Tweentribune

http://tweentribune.com/junior

http://tweentribune.com/

This site looks awesome and is through Smithsonian. Each article offers a critical thinking question at the end. Each article has a lexile where you can change the level. Students and teachers can create accounts. Students choose articles they want to read. They can answer three well-written comprehension questions at the end and create a comment about the article as well. Teachers can assign articles and view quizzes. You can view quizzes by students or print them all. And it’s all free!



Dogo News

http://www.dogonews.com/

This is a very kid and teacher friendly site. It has tons of articles and you can create your own class page. You can add your students and they can log on and read articles and answer questions. It’s a social network as well and they can interact with other readers. You can download the articles and use them for your classroom. And it’s all free!

 

Think Cerca

http://www.thinkcerca.com/

Another great site where teachers can assign articles with follow up questions. Good for test prep. Although there aren't many articles on this site.

 

Neslea

https://newsela.com/

This site offers the lexile of the article. And you can change the lexile to make it lower or higher.

 

Highlights

http://www.highlightskids.com/articles/archives

Collection of nonfiction articles you can read online.

 

National Geographic for Kids

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

This website has articles online you can read for free.

 

The Why Files

http://whyfiles.org/science-standards-grades-5-8/

Teachers and students can read articles online, or teachers can print them. They have a cool feature where you can delete text or images from the article directly on the site. And you can choose articles by standard.

 

Kids Discover

http://www.kidsdiscover.com/free-resources/

Features and Quick Reads are articles that are printable.

 

Sports Illustrated for Kids

http://www.sikids.com/

Students and teachers can read articles online or teachers can print articles directly from the site.

 

Time For Kids

http://www.timeforkids.com/

This is a classroom magazine, but they publish online current event articles as well that are free.

 

NY Times Learning Blog Grades 6-12

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/?_r=0
This offers online articles and numerous teaching resources. They provide text to text where they pair two texts and students can compare them. They also have student opinion articles where students can read and then respond with their own opinions.

 

NY Times Infographics
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/teaching-with-infographics-social-studies-history-economics/


The Washington Post Kids Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/

 

PBS News Hour Grades 7-12

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/

This website has articles with videos and critical thinking questions at the end.  These can be read online and printed.

 

Kids Health

http://kidshealth.org/kid/

Read online or printable.

BAM Activity: Health Related Articles for Kids

http://www.cdc.gov/bam/activity/index.html

Read online or printable.

 

NFL for Kids

http://www.nflrush.com/

Sports articles for kids to read online.



Fact Monster

http://www.factmonster.com/

Offers lots of facts and articles about numerous topics.

 

Printable Nonfiction Passages

http://teacher.depaul.edu/Reading_Passages_NONFICTION.html



Read Works

http://www.readworks.org/

 

For The Teachers

http://www.fortheteachers.org/reading_skills.htm#.VMUjEWTF_NX

Lexile Leveled printable nonfiction articles.

 

Text Set of Articles about Nonfiction Issues

http://readingandwritingproject.com/public/resources/booklists/nonfiction%20sets/High_interest_nonfiction_sets_-_edit.pdf

Could be used for making judgments and forming opinions, persuasive writing, or author’s purpose.

 

Kelly Gallagher’s Article of the Week.

Higher Level Nonfiction with instructed annotations and critical thinking questions.

http://www.kellygallagher.org/article-of-the-week/

http://www.kellygallagher.org/aow-archive

 

Jim Burke’s Digital Text Book

http://englishcompanion.com/resources/digital-textbook/

Jim Burke shares his collection of digital texts and links online that he uses in his high school English class.



Best Info Graphics

http://www.bestinfographics.co/
This website offers the best info graphics. 

Infographic Creator 
http://www.easel.ly/

Lastly, I used easel.ly to create the infographic above. It was really easy. Teachers could easily create infographics or  even students could create them too. It's a free subscription for the basic version and then you can upgrade for $2 a month to have more options. You basically just choose a preloaded template and alter whatever you want. 

I teach struggling readers, so I spend a lot of time with chapter books.  Because they play such an important role in creating and building readers, I’ve realized they can’t just be about anything. These books really have to have something special that has the power to transform a reader.   They have to have a really strong concept to hook a nonreader or struggling reader.

So as a writer of chapter books, how do we write something that will be special enough or powerful enough for these young readers?

It all comes down to two simple things: reading and writing.

 

What Have You Read Lately?

 

Obviously, if you want to write a chapter book you need to read a chapter book (or two or three or a hundred) first. Seriously. You should read at least 100.  And not just 100 counting the ones you read when you were in 5th grade. Classics are great. And they are a must. But, those aren’t the books that are being published today. You need to read at least 100 books from the last 0-5 years.   And not because you are going to write to a trend, but if you are going to be serious about writing books that will currently sell, you have to be aware of what is currently selling.

 

Also, by reading, you will learn and discover so much about the craft of writing. You will find authors you love and styles of writing you love and will want to imitate or aspire to write like.  Plus, you will see what’s out there and by simply reading, new chapter book ideas will start sparking in your head!

 

What Have You Written Lately?

 

Obviously, to have a book published, you need to actually write the book first, right?  (Duh.) But before you even write, how much time have you spent generating ideas?  For the past several years, Tara Lazar has been hosting PiBoIdMo, where you dedicate an entire month to generating Picture Book Ideas. The goal is to generate at least 30 ideas in 30 days. But why stop there?  Many people that participate, end up generating 50-100 ideas.  Are all of these ideas good? No! Of course not. Most of them will actually be terrible! But that’s the point.

 

Robert McKee, author of Story, said:

 

No matter our talent, we all know in the midnight of our souls that 90 percent of what we do is less than our best. If, however, research inspires a pace of ten to one, even twenty to one, and if you then make brilliant choices to find that 10 percent of excellence and burn the rest, every scene will fascinate and the world will sit in awe of your genius.

 

So in order to get at least one good idea, you need to generate at least 9 bad ones. To get 10 good ideas, you need to generate at least 90 bad ones!  So if you only think up one idea, what are the odds that it’s going to be an amazing one?  I’d say the odds are pretty slim.

 

Kate Messner takes it even one step further with her post on Picture Book Math. The same concept could be applied to Chapter Books.

 

http://www.katemessner.com/picture-book-math-and-why-you-should-write-something-new/

 

            So don’t limit yourself. If you are serious about writing (specifically chapter books) do what it takes to get those really fantastic concepts that are going to hook those young readers. (Why spend years on one idea that really isn’t that great of a concept and won’t inspire young readers to read, because it’s lacking a hook?) Read as much as you can! Generate many, many concepts and ideas before committing to only one.

 

And then of course write, revise, and repeat. We owe it to the children we want reading our books.