Connecticut State Department of Education

Connecticut Core Standards

Classroom Resources - Social Studies

Resources for Lesson/Unit Development

  • Lesson Planning Tool: Content and Structure - The Lesson Planning Tool (digital version only) guides teachers through a series of prompts about the lesson content, structure, and activities to ensure the Shifts required by the CCSS are central to the lesson. (achievethecore.org) 
  • Learning Design Collaborative with Facing History: Mini Task Collection - This extensive listing of classroom activities and tasks provides handouts and source material specific to each task for successful implementation in the classroom. (coretools.ldc.org)  
  • Teach It: Bringing Connecticut History to the Classroom - The goal of this site is to help Connecticut’s teachers bring Connecticut history into the classroom through a series of inquiry-based activities that reinforce the principals found in the new social studies frameworks. Teach It provides activities that link local events to national events so students can understand how a state’s contributions shape community, history, and heritage.    
  • The Center for History and New Media resources are designed to benefit professional historians, high school teachers, and students of U.S. history. (historymatters.gmu.edu) 
  • Digital Vaults – Hundreds of photographs, documents, and film clips of some of the National Archives’ most treasured records. On this site it is also possible to collect records to create your own archive of American history and your own movies and posters using the documents. (digital vaults.org)      
  • Digital History - This site is designed specifically for history teachers and their students using new technologies to enhance teaching research. (digitalhistory.uh.edu)
  • Using Primary Sources - Discover quick and easy ways to begin using primary sources in your classroom, with teachers' guides, information on citing sources and copyright. (Library of Congress)  
  • DOCS TEACH: Historical Thinking Skills - DocsTeach activity