Basic Guide to Essay Writing
At this site, written by a former English teacher, you will be guided through all of the steps of the writing process.
Chicago Manual of Style Online: Significant Rule Changes NEW!
Here is a list of signifant rule changes in the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. For example, the abbreviation for “United States," in works following Chicago’s primary recommendation of using two-letter postal codes for states (e.g., MT, not Mont., for Montana), US rather than U.S. is now preferred.
Confusing Words
"Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused."
Dictionary.com: Word of the Day
Build your vocabulary by learning a new word every day.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves Punctuation Game
Practice placing apostrophes and commas correctly.
Everyday Spelling
This site by textbook company Scott Foresman features commonly misspelled words and spelling strategies and more.
Free Rice
Build your vocabulary at this quiz site, and for every word you get right, 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations to help end world hunger.
Grammar Handbook
This site includes sentence elements, clauses, phrases, and common language usage problems.
GrammarHelp
A user-friendly collection of grammar links for students.
Guide to Grammar and Writing
Review parts of speech, capitalization, plurals, paragraph development , and much much more!
How to Paraphrase
This helpful slide presentation from Brock University shows clearly the steps to correct paraphrasing.
Internet Public Library: Literary Criticism
"The IPL Literary Criticism Collection contains critical and biographical websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by nationality and literary period."
Internet Public Library: Quotations
A collection of links to sources for identifying and finding quotations.
NY State Test Prep (ELA): Developing an Idea from Brief Text
A kid-friendly lesson on paraphrasing with links to additional review and a quiz.
Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Over 200 pages include sections on research, grammar and mechanics connected to writing, style guides, ESL (English as a Second Language), and professional writing.
Spin and Spell
At this fun and interactive site for Grades K-3, students can choose from an array of common images and can click on letters to spell out the names of the objects.
Using Italics and Underlining
In order to distinguish certain words such as titles and names from others within a piece of writing, words are italicized or underlined. Technically speaking, both are correct and may be used, but here at East Woods we underline. This site clarifies when to use underlines, as opposed to quotation marks. Please note, that the examples used here are printed in italics, but they are interchangeable with underlined text. For all of the examples shown, wherever italics are used, underlined text may be used in the same way.
Young Authors Guide NEW!
"This is a guide where young authors (as defined by each publication) can find places to publish their writing." Also included is a list of literary contests which students can enter for different types of writing (essays, poetry, etc.).
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Poetry Writing Workshops
Try your hand at poetry writing through one of these online workshops from Scholastic:
- Listen to Jack Prelutsky read one of his poems, then follow his tips and techniques to have some fun with poetry writing!
Karla Kuskin demonstrates how to use descriptive words to create powerful poems.
Rhyme and rhythm are two keys to writing poetry — and I Spy riddles as well, using Jean Marzollo's tips and activities.