Free 2ndary ELA Resources

Last updated: 1-2-2021

I have tried to curate resources that can be used in my high school English classroom.

You can find your own by accessing the author’s website as many authors provide free texts on their website.

Being on this list is not necessarily an endorsement.

Please ensure the content is both appropriate for your students and copyright compliant.

Full online course ONTARIO curriculum:

https://lah.elearningontario.ca/

Courses

AUDIOBOOKS

Audible: kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across eight different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids. All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet.

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

Open Culture: allows visitors to download hundreds of free audio books, mostly classics, to your MP3 player or computer. Below, you’ll find great works of fiction (http://www.openculture.com/audio_books_fiction), poetry (http://www.openculture.com/audio_books_poetry), and non-fiction (http://www.openculture.com/audio_books_non-fiction), by such authors as Twain, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Orwell, Vonnegut, Nietzsche, Austen, Shakespeare, Asimov, HG Wells & more.

Librivox

Librivox: Free Public Domain Audiobooks features recordings of books in the public domain read by volunteers from around the world.

Public Domain

The Moth Podcast:

The Moth has compiled a list of classroom-friendly stories to show how The Moth can enhance learning in your school. Click on the story title to learn more and see if there’s a transcript or video available.

https://themoth.org/education/stories

Diverse Resources

Equity4Educators Resource Website: It was designed to assist educators with inclusive pedagogy and practice. It is comprised of a compilation of inclusive and diverse books, media, and connections to community (separated by division, ethnicity and so on). Each section houses resources to support classroom instruction, professional learning for educators, and a list of community connections

https://sites.google.com/view/equity4educators/home

Facing History: fosters empathy and reflection, improves students’ academic performance, reinvigorates teachers, and builds safe and inclusive schools.

https://www.facinghistory.org/

#IslamicHeritage: Interactive Choice Board for anyone interested in resources to celebrate Islamic excellence, debunk myths and stereotypes, learn and unlearn.

https://t.co/NbJuFdC9oF

Teaching for Change: provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world.

By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens. Our professional development, publications, and parent organizing programs serve teachers, other school staff, and parents. Our main focus is national and we have dedicated programs in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Teaching for Change offers professional development, develops lessons, and curates resources to help classroom teachers supplement pre-K–12 curriculum.

https://www.teachingforchange.org

Teaching for diversity: Many schools boards, organizations, and governments have created excellent materials on teaching for diversity in classrooms. The following list offers some of these resources, and many of these websites have links to further curricula, research, and resources for teachers. Some resources focus on ethnic and cultural diversity, including Indigenous cultures and immigrant cultures. Other resources provide strategies, information and lesson plans for teaching tolerance, human rights, and anti-racism.

http://teach4diversity.ca/resources/

Teaching Tolerance: provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

Our program emphasizes social justice and anti-bias. The anti-bias approach encourages children and young people to challenge prejudice and learn how to be agents of change in their own lives. Our Social Justice Standards show how anti-bias education works through the four domains of identity, diversity, justice and action.

https://www.tolerance.org/

Young Adult Literature with LGBTQAI+ Themes

https://www.middleweb.com/37309/young-adult-literature-with-lgbtqai-themes/

GRAMMAR

NoRedInk: Unleash the writer within. NoRedInk builds stronger writers through interest-based curriculum, adaptive exercises, and actionable data. See link for list of free resources available: https://noredink.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040461472

https://www.noredink.com/

MEDIA

Film resources

https://journeysinfilm.org/about-us

News resources

MENTOR TEXTS

100-Plus Mentor Texts for Documenting. Your Life in 2020 Work by teenagers and adults, in a variety of mediums and genres, that can inspire your own account of this extraordinary year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/learning/100-plus-mentor-texts-for-documenting-your-life-in-2020.html#click=https://t.co/UraQDCaQlm

POETRY

Digital Poetry:http://www.nowsparkcreativity.com/2020/12/115-5-creative-digital-poetry-activities.html

The Poetry Foundation: The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems

