This anthology represents poets from Africa, Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. Its collections build on a university teaching textbook published by the University of Toronto Press from 1912 until 1967 to which several dozen scholars contributed, including Kathleen Coburn, Northrop Frye, Marshall McLuhan, Donald Theall, and R. S. Woof. Representative Poetry On-line serves both the poetry student and teacher at school and post-secondary levels, and the poetry lover. It offers classical critical works on poetry, a glossary of poetic terms, annotations on words or passages in the poems, and four indexes (poets, titles, first lines, chronology, and calendar). It represents good poetry of all periods and types, African-American, children's, classical, comic, feminist, and popular, and aims at giving a reliable, helpful edition of each poem.
Poetry4kids is the biggest collection of hilarious poetry for kids anywhere on the net. Written by popular children's poet Kenn Nesbitt, poetry4kids is packed with funny, whimsical, clever and zany poems, and is guaranteed to make you giggle. In addition, Mr. Nesbitt's "How To" section teaches children how to write their own funny poetry, and his "Link" page boasts one of the Internet's most comprehensive listings of children's poetry resources. If you like humorous poetry, don't miss this site.
Walt Whitman: The Walt Whitman Archive is an electronic research and teaching tool that sets out to make Whitman’s vast work, for the first time, easily and conveniently accessible to scholars, students, and general readers. Whitman, America’s most influential poet and one of the four or five most innovative and significant writers in United States history, is the most challenging of all American authors in terms of the textual difficulties his work presents. He left behind an enormous amount of written material, and his major life work, Leaves of Grass, went through six very different editions, each of which was issued in a number of formats, creating a book that is probably best studied as numerous distinct creations rather than as a single revised work. His many notebooks, manuscript fragments, prose essays, letters, and voluminous journalistic articles all offer key cultural and biographical contexts for his poetry. The Archive sets out to incorporate as much of this material as possible, drawing on the resources of libraries and collections from around the United States and around the world.
The Tolkien Society is an international organisation with the aim to encourage and further interest in the life and works of the late Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, author of two of the most well-known and best-loved books of the late 20th Century, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This site has information about JRR Tolkien, the books he wrote, his life and books others have written about him.
Novel Guide claims to be the premier free source for literary analysis on the web and aims to provide an educational supplement for better understanding of classic and contemporary literature. It gives a summary of chapters, character profiles and top ten quotes.
Spelling it Right features more than seventy pages of advice and exercises. Worksheets emphasise spelling patterns rather than spelling rules and deal with topics such as syllables, memorising strategies, word beginnings and endings, consonant blends, proof reading, adding prefixes and suffixes. Roger Smith, an experienced English teacher and examiner, originally aimed the site at parents who were concerned about their children’s spelling and were keen to help them improve. However, it soon became apparent that adults were also using the site to overcome their own spelling weaknesses. Teachers, too, print out the worksheets for use in the classroom and many schools and colleges in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand now include a link on their own web sites so that parents, students and teachers can easily access Spelling it Right.
Of Mice and Men: An excellent website for anyone teaching or studying John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. The website is designed to be an annotative guide to the novel. As you travel through the site, you will find hundreds of definitions to help you get more out of your reading. Click on any one of the chapter links in the frame on the left. There you will first find a short synopsis of the chapter. You will also find phrases and sentences from the book that contain words that students may have had trouble understanding. Click on any of the highlighted words, and you'll be taken to a glossary page where you will be able to find the word's definition. The website also provides help with allusions (references to various people, things, geographical locations, etc.) and idioms (expressions).
Wired for Books: Read, listen, watch: these are the options for visitors to the website, Wired for Books. Using streaming media to deliver sound and video, the folks at the Ohio University Telecommunications Center are trying to get people, both young and old, excited about books. The offerings range from scholarly discussions to children's stories, from Shakespeare to Anne Rice. In-house audio productions of Macbeth and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland attract the audio book lovers, as do CBS Radio's famous author interviews, conducted by Don Swaim from the 1970s to the 1990s. The site also provides a virtual space for Ohio University writers and scholars. Notable local authors include Terry Anderson reading his poems from The Den of Lions, written while he was held hostage in Beirut during Lebanon's bloody civil war. Sometimes, special visitors to the university, such as Antonya Nelson, (In the Land of Men) stop by to record a story.
