ENGLISH LITERATURE

ENGLISH LITERATURE

Julius Caesar

http://www.bell.k12.ca.us/BellHS/Departments/English/SCORE/caesarwebguide.html

Developed by a teacher (Joel Littauer), his instructional unit for 10th grade English classes includes a teacher's guide and online activities. Four student activities that focus on analyzing/discussing a character in a written composition, discussing how characters move the plot of a drama forward, speculating on leadership skills, and searching for alternatives to violence in government leadership changeovers. Part of the Schools of California Online Resources for Educators (SCORE) Project. (added 4/14/97, reviewed 5/28/99)

Academy of American Poets

http://www.poets.org/

The Academy of American Poets has put together a superb site that includes, among other features, a listening booth where you can hear poems read by their authors, a number of interesting historic and thematic exhibits, and a list of featured poets. (added 4/14/97, reviewed 4/22/99)

Favorite Poem Project

http://www.favoritepoem.org/

"Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument," says U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. His Favorite Poem Project shares audio and video of people reading their favorite poems, and invites readers to send in their favorite poems with a few sentences about why it is special to them. Students are invited to participate, and this could be a springboard for classrooms to develop their own favorite poem web sites. (added 3/22/99, reviewed 4/9/99)

Deep in the Bush, Where People Rarely Ever Go

http://members.xoom.com/PMartin/Bush/bushhomepage.htm

Bring African culture alive in the classroom with folk tales and accompanying activities at this creative site. The stories used in this lesson were collected by teacher Phillip Martin while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. Included in this site is an extensive teacher lesson page, African recipes, links to other African resources, and ideas for your students to create and produce their own plays. (added 1/8/99, reviewed 6/12/99)

Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet

http://daphne.palomar.edu/shakespeare/

Shakespeare has been dead nearly 400 years, but thanks (in part) to Web sites like this, his popularity has never been greater. Created by Terry Gray, "Mr. William Shakespeare" is an annotated, scholarly guide to William Shakespeare, his works, life, and times. Features of this outstanding site are a Shakespearean Timeline, Works (synopses of plays, study guides, canon and more), Criticism, Critical Resources, a bibliography, and even a Shakespeare BiographyQuiz. (added 5/28/98, reviewed 5/23/99)

CyberGuides

http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/cyberguide.html

From the Language Arts SCORE (Schools of California Online Resources for Educators Project), teacher-developed CyberGuides are "supplementary units of instruction based on core works of literature, designed for students to use the World Wide Web." Each CyberGuide contains a student and teacher edition, objectives, a task, a Web-infused process, and an evaluation rubric. Most guides have students create a product after thay have reviewed Web resources. (added 9/19/97, reviewed 5/13/99)

The Atlantic Monthly Poetry Pages

http://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic/atlweb/poetry/poetpage.htm

These pages are "a new multimedia feature devoted to poets and poetry, both classic and contemporary. This area will be updated regularly, with new readings by poets featured in each issue of the magazine, as well as poetry and essays from The Atlantic's archive." This is a great resource to expose people to a collection of the current definition of great poetry. (added 5/31/96, reviewed 2/5/99)

William Shakespeare's Hamlet

http://www.bell.k12.ca.us/BellHS/Departments/English/SCORE/hamletmain.html

Designed for use with 12th grade English classes, this unit by teacher Joel Littauer provides students with practice in analyzing Shakespeare's drama, Hamlet, as well as discussing major characters and the impact the protagonist has on the minor characters. Includes a teacher's guide and relevant Web links. (added 4/28/97, reviewed 5/28/99)

Romeo and Juliet

http://www.bell.k12.ca.us/BellHS/Departments/English/SCORE/webguide.html

This supplemental unit was developed as part of the Schools of California Online Resources for Educators (SCORE) Project by teacher Joel Littauer. Complete with teacher's guide and 3 student guides, this unit was designed for use with 9th grade English classes. The exercises encourage students to acquire, organize and transform information into a composition that deals with the relationship between character and plot in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. (added 3/3/97, reviewed 5/28/99)

The Internet Classics Archive

http://classics.mit.edu/index.html

This site features 441 works of classical literature by 59 authors, including Aesop, Aeschylus, Homer, Ovid and Plato. Visitors can read classic works in their entirety, participate in discussions of the works and bone up on the authors themselves. (added 8/17/98, reviewed 4/22/99)

Treasure Island

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/treasure/

This site offers "everything you could possibly want to know about Treasure Island. Find out about the author, the characters of the book, tropical islands, pirates, buried treasure and lots more! Ontop of this you can contribute by sending in your reviews of the book and descriptions of dastardly pirates." Beautiful! (added 11/1/96, reviewed 3/22/99)

Project Bartleby (Columbia University)

http://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/

Home of great literary Websites on such people as Emily Dickinson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Robert Frost, John Keats, Herman Melville, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Gertrude Stein, this site includes full text of writings for these authors. (added 1/8/96, reviewed 3/18/99)

Robert Frost - The Complete Works to December 1920

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/frost/

Another great Project Bartleby site from Columbia University, this Web site offers the full text of Frost's classic early works: A Boy's Will, North of Boston, Mountain Interval, and additional poems. AU format audio files are downloadable for such classics as "After Apple-picking" and "Birches." (added 5/23/96, reviewed 4/9/99)

Project Bartleby (Columbia University)

http://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/

Home of the Macbeth and Hamlet Pages

http://www.falconedlink.com/falcon/

These pages were a homespun creation of Rodger Burnich (a teacher at Westhill High School in Stamford, Connecticut) and summarize in a contemporary, chatty translation the five acts of these two Shakespeare classics. There are the occasional typos and some Shakespeareans will take issue with some of Burnich's readings, but the pages could be a helpful guide to new readers of the plays. With this resource, teachers might give students the activity of doing another "translation" into the lingo of "surf dudes," "valley girls," or "hip hoppers." (added 5/31/96, reviewed 1/22/99)

American Verse Project

http://www.hti.umich.edu/english/amverse/

The University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative has taken on the task of posting American poetry from the 19th Century. Emphasis is placed on accuracy of the texts. The list of posted authors is currently small, but those that are listed comprise some of the key voices (WilliamCullen Bryant, Emily Dickinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edna St. Vincent Millay,). Once fully developed, this Web site will be a prized reference for teachers and scholars of American literature. (added 6/3/96, reviewed 5/3/99)

Anthology of Middle English Literature (1350-1485)

http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/

This elegant site features the selected works of Medieval authors including Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland. You can read The Canterbury Tales in its entirely, listen to audio excerpts, read famous quotes, learn about Chaucer's life, and more. (added 9/14/98, reviewed 4/22/99)

WhyPoetryWhat

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/samwhypoetrmi.html

Each carefully chosen link in this sampler includes questions and activities designed to help kids connect to poetry. This could be used to introduce a poetry unit or as an enrichment activity. Created with Filamentality. (added 11/6/98, reviewed 5/1/99)

The Complete Works of Shakespeare

http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html

This comprehensive resource for English teachers, students and Shakespeare enthusiasts includes a Shakespeare discussion area, Shakespeare Internet resources, chronological and alphabetical listing of plays, familiar quotations, and glossary. (added 3/1/97, reviewed 4/15/99)

Home of the Macbeth and Hamlet Pages

http://www.falconedlink.com/falcon/

EducETH Reading List

http://educeth.ethz.ch/english/readinglist/

This reading list covers books that can be read with upper secondary classes. Each book and author includes well-organized hotlinks, comments by teachers and students, and more. (added 8/8/98, reviewed 5/2)