Poetry.org: If you’re a teen looking to learn more about the art of reading or writing poetry, we’ve gathered a selection of poems, essays, recommended reading lists, must-have anthologies, interviews, and advice just for you.

https://poets.org/poetry-teens

https://poets.org/poems

Young Balck Poets NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/09/arts/young-black-poets.html?referringSource=articleShare

Blackout poetry online:

https://blackoutpoetry.glitch.me/#

PODCASTS

Criminal :is an award-winning podcast about true crime. Stories of people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle.

https://thisiscriminal.com/episodes

Six minutes: Eleven-year-old Holiday is pulled from the icy
waters of Alaska with no memory of who she is
or where she came from. Are her mom and dad
really who they say they are? And when she
begins to develop incredible abilities, she’ll soon
discover she’s not alone in the world. From the
Peabody award-winning creators of The
Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel and
the Peabody award-nominated Treasure Island
2020 comes Six Minutes, a mystery adventure for
the whole family. Six minute episodes, twice a
week, all year long…and beyond. Produced by
Gen-Z Media in partnership with PRX. For more
great Gen-Z shows visit http://gzmshows.com

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/658-six-minutes-28948926/

SHAKESPEARE

All Plays

https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/learn/secondary-schools/playing-shakespeare-with-deutsche-bank/ & https://teach.shakespearesglobe.com/

https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/ & https://www.rsc.org.uk/education/

https://www.stratfordfestival.ca/Learn/Teachers/ResourcesPD

Twelfth Night: https://www.primaryshakespearecompany.org/tempest-2020-online

SHORT STORIES

The After Water project: Invited writers to peer into the future—100 years or more—and imagine the region around the Great Lakes, when water scarcity is a dominant social issue. It’s a cosmic blend of art and science. Includes audio. Read or write and share stories AUDIO

https://afterwater.tumblr.com/about

FANTASTIC FICTION AT KGB: A monthly speculative fiction reading series in New York City and now live on YouTube. Short stories read by the authors.

https://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org/category/audio/

Levar Burtan podcast: Actor, from Star Trek & Reading Rainbow fame, reads short stories. PODCAST

http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/

Suyi Davies Okungbowa: Works of various lengths, all subgenres of African speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror), works in other genres, and in formats other than print. WEBSITE

http://suyidavies.com/bibliography/

SHORT TEXTS

CBCBOOKS: Canadian children’s writers & illustrators are sharing readings of their books online

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5500364

Lit2Go: is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom. #Lit2Go

https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

LONGER WORKS

ALC Program: Free audiobooks for teachers and librarians!: Libro.fm is the first audiobook company to make it possible for you to buy audiobooks directly through your local bookstore. If you are a K-12 teacher or teach in higher education, you are eligible for the educator ALC list. You’ll receive a half dozen audiobooks that publishers think you’ll want to use in your classroom or recommend to parents and students.

ALC Program: Free audiobooks for teachers and librarians!

Project Gutenberg: is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks, whose copyrights have expired.

ttps://www.gutenberg.org/

Teen Cloud: gives teachers and students access to ebooks, audiobooks, graphic novels and videos.

For middle and high school students.

https://mobile.teenbookcloud.com

SYNC: is a free summer audiobook program for teens 13+. SYNC returns Spring 2021.

https://www.audiobooksync.com/

NON-FICTION

Newsela: news articles published daily on current events (mostly American) and available at different reading levels

https://newsela.com/

MEDIA

Heritage Minutes: are a collection of bilingual Canadian 60-second short films, each depicting a significant person, event or story in Canadian history. First released in 1991, they have been shown on television, in cinemas and online, and have become a part of Canadian culture

https://www.historicacanada.ca/heritageminutes (videos)

https://www.tes.com/lessons/bGucwHvLgGCmfg/social-studies-create-a-heritage-minute-canadian-history (project)

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/heritage-minutes (history)

MediaSmarts: Welcome to the “fundamentals” section of our website, where we bring together the various concepts and competencies that define what it is to be literate in today’s complex media culture. Here we explore digital literacy and media literacy and their underlying aspects and principles.