Charles Dickens: David Perdue's impressive website provides a comprehensive account on the life and work of Charles Dickens. The site includes a detailed biography of Dickens by David Cody, notes on his complete work and a compendium of his characters. There is also a timeline, an interactive map of 19th century London, an article on Dickens' journalistic career and a message board where you can post questions on Dickens.
Little Explorers: This website provides 1,885 illustrated dictionary entries. Each word is used in a meaningful example sentence. Most entries have links to a related web site. Just click on an underlined word (or its accompanying picture), and you'll link to a great web site related to it. A picture-dictionary format is used to link to hundreds of carefully-chosen child-friendly sites around the world. Since the pictures are links, even pre-readers can surf with a minimum of help and guidance from their favorite adult. Older kids can use Little Explorers as a school reference. This is the English version; just click to use the English-French, English-German, English-Italian, English-Portuguese, or the English-Spanish version.
Project Gutenberg: This website publishes out-of-copyright works online for free. This generally means that the Gutenberg texts are taken from books published pre-1923. So you won't find the latest bestsellers or modern computer books here. You will find the classic books from the start of this century and previous centuries, from authors like Shakespeare, Poe, Dante, as well as well-loved favorites like the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Tarzan and Mars books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alice's adventures in Wonderland as told by Lewis Carroll, and thousands of others.
Glossary of Technical Theatre Terms: This website produced by Theatre Crafts includes a list of over 1250 definitions. The material is listed under Lighting, Sound, Stage Management, Costume, Stage Design, Rigging, Theatre Building, Directing, Theatre Jobs, Administration and Forms of Theatre. A useful website for any teacher or student who wants to develop detailed knowledge of theatre terms.
Word Detective: This is the online version of the Word Detective, a newspaper column that answers questions about words and language. The Word Detective is written by Evan Morris and appears in newspapers in the U.S., Mexico and Japan. The Word Detective receives hundreds of questions every week, and Morris does not promise to answer every question he receives. If the question is answered, it will appear first in The Word Detective newspaper column and then be posted on this web page. You can also buy a hardback collection of The Word Detective columns from the site.
ClassicReader: At ClassicReader you can read, search, and annotate great works of literature by authors such as Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare, Aldous Huxley, Thomas Hardy, and many others. The collection currently contains 651 books and 906 short stories by 196 authors. This includes 96 books for children. New works are added to the collection on a regular basis, many at the suggestion of readers. The works are split into seven categories which may be accessed via the links at the left of every page.
Elizabeth Gaskell: This website, created by Mitsuharu Matsuoka of Japan, is devoted to the work of Elizabeth Gaskell. 'Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life' was published in 1848. With its cast of working-class characters and its attempt to address key social issues such as urban poverty, Chartism and the emerging trade union movement, Gaskell's novel deeply shocked Victorian society. In her books Gaskell expressed a deep sympathy for the poor and suggested the need for large-scale social reform. As well as Mary Barton the website includes E-texts of Cranford (1851), Ruth (1853), North and South (1855), Sylvia's Lovers (1863) and Wives and Lovers (1866).
Roald Dahl: An educational website dedicated to the work of Roald Dahl. It includes biography of Dahl, timelines, pictures, articles, games, polls, downloads, greeting cards, auctions and contests. In the Classroom area there are resources under the headings Student Help and Teacher Ideas.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts is collection of digital documents. The scope of documents in the collection include items from American literature, English literature, and Western philosophy. The Catalogue has a number of unique features. First, not only can you search for and display texts from the collection, but you can also search the content of located texts. Moreover, you can search the content of multiple documents simultaneously. For example, you can first locate all the documents in the collection authored by Mark Twain. Next, you can search selected documents for something like "slav" (which includes slave, slaves, slavery, etc.) to draw out themes across texts.
