Inspiring Middle School Literacy (English Language Arts) - This site features online self-paced lessons for blended learning. Lessons are designed to enhance the literacy skills of struggling readers in grades 5–8. Each lesson uses videos, interactive activities, note taking, reading, and writing to present students with an engaging English language arts topic. This resource is free (funded by the Walmart Foundation), but teachers must set up classes and enroll students to allow them to use the lessons.

ReadWriteThink - an amazing website with excellent strategies, lesson ideas and tools for teaching reading and writing.

ReadWorks - research-based units, lessons, and authentic, leveled non-fiction and literary passages for teaching reading comprehension; aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

Pic Lits - a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire authors. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.

StoryBird - the site introduction invites users to "write, read, discover and share." Students use a curated library of beautiful art to illustrate books that are share-able online. Read Dr. Maddin's contribution to the collection, I Can Be a Writer.

Youth Voices - a school-based social network that was started in 2003 by a group of National Writing Project teachers. On this site, students can read and write about their own passions, connect with other learners, comment on each other’s work, and create multimedia posts for each other. The site welcomes teachers interested in having students publish online and participate in the give and take of a social network.

Lightning Bug - helps students find story ideas, develop their ideas, and revise their finished work.

Dr. Maddin's Digital Storytelling Page - A collection of resources for teaching digital storytelling, including links to copyright free media and planning templates.

Wordle - copy and paste text into a frame to create a "beautiful word cloud." There are many uses for this tool -- including vocabulary study, plot or character summaries, comparison and contrast, poetry and descriptive writing. For more ideas on how to incorporate Wordle, see Word Clouds - 125 Ways and Counting to Use Wordle in the Classroom.

Tagxedo - similar to Wordle, Tagxedo allows students to create word clouds with shapes. (Note - unlike Wordle, you won't get a URL to share. Try using the Snipping tool to create a graphic file -- or share via social media such as Facebook or Twitter.)

Watch, Know, Learn - WatchKnowLearn has indexed approximately 50,000 educational videos, placing them into a directory of over 5,000 categories. The videos are available without any registration or fees to teachers in the classroom. Select the subject from the directory; then set the age filter. Refine your search by including a key word. Educators are invited to rate videos and to submit additional resources for consideration.