https://mediasmarts.ca/

SHAKESPEARE

Primary Shakespeare Company (PSC): THE TEMPEST ONLINE 2020 Activities:

https://www.primaryshakespearecompany.org/tempest-2020-online

Folger: curated list of digital resources

https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/List_of_digital_resources_at_the_Folger

https://www.folger.edu

TEXT LISTS

Diversebooks: A curated list of resources for parents and educators (go to bottom)

https://diversebooks.org/covid-19-resources/?mc_cid=2afeff85c5&mc_eid=6db0554431

VARIETY

BBCTeach

Free teacher classroom resources suitable for use in English language & literature lessons with secondary school children

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/secondary/zkqp47h

Curio.ca: gives teachers and students streaming access to the best in educational content from CBC and Radio-Canada.

You’ll find documentaries from television and radio, news reports, archival material – thousands of programs and resources.

https://curio.ca/en/

CommonLit: Free reading passages in all literacy and nonfiction genres for grades 3-12.

https://www.commonlit.org/

New York Times: Each week the Learning Network offers new ways for students to practice reading, writing, and thinking using Times journalism – at no charge. Daily writing prompts for students to respond to are provided, as well as other activities for students, as well as resources for teachers.

The Learning Network (New York Times)

PBS resources:

https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/new-school-routines/?s=09

ReadWorks: a nonprofit with the mission to support the growth of successful, joyful readers. We provide K-12 educators with the largest, highest-quality library of curated nonfiction and literary articles in the country, along with reading comprehension and vocabulary supports, text-dependent question sets, teacher guidance, and more! Most importantly, everything ReadWorks provides is based on the science of reading.

https://www.readworks.org/

WRITING

Moving writers Mentor Texts: Finding mentor texts can often be one of the most challenging – and time consuming! – parts of effective writing instruction. Why spend hours flipping through books and surfing the web when we can share? The link above will take you to our Mentor Text Dropbox where we’ve curated hundreds of mentor texts by genre, technique, topic, and activity.

https://movingwriters.org/mentor-text-dropbox-project/

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month is a fun, empowering approach to creative writing. The challenge: draft an entire novel in just one month. For 30 wild, exciting, surprising days, you get to lock away your inner editor, let your imagination take over, and just create! Our Young Writers Program supports under-18 writers and K-12 educators as they participate in our flagship event each November, and take part in smaller writing challenges year-round.

https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/

New York Times Writing Prompts:

https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/learning-writing-prompts

Pobble: With a forever free account, you can access 365 unique, engaging images each with five related writing activities, save them to use later and access the Pobble Writing Bank.

https://my.pobble.com/forever-free?utm_campaign=Twitter%20Pobble%20365&utm_content=141868793&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-316762255

Poetry & Practice: During National Poetry Month and beyond, the Poetry Foundation Library will feature activities for those who want to discover new poets and poems, connect with others through poetry, and compose original poems. Prompts specifically for youth and teens will be offered each week.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/library/prompts

Video prompts: that you can use as you inspire your students to fall in love with writing.

http://videowritingprompts.com/category/prompts/

“Write. Right. Rite.” Series: Welcome to the “Write. Right. Rite.,” a “GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story” video series! The “Write. Right. Rite.” is meant to be an entertaining and inventive way to engage with the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jason Reynolds.

https://guides.loc.gov/jason-reynolds/grab-the-mic/wrr

Service Scape: 660 Science Fiction Writing Prompts That Will Get You Writing at Warp Speed

https://youtu.be/ZMpKESll5wE

https://www.servicescape.com/blog/660-science-fiction-writing-prompts-that-will-get-you-writing-at-warp-speed

Writing Marathons

https://metawriting.deannamascle.com/we-need-more-writing-marathons/

Teaching Ideas

Omelas Stories:

PBS video of “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” (1973) by Ursula K. Le Guin:

https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/uklg19-ela-ethics-video/ursula-le-guin/

“The Ones who Stay and Fight” N.K. Jemisin author reading:

https://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org/2020/06/23/audio-and-video-from-june-17th-with-n-k-jemisin-kenneth-schneyer/