Jane Austen: A comprehensive website on the life and work of Jane Austen. The site has links to annotated and illustrated e-texts versions of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. Students can also access her minor works, poems and letters. There is also a collection of online academic articles on Austen available from the site.
Novel Guide: This free website provides an educational supplement for better understanding of contemporary and classic literature. It currently features 72 books but it adds more each week. Recent additions include Measure for Measure, Huckleberry Finn, and Notes from the Underground. The most popular books with students include Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm and The Great Gatsby. The material is divided into six sections: Novel Summary, Character Profiles, Metaphor Analysis, Theme Analysis, Top Ten Quotes and a Biography.
Book Box: This Channel 4 website is aimed at encouraging 9 to 13 year-olds to read. It provides information on 40 popular writers of children's classics along with interviews, games and activities. There is also a writing toolkit to aid creative writing. Authors featured include Roald Dahl, Jamila Gavin, Anthony Horowitz, Terry Jones, Beverley Naidoo, Terry Prachett, Philip Pullman and J. K. Rowling.
World Wide Words: This website investigates international English from a British viewpoint. Created by Michael Quinion, the 1200 plus pages is divided into sections, each with its own theme and index. Sections include Articles, Reviews, Topical Words, Turns of Phrase and Weird Words. There is also a free World Wide Words newsletter that goes out every Saturday.
Dictionary of Slang: A large online dictionary on the rich colourful language we call slang. Produced by Ted Duckworth, the website adds new entries every month. If you are unable to immediately find the term you are looking for, try the slang search. A short essay giving an outline of the parameters of this site and brief information on slang can be accessed on the introduction page.
Ye Olde English Sayings: Explanations of English sayings and customs. Recent additions include clink, black market, son of a gun, patent leather, done to a turn, beat about the bush, cut through the red tape, getting tanked, pitcher, wet your whistle, saved by the bell, threshold, chew the fat, burning the candle at both ends, giving them the cold shoulder, getting a square meal, frog in the throat, upper crust, eating humble pie, turn the tables and clean your plate before you have dessert.
Luminarium: This website, created by Anniina Jokinen, combines three sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. The material is organised under three headings: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century Literature. Each entry includes a brief biography plus links to articles, quotes and online versions of the writer's work. The website is extremely well designed and contains music and art from the respective time periods.
Literacy Matters: The site specializes in providing free literacy lesson plans and resources for Early Years to Y7 teachers. The Medium term and weekly lesson plans are based on good texts and are cross referenced to the National Literacy Strategy Framework for Teaching objectives. The plans are written by former teachers who continue to try out these ideas in the classroom. The site also contains an 'Ask the Expert' section, a discussion forum and has many useful links.
LibrarySpot: Published by StartSpot Mediaworks in the Northwestern University, LibrarySpot is the first in a family of vertical information portals designed to make finding the best topical information on the Internet a quick, easy and enjoyable experience. LibrarySpot is a free virtual library resource center for educators and students, librarians and their patrons, families, businesses and just about anyone exploring the Web for valuable research information. To date, LibrarySpot has received more than 30 awards and honors.
Roget's Thesaurus: Peter Roget was a physician at the Manchester Infirmary. As a young man he began to compile a simple wordlist for his own use and during his lifetime he continued to improve and add to it. In 1852 he published his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, a collection of words and phrases arranged according to ideas rather than alphabetically. This website provides a free online version of this amazing work.
Fetch Book Info: This website provides is a quick way to compare prices of new and used books. Whether it's used college books, used textbooks, new fiction books or new poetry books, it will find the book stores providing the lowest available prices. Just enter the name of the book you are looking for, and we will find book reviews, alternative books and the store providing the best price after comparing dozens of book stores.
Stufun: Studies need not be boring. It can be interesting and students can enjoy learning. This is the motto of Stufun. The first phase of Stufun included definitions of the grammatical terms, questions in pictorial forms, quizzes and exercises which would encourage students to think. To make it more interesting, it has introduced eight cartoon characters who are a part of the Stufun family. The second phase of Stufun includes Gictionary (Online Picture Dictionary), Similar Sounding Words and Interactive Exercises.
