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A new report suggests that texting might help student spell. *gasp!*

Create word clouds from texts in a variety of shapes. Requires Microsoft Silverlight.

60 Second Recap - a great recap of some classic texts and their plot and context

"There are several ways educators can use Awesome Highlighter , here are some suggestions : * Teachers can use it to show students the important parts of a lesson * Teachers share links of Highlighted text of relevant interest with students to save them time * Students can use it to share referencing quotes between each other * They can also use it to gather information for research and classroom project"

Podcast on varying topics, published monthly.

My students have even told me that they cannot read in school because it is "too distracting" with friends and activities, etc!!! The phones are vibrating, the latest drama unfolds minute by minute--I have decided that half my job it is train them to recognize the proper environment for the proper activity. It is slow going!

I noticed this myself in my second year of college; the way I was reading (especially literature, etc) was changing rapidly as I became more inundated with short-message communication (Facebook, email, texting, etc.). I would even argue that our composition models are changing. I can fire off short bursts of information very quickly (like right now). However, I am finding more often that I may have to actually plan to find a place to read (frightening...?).

This article appears in the Holt Elements of Literature Sixth Course: Essentials of British and World Literature text alongside Beowulf and an excerpt from John Gardner's Grendel. It is a good companion piece for Beowulf.

The History of England is an early work of Jane Austen. She completed the composition in November 1791 when she was just 15 years old. Jane Austen's History is a lively parody which makes fun of the standard schoolroom books of the time. Declaring herself to be a 'partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian' she cites works of fiction, such as Shakespeare's plays, as historial authority and includes references to her own family and friends. Jane's older sister Cassandra illustrated the text with imaginative portraits of the English monarchs

This digital facsimile presents every page of a small, delicate maquette that Jean de Brunhoff created in 1930 or 1931 as he drafted the first book in the Babar series. The maquette, an extraordinary handmade booklet complete with cover and endpapers, text and illustrations, is the prototype for Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant.

Nice little list of some texts that could be described as postmodern.

The Yale Grand Strategy Program offers a compelling instructional model for 6-12 to consider in both English and Social Studies classes. One might compare it to a literary/text-based think tank used to hone critical and political thinking.

Flash tool that steps a teacher through the questions that determine whether the use of a text is fair use for educational purposes.

These life histories were compiled by the staff of the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936-1940. The histories describe the informant's family education, income, occupation, political views, religion and mores, medical needs, diet and miscellaneous observations. Pseudonyms are often substituted for individuals and places named in the narrative texts.

this is what happens when we look to prioritize our news by what's trending instead of perusing all of it and then deciding.  This supports my efforts to add contemporary texts to my World Lit course.

Students begin by analyzing how specific songs might fit with a familiar story. Students then create their own soundtracks for the movie version of a novel they have read. They select songs that match the text and fit specific events in the story.

Online full text books

Wow...hate distracting ads when you're trying to read? This website allows you to read just the text. You pick the size, then drag the icon to your browser's toolbar. Nice.

Poems from more contemporary poets. Includes readings of some poems

"The University of North Carolina Press joins the UNC Office of Information Technology in publishing the Internet Poetry Archive. The archive makes available over a worldwide computer network selected poems from a number of contemporary poets. The goal of the project is to make poetry accessible to new audiences (at little or no cost) and to give teachers and students of poetry new ways of presenting and studying these poets and their texts. "

Spell with flickr is a neat app that allows you to create banners or other text with flickr images. Perfect for embedding in wikis or using on blogs or other Web sites.