Language Arts and FCIT

Looking Forward: TIM 2.0

James — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 22:29:55 +0000

Some of you are familiar with the Lit2Go website and some
of you are familiar with Lit2Go on USF’s iTunes U site. So, why is
Lit2Go content offered in two different locations? Why would you go
to one or the other? I’m glad you asked! (If you’re not sure what
Lit2Go is, scroll down and I’ll explain it below the fold!)
Lit2Go Website The
Lit2Go website includes several different ways to sort the
collection. There are directories by author, by title, and special
subject area directories. In addition, you can search the
collection by title, author, keyword, or reading level. Each audio
file has it’s own web page which includes a printable version of
the text, a brief abstract, and other information about the piece.
Many of the pages also include lesson ideas. Advantages: Many ways
to locate a book or author. Lots of supporting information and
materials for each chapter of every book. PDF and MP3 versions of
each chapter available from the same page. Disadvantages: You have
to visit a separate page to download each chapter of a book.
Lit2Go on iTunes U USF
on iTunes U includes a beautiful section of Lit2Go audio books. For
the most part, all of the same books, stories, poetry, and
non-fiction texts appear on both the website and iTunes U, although
some files are grouped differently in each place. In iTunes U, each
Lit2Go book appears as a separate collection. With one click, you
can download MP3 files for an entire book. iTunes also allows you
to easily transfer downloaded audio books to your iPod, iPad, or
iPhone. Advantages: Easy to download entire books. Easy to synch
with mobile devices. Disadvantages: Limited options for viewing and
sorting the entire Lit2Go collection. Text versions and support
materials are not present. What is
Lit2Go? Lit2Go is a free online
collection of stories and poems in audio and text formats. It was
created and is maintained by the Florida Center for Instructional
Technology at the University of South Florida College of Education.
The collection includes classic works by authors such as Mark
Twain, Beatrix Potter, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Charlotte and Emily Bronte,
Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Jefferson, Jack London,
Rudyard Kipling, and many others.

Right now, we are experimenting with new delivery formats for the collection, including ePub. Watch this space for future developments!

Presentation Alphabets

James — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:00:25 +0000

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the new sections on Presentations ETC, be sure to look through the Presentation Alphabets section.

You’ll find downloadable letters in hundreds of colors and styles – everything from 19th century woodcuts to colorful refrigerator magnet letters – to use on classroom bulletin boards, websites, student projects, and newsletters.

While you’re there, check out all of the wonderful new additions to the Presentations site created by the fine men and women of FCIT. Coming soon: new Powerpoint templates and Keynote themes!

Standards Search Engine

James — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:01:42 +0000

Need to reference one of Florida’s Next Generation Sunshine State Standards but can’t find it? Just access the Standards Search Engine.

Memorizing the number of an oft-cited standard may be important, but I’d rather focus that mental energy on the students and let FCIT’s servers do the work. With the standards search engine you can quickly conduct a keyword search of all of Florida’s standards with the press of a button. You can also focus your search on a particular subject area and a grade level. For instance, if you choose Language Arts and Grade Level 3 and enter “simile” in the search box, the search engine will return the three third grade standards that mention similes. If you leave the search box blank, it will return all of the standards for the selected grade level and subject area.

Using this tool, you may be able to save a few minutes while writing your lesson plans, and that’s always a nice thing!

Upcoming Lit2Go Titles

James — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:55:57 +0000

Brian recently compiled this list of titles to be added to Lit2Go. Please take a look and see if there are other poems, short stories, novels, or other written works that you would like to see added to our archive of free audio books. Keep in mind that all works added to Lit2Go are in the public domain. As a general rule of thumb, most works published before 1922 and all publications of the federal government are in the public domain. We are particularly interested in adding works that are used by classroom teachers, so please send us any suggestions. If you’ve used materials from Lit2Go in your classroom and have ideas to share with other teachers, we would love to hear them and pass them along. Thanks!