Guide to Grammar and Style: A collection of articles on grammar and style by Jack Lynch. The entries are of two types: specific articles on usage, and more general articles on style. The specific articles cover such mechanical things as when to use a semicolon and what a dangling participle is; the general articles discuss ways to make "proper" writing even better. The specific articles can be further divided into two classes: (1) grammatical rules and matters of house style, matters rather of precedent than of taste; and (2) more subjective suggestions for making your writing clearer, more forceful, and more graceful. The specific articles are intended for quick reference, such as when you have to find out whether which or that is appropriate.
Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Wikipedia is an international, open content, collaboratively developed encyclopedia. The project started in January 2001 and currently covers a vast spectrum of subjects and has over 100,000 articles in English as well as about 37,000 articles in other languages. The Literature Encyclopedia includes sections on Genres, Literary Techniques, Literary Figures, Literary Themes and literature by country or language.
John Keats: A comprehensive study of the life and works of John Keats. The website includes a biography, a chronology of his life and work, in-depth studies (Byron on Keats, Shelley on Keats, Fanny Brawne, Keats and Rome), selections from his letters, contemporary descriptions, latest news on John Keats (new biographies etc.), critical opinions, images, bibliography and links.
Dorothy Parker: Dot City was launched in 1998 to create something unique online: a site devoted to Dorothy Parker's life in New York. The award-winning writer and peerless wit was a quintessential New Yorker, and that's what this site celebrates. Dot City takes you to her homes and apartments, the hangouts where Mrs. Parker and the Algonquin Round Table met, and even to a few places you may not have heard about. You can also listen to Dorothy Parker reading more than 30 poems. Autographs and interviews are in The Gallery for Parkerites; visitors can explore Dottie's days in Hollywood, the latest news items and also links to related sites.
Jack London: A website devoted to the life and times of Jack London. The website includes a biography, photographs and articles about Jack London and his family. The website provides online versions of several of his short stories and the novels The Call of the Wild, White Fang and The Sea-Wolf. There are also newspaper articles that he wrote while covering the Russo-Japanese War and the Russian Revolution.
Storytelling in the Classroom: David James has reduced his full-time teaching in order to promote the use of Storytelling in the Classroom. The website provides everything you need to deliver lessons, whose targets meet several of the National Curriculum criteria, to Primary School children upwards. Free lesson plans, texts, activities, assessment sheets and worksheets are available as is a download of David James telling "Call of the Sea". The SEN area provides any number of short tales with related activities which form self-delivering literacy lessons for 11 year olds.
Litnotes UK is a website for teachers and students studying AQA English Language and Literature and Media Studies. The site contains comprehensive notes on set texts, language and media topics. Sections include Glossary of Media Terms, Mass Media & Culture, Reading Media, Reality & Representation, Audience Theory and British Newspapers.
Twelfth Night Revision: This website provides basic overviews of each act of Twelfth Night. There are also quizzes on each act, the plot and individual characters. The website also features a collection of interactive games and exercises on Twelfth Night including Shakespeare's Accident (Act III, Scene 1), Shakespeare Shootout, Shakespeare Hoop Shoot, Walk the Plank and Fling the Teacher.
Nada's ESL Island: Free resources for English/ESL teachers and students. A handful of organized links, online materials, worksheets, rubrics, lesson and unit plans. Tests & quizzes, online exercises, in addition to a plethora of tips and techniques for teaching. Nada Abi Samra, teacher at the American Community School, Beirut and Saint Joseph University, Lebanon, created the content and maintains the website.
Glossarist: Looking for the definition of a term in a particular subject can be difficult and time consuming. Glossarist is a searchable directory of over 6,000 glossaries and topical dictionaries. Catagories include Arts & Culture, Business, Careers & Employment, Computers & Internet, Economy & Finance, Education, Entertainment, Family & Relationships, Government, Politics & Military, Health, Medicine & Fitness, Humanities & Social Sciences, Law and Justice, Lifestyle, Media, News & Weather, Reference, Science, Sports & Recreation, Technology and Transport.
