50 Suggested Websites for English and Media

Literature – Shakespeare

1. Hamlet on the Ramparts

An extremely interesting multimedia Shakespeare site provided by MIT

2. Mr William Shakespeare and the internet

Possibly the leading resource for Shakespeare on the internet. It has a section on links to Shakespeare movie sites in its 'Other Sites' section

3. Royal Shakespeare Company

Drama production website offering interviews with actors, character analysis and video footage

4. Curriculum Online

Curriculum Online is central to the government's drive to transform teaching and learning in schools by improving access to ICT and multimedia resources for all pupils

Other literature

5. Spark Notes

Lists of study guides, literature, Shakespeare, downloadable and printable by chapter

6. Classic Reader

Provides the full texts of many classic novels, poems and plays. To use on a whiteboard, you should select 'Printer Friendly version', which removes the advertising and makes the presentation clearer. Alternatively, copy and paste the text into your whiteboard software

7. Converse: the literature Website

The Converse website is a collection of free multimedia resources, games and essays, to help teachers and students of English literature. Converse is a joint project between CambridgeUniversity and schools and colleges across Britain

8. English Literature Resources

English Literature internet resources, essays, and books, for students of Literature in English, and find books online

9. BBC Drama: Bleak House

Animated video and stories

Poetry

10. Poets

The Listening Booth section of this key poetry site contains an extensive range of audio files of poetry readings, indexed by author and title. Featured poets include W.H. Auden, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Robert Graves, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens and W.B. Yeats. The full text of the poem is also given, and biographies.

11. The Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive

This multimedia site is devoted to the works of the poet Wilfred Owen and required Real, Windows Media Player and QuickTime to access some of the content. Although the front page of the site is cluttered and unclear and can be quite discouraging to the casual user, in general WOMDA does in fact contain a wealth of material which can be accessed through the browse page. This includes digital copies of practically all of Owen's original manuscripts, many of his letters, audio interviews with war veterans, as well as a large number of video clips taken from the Imperial War Museum's holdings as well as material made more recently, all of which also relates to the First World war in general

12. Poetry Zone

The Poetry Zone is a web site set up primarily to enable children and teenagers to publish their own poetry and reviews

Language, writing support, grammar

13. The English Accents and Dialogues collection

The English Accents & Dialogues collection at the British Library contains nearly 700 recordings showing how we spoke and lived in the 20th century

14. BBC Voices

The BBC voices website contains a wealth of materials on the spoken word and downloadable learning materials

15. Blast

BBC Creative Writing site

16. The Poetry Express

Find 15 poems you can write right now or at least get some ideas for them. Make, share, and revise your poems here

17. Writing Fix

Interactive pages for writing skills for teachers and students includes Writing Fix for kids with writing games

18. Grammer: British Council

Go hand-in-hand with the British Council through the maze of English grammar and pit your wits against their online games

19. BBC

Spelling games

English and media

20. English and Media Centre

For teachers and learners with video and reviews of best books and links

21. The War to end all Wars

The First World War is presented here in a series of in-depth collections which seek to inform the novice as well as the more knowledgeable user. These cover a variety of features related to the period, including posters, stills, moving images, as well as some of the best known songs and poems from that time. In addition to this, there are sections devoted to individual battles, specific weapons as well as tours of the battlefields and the cemeteries, all of which are presented in a mixture of sound, vision and text. The video and audio clips can be accessed with Quick Time.

Drama

22. Shakespeare’s Globe

Information about workshops for all ages

23. The Garret

Workshops, lesson plans

24. Theatre links

Loads of links for all genres of film, theatres

25. Stageworks

Behind the scenes video of new National Theatre productions from page to stage with lesson plans, in depth knowledge into drama productions

26. London Theatre Guide

Everything you need to know about planning your school’s trips to the theatre and how students can get the most from master classes and special programmes and events

Books online: internet archive

27. C4 Book Box

Games, books sites, interactive site

28. Cool Reads

Top best books with reviews by KS3 and 4 children

29. Google Print

Search the full text of books (and discover new ones)

Student revision sites

30. BBC GCSE Bitesize

Lists of plays, literature and a chance to post queries about GCSEs

31. S-Cool

How to write essays, poetry and stories at GCSE level

32. English Biz

Guidance on how to write essays, poetry and stories

33. C4 Homework High

Type in any homework queries and get answers

34. BBC – AS Guru

Message boards to post queries, literature and language areas, prose and verse

35. GCSE.com Revision

GCSE English section of the award winning tutorials, tips and advice website, covering exams for students, parents and teachers

Teacher support – resources and CPD for English

36. Web English Teacher

At Web English Teacher educators can take advantage of online technology to share ideas and benefit from the work of others. New teachers can find guidance; experienced teachers can find inspiration. Think of it as the faculty library and faculty workroom on a global scale

37. English Teaching

Online resource for teachers of English and Drama at secondary level

38. Chalk Face

Downloadable worksheets and resources for English

39. Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia

Resources and products for use in English teaching

40. Initial Teacher Education

NQT or teachers in training

41. Teachit

Online community of teachers authoring and sharing a large database of classroom tested resources

42. Universal Teacher

Andrew Moore's resource site for English teachers; free access to extensive teaching resources for English at KS3/4, GCSE and Advanced Level

43. Chalk Face

From the Chalkface.net the ISP portal and educational resource centre for teachers by teachers

44. Poetry Class

Poetry Classis the solution for teachers wanting to bring poetry alive in the classroom. Our online poetry classroom and unique INSET training provides teachers with a 'nuts and bolts' insight into how poetry works. A training team of poets, all of whom are highly experienced with work in schools and have between them hundreds of tried and tested ideas, is available to work with teachers to overcome their problems and concerns with teaching poetry

Teacher support:local authority and school sites

45. English Resources

English Resources: Free resources for teaching and revising English language and literature at Key Stages 3, 4 and A' Level…..to download for teaching and revising English Language and Literature

46. eRiding

The eRiding website is both a collection of resources and a set of tools that enable a wide range of users to access high quality teaching and learning materials, targeted at specific audiences

Miscellaneous organisations

47. Film Education

Current events within film for education

48. Becta ICT for English

The internet has many useful resources to support secondary English. You can bookmark these resources and they can then be used online, or downloaded and adapted to meet the teaching and learning of specific objectives

49. National Association of Teaching English

Subject teacher association for all aspects of English from pre-school to university

50. DfES: The Standards Site

The framework for teaching English