Online Resources for K-12 Teachers: Children's and Adolescent Literature. ERIC Digest D149

ERIC Educational Reports by Mei-Yu Lu

With the increasing popularity of the Internet, teachers now are actively seeking online resources that will support the preparation of their lessons. This Digest aims to provide useful Internet resources for K-12 teachers who would like to integrate children's and adolescent literature into their curriculum. Preparation of this Digest began with a retrospective review of literature-related questions received over the last two years by the Reference staff of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication. Four categories of frequently posed requests were then identified: (1) literature-based lesson plans, (2) aids to materials selection, (3) online publications for and by K-12 students, and (4) professional development resources. Finally, using Abdullah's (1998) guides for website evaluation, we selected the following websites for each of these LITERATURE-BASED LESSON PLANSIn a survey entitled "Hot Spots: Picks of Language Arts Websites" (Lu & Abdullah, 1999), respondents commented that the best websites were characterized by a high level of immediate applicability. Teachers who responded to the survey indicated that the most useful sites were those providing a wide array of practical teaching ideas. These are some children's and adolescent literature websites recommended for language educators.

Cyberguides: Teachers Guides and Student Activities

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

Developed as part of the SCORE (Schools of California Online Resources for Education) Language Arts Project, Cyberguides are web-delivered units of instruction centered on core works of literature. These guides are arranged by broad grade levels (K-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12), and each Cyberguide contains background information of a particular title, learning activities, related resources, and a rubric based on California Language Arts Content Standards.

The Doucette Index: K-12 Literature-based Teaching Ideas

http://www.educ.ucalgary.ca/litindex/

The Doucette Index is a major section in the Children's Literature Web Guide, one of the major children's and adolescent literature websites. This site hosts a searchable database of children's and young adult books. Upon typing in the title of a book or an author's name, the database displays a list of references, containing both online and book resources, for teaching a particular work by the selected author.

Index to Internet Sites: Children's and Young Adult's Authors and Illustrators

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/biochildhome.htm

A project of the Internet School Library Media Center at James Madison University, this webpage is a meta-site designed to foster easy access to curriculum related sites. It collects links to biographical information, lesson plans, and other information that focus on specific children's and young adult authors/illustrators. In addition, this site also features the following resources: (1) bibliographies of children's authors/illustrators, (2) print biographies and autobiographies, (3) author birthdays, and (4) author/ illustrator public appearance schedules.

Maine Samplers

http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~orono/collaborative/collaborative.html

Maine Samplers provide a list of detailed guides to literature- based activities. These activities are a cooperative project written by teachers and librarians based on the Maine Student Book Awards. These guides provide an assortment of activities related to children's and young adult literature. They often include activities to be conducted on the Internet. AIDS TO MATERIALS SELECTIONThousands of trade books and reading materials targeted at children and young adults are published each year. Teachers are thus challenged by how and what to choose for their classroom use. In this section, we identify some sites containing criteria for materials selection and booklists suitable for students of various ages and interests.

Canadian Review of Materials

http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/index.html

This site is produced by the Manitoba Library Association. Although Canadian based, many titles reviewed in this site are also available profiles of children's authors/illustrators, (2) reviews of currently published children's and young adult books, and (3) information on recently released multi-media, including audiobooks, videotapes, and CD-ROMs.

Children's Literature/Young Adult Literature Book Review Source for K-12

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/childbookreviews.htm

From James Madison University, this site covers a variety of book review sources focusing on children's and adolescent literature. Four types of book review resources are represented: (1) professional periodicals that review children's and young adult books, (2) online book review sources by one or a group of reviewers, (3) book reviews by children and young adults, and (4) books reviewed by commercial sources.

Reviewed Children's Books

http://www.carolhurst.com/titles/allreviewed.html

This site, a section from Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site, provides reviews of booklists for children Pre-K to grade 9. Readers can find reviewed books grouped by title, author, type of book, and grade level. Some of the titles also include teaching ideas, related books, and resources in addition to the reviews.