Famous Last Words: In 1927, Nicco Sacco, about to be executed for a crime he did not commit, remarked: "If it had not been for these things I might live out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died unmarked, a failure, unknown. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice and for man's understanding of man." Leo Tolstoy, on attempts to persuade him to become a Christian before he died, gasped "Even in the shadow of death, two and two do not make six." Whereas the American Civil War leader, General John Sedgwick, remarked "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance..." This website provides an interesting collection of famous last words, including those of Casanova: "I have Iived as a philosopher and die as a Christian." When it was suggested to Karl Marx that he was dying and should prepare some last words he said angrily: "Get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough."
Shakespeare's Life and Times: This site is divided into the ten sections: Shakespeare's Life, The Stage, Society, History & Politics, Background of Ideas, The Drama, Literature, Art, and Music, Some Plays Explored and Reference & Indexes. Each section is divided into "chapters." Links followed by an asterisk open up a "pop-up" note on the same page; links without the asterisk go to a different page; links external to the site are signalled in green, and open a new window in your browser.
Today in Literature: This free site offers interesting and engaging stories about literature and writing that bring writers and their works to life. Each day visitors can read a story about a literary event that occurred on that day in history - the story of Charles Dickens' refusal to give a private reading of "A Christmas Carol" to Queen Victoria; the story of James Joyce first meeting with Sylvia Beach; the story of Sherwood Anderson's death by toothpick; and so on. Subscribers receive other date based material as well. Teachers can use the material to give background to works of literature, to stimulate interest in writers and books, and to analyse the structure and technique of the essays.
Voice of a Long Generation: George Orwell once said, "... above all I wanted to make political writing into an art', which he certainly did. But there was purpose behind his art. His provocations were always deliberately intended to challenge his readers as well as the establishment. On this BBC Art and Literature website Sir Bernard Crick describes the life, and far-reaching influence, of this maverick political writer.
Informed Librarian Online is a monthly compilation of the most recent tables of contents from over 275 titles - valuable domestic and foreign library and information-related journals, e-journals, magazines, e-magazines, newsletters and e-newsletters. This current awareness service helps keep you informed and abreast of all library trends. It is an easy, timesaving way to tame your professional reading tiger, and is very popular among all types of library and information professionals.
KS3 Grammar: This is a tutorial in grammar for teachers of English at KS3 - the UK terminology for ages 12-14. It explains all technical ideas and terms, and makes some suggestions for using them in teaching, and especially in the teaching of writing. It doesn't try to cover the whole of English grammar, but presents enough grammar to satisfy the DfES requirements for teaching English at KS3.
Project Gutenberg: Hosted by ibiblio, the Public's Library and Digital Archive, Project Gutenberg is the Internet's oldest producer of free electronic books (eBooks or etexts). Project Gutenberg began in 1971 when Michael Hart was given an operator's account with $100,000,000 of computer time in it by the operators of the Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the Materials Research Lab at the University of Illinois. Recently the Project Gutenberg team published its 10,000th ebook.
The Canterbury Tales: Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales between 1387 and 1400. It is the story of a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury. The pilgrims, who come from all layers of society, tell stories to each other to kill time while they travel to Canterbury. The book has been a best seller since William Caxton first printed the stories in the 15th century. Internet users are now able to view the first editions of The Canterbury Tales online rather than having to visit the British Library where the original versions are kept.
World Wide School Library: This collection of 1,535 online texts is part of the impressive World Wide School Library. Material is organized under the following categories: Adventure, Animal Tales, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Detective, Drama, Epics, Essays, Fantasy, Historical, Horror, Humour, Literary Studies, Mystery, New Age, Other Tales, Plays, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Shakespeare, Short Stories, Social Commentary and Western.
English Banana: This website features over 350 free printable worksheets for ESL, EFL and English language students and teachers. New ones are added every week. There is no subscription required. The English Banana website also contains many fun language quizzes for practise at home or in the classroom - covering reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and general knowledge. The site also features a fun collection of Javascript games such as Snake and Pong as well as language games.
