Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts endeavor aimed at increasing reading and literary discussions. This site's main initiative is to address communities and aims to provide cities and towns with local programs and opportunities to read and discuss books. The resources and study guides are well-suited for teaching and encouraging reading for enjoyment as well as study. Many middle and high school books of all genres, such as Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Great Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe are featured, and are often accompanied by an online documentary film about the author and the literary work, discussion questions and topics, and lesson plan ideas (click the book cover to find these). The Big Read is continually expanding and offers grants.

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You would never guess by the name of this site that The Exquisite Corpse Adventure opens doors to an engaging way to explore the world of reading and writing a class or group story, book, or even a poem. This project from the Center for the Book and the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance invites students to read, discover, and create fascinating characters, places, and events in a manner that might be as captivating as one of the many trendy, popular reality shows. The story takes on unexpected twists and turns because it is actually pieced together out of many parts created, put together, and expanded upon by the contributors. Anyone and everyone interested in helping kids read more, write better, and reach deeper into their own experiences, imaginations, and resources to create stories and art will become hooked. The actual original online book, Exquisite Corpse Adventure, is a recently completed, year-long project with episodes, (chapters), written by remarkable authors such as Jon Scieszka and Katherine Paterson, illustrated and posted with companion games, discussion questions, and activities every two weeks.

This site explains the meanings of the great variety of lexile scores found with some books. The search feature allows teachers to check to see if any particular book has a lexile rating, and if so, what it is. The site also compares lexile ratings and grade levels. It also has seasonal booklists and other helpful information for educators about choosing appropriate books. Students can use this site to find books for independent reading.

Find Streaming Videos from John Stossel to engage your students in discussions about interesting and thought-provoking issues. Each month this site posts a new video for your use, and all videos come with suggested discussion questions and quizzes. Also, you will find lots of discussion topics in the archived section titled with categories like the environment, celebrities, and consumer issues, just to name a few. Registration is free; you need to log in to view the teacher's guide and discussion questions! There are some items of interest on the top menu bar: Both Sides of the Issue, Features, Video Library, and Teacher Resources.