Peter Pan by James Barrie

Silas Marner by George Eliot

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maughan

Arrestee by Aeschylus

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

Confessions by Augustine

City of God by Augustine

My Antonia by Willa Cather

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov

The Three Sisters by Anton Chekov

The Seagull by Anton Chekov

Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov

Colonel’s Dream by Charles Chesnutt

The Conjure Woman and Other Tales by Charles Chesnutt

The Awakening by Chopin

Moll Flander by Dafoe

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Notes from the underground by Dostoevski

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevski

The Idiot by Dostoevski

An American Tragedy by Dreiser

Sister Carrie by Dreiser

Souls of Black Folks by DuBois

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

Media by Euripides

The Bacchae by Euripides

Alcestis by Euripides

Madame Bovary by Flaubert

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

Faust by Goethe

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goeth

Dead Souls by Gogol

Diary of a Madman by Gogol

The Federalist Papers by Hamilton

Jude the Obscure by Hardy

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Hardy

Siddhartha by Hesse

The Illiad by Homer

The Odyssey by Homer

Les Miserable by Hugo

A Doll’s House by Henric Ibsen

An Enemy of the people by Ibsen

Hedda Gabler by Ibsen

The Wild Duck by Ibsen

The Killer by Ionesco

The Rhinoceros by Ionesco

The Bald Soprano by Ionesco

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Washington Square by Henry James

Jolly Corner by Henry James

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Metamorphosis by Kafka

The Trial by Kafka

Amerika by Kafka

Critique of Practical Thinking by Emanuel Kant

Sons and Lovers by Lawrence

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

The Treatises of Government

White Fang by Jack London

Death in Venice by Mann

Dr. Faustus by Marlowe

Spoon River Anthology by Masters

Billy Budd by Herman Melville

Paradise Lost by Milton

The Physician in Spite of Himself by Moliere

Tartuffe by Moliere

Le Misanthrope by Moliere

Beyond Good and Evil by Nietszche

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietszche

The Octopus by Frank Norris

McTeague by Frank Norris

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello

The Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato

Swann’s Way by Proust

Yeugeny Onegin by Pushkin

Letters to a young Poet by Rilke

Cyrano de Bergerac by Rostand

The Social Contract by Jacque Rousseau

King Lear by William Shakespeare

A Midsummer’s Night Dream by William Shakespeare

Othello by Shakespeare

Twelfth by Shakespeare

Tempest by Shakespeare

Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw

Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw

Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw

Antigone by Sophocles

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Miss Julie by Strindberg

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Anna Karenina by Tolstoi

War and Peace by Tolstoi

The Death of Ivan Illych by Tolstoi

The Aeneid by Virgil

Candide by Voltaire

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

To The Lighthouse by Woolf

Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Vern

Resurrection by Tolstoy

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather

Cantebury Tales by Jeffrey Chaucer

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad

Robinson Crusoe by Dafoe

Return of the Native by Hardy Thomas

Bartleby the Scrivner by Melville

The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin

Night and Day by Virginia Woolf

Sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit by Joel Chandler Harris

Florida During WWII

James — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:02:12 +0000

In a few weeks, we’ll be marking the 67th anniversary of the entrance of the United States into World War II. Your students may not be aware of the contributions of Floridians to the war effort or the very large impact World War II had on Florida, its population, and its economy. In the lesson resources found in Florida During WWII, your students will read about German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida’s tourist hotels as makeshift military bases. You will find a downloadable reading passage for students, reading comprehension questions, a vocabulary list, lesson objectives, and suggested activities.

Veterans History Project

James — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:13:35 +0000

Next week, we will observe Veteran’s Day. Thinking of the contributions and sacrifices of our veterans, I was reminded of a great lesson plan available on FCIT’s No Strings Attached site. This project involves language arts and social studies. It is intended for high school students, but could easily be adapted for younger students.

Veterans of Past American Wars Project

Image source: Exploring Florida

In this No Strings Attached lesson plan, a Florida high school teacher has his students interview WWII veterans. In some cases, the kids interview their grandfathers, but the teacher also went to local veteran’s organizations to find interview subjects for his students. This is a great example of a cross-curricular lesson. The students are developing language arts skills at the same time they are working within several social studies strands (i.e. Time, Continuity, and Change; Individuals, Groups, and Institutions; Civic Ideals and Practices; etc.). This lesson gives students an authentic context to practice reading, writing, listening, speaking, research, and interview skills.

In addition to the information covered in the NSA lesson plan, the Library of Congress website offers helpful information for students on how to conduct oral history interviews.

Poe on Lit2Go

James — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:36:45 +0000

This time of year puts me in the mood to appreciate all things dark and dreary. FCIT’s Lit2Go site includes several short stories by that master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe. As with all of the offerings on Lit2Go, you can download beautifully formatted print versions of the stories, along with audio versions recorded by our professional narrators, and teaching materials to use in your LA classroom. Visit our Poe menu on Lit2Go to get started.

Image from ClipArt ETC

By the way, if there is a particular book, short story, or poem that you use in your classroom that you’d like to see added to the Lit2Go collection, please let us know. We always love to hear from teachers about how they use FCIT in their classrooms and what else we can do to help.