The Devil's Dictionary: In June 1913 Ambrose Bierce went to Mexico where he disappeared. It is not known exactly when or how he died but it has been suggested he was killed during the siege of Ojinaga in January, 1914. Ambrose Bierce's classic work, The Devil's Dictionary was first published under the title, The Cynic's Word Book, in 1906. Definitions include: Learning (the kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious); Education (that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding); History (an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools); Mad (affected with a high degree of intellectual independence); Happiness (an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another) and Positive (mistaken at the top of one's voice).
Hot Lingo features a 75,000 word English dictionary, comprised of both American and British variants. Version 2.0 is even more user-configurable: including a customizable user dictionary that can now contain up to 32,000 user-defined words. Hot Lingo has applet support for Lotus iNotes, and Microsoft Exchange Server Outlook Web Access (OWA) 5.x and 2000 - the two most popular remote messaging products available today. Hot Lingo is compatible with all of the Windows operating systems.
English Distance Course: The University of Kalmar's English Distance Course Portal Page provides the links to the following courses: English 1-10p, English 11-20p, English for Computer Science, Business Writing, Teaching English to Younger Children and Practical English. You are welcome to visit our page and find out about what we do. Please note, though, that some of our courses require you to have a working knowledge of Swedish, and that not all of the courses are offered every term. Kalmar is situated on the south-east coast of Sweden.
SATS: Recently a group of authors published a statement that included: "We think that children’s understanding, empathy, imagination and creativity are developed best by reading whole books, not by doing comprehension exercises on short excerpts and not from ticking boxes or giving one word answers. It is our view that reading for pleasure is being squeezed by the relentless pressure of testing and we are particularly concerned that the SATs and the preparation for them are creating an atmosphere of anxiety around the reading of literature." This website was set up by campaigners against SATs in the NUT and contains facts, figures and arguments about the issue of SATs.
School Express: This website provides over 6,000 free worksheets on a wide variety of different subjects for children aged between 3 and 10. The section on Language Arts includes worksheets on Abbreviations, Adjectives, Adverbs, Alphabetizing, Antonyms, Synonyms, Homophones, Classifying, Compound Words, Contractions, Direct and Indirect Objects, Nouns, Plurals, Prefixes and Suffixes, Pronouns, Proofreading, Punctuation and Verbs.
Learn: This Guardian owned website covers every element of the national curriculum in each subject at each key stage. The English Literature section includes material on Reading (comparing texts, following an argument, news or views, selecting, collating material), Writing (the writing process, writing appropriately different purposes of writing structuring your writing effectively, grammar trouble spots, vocabulary & spelling, publishing your writing), Speaking and Listening (contexts, activity types, speaking purposes & skills, practice).
Alistair Cooke: The former New York correspondent of the Guardian (1947-1972) died aged 95. To celebrate his achievements the Guardian has placed online some of the articles he wrote for the newspaper. This includes articles on the United Nations (1947), Humphrey Bogart (1949), Al Jolson (1950), Cancer and Smoking (1954), Art and the Age of Violence (1957), Fidel Castro (1959), Marilyn Monroe (1962), Assassination of John F. Kennedy (1963), Cassius Clay (1964) and the Assassination of Robert Kennedy (1968).
RymeZone: Students can use Ryme Zone to help write poetry and song lyrics. To use RhymeZone, type a word into the search box, select a function in the dropdown list next to the box, and then hit "Go get it!" to view the results. Here are the different functions that you can select from that dropdown list: Rhymes: (words that rhyme with the word you typed in); Synonyms (words that are the same or similar in meaning to the word you typed in). Also included are Antonyms, Definitions and Homophones.
Rhymer: Find rhymes without stressing, sweating, or fretting. Rhymer does the work for you. Find the rhymes you need to complete your masterpiece. With over 93,000 words, Rhymer takes the storm out of brainstorming so you can spend your time creating. Great for songwriters, poets, advertisers, teachers and kids! Windows or Macintosh compatible. Rhymer appears on Word's Tools menu and lets you insert rhyming words directly into your document. If you have a different word processor, you can still run the program by itself and use the Windows clipboard to copy and paste words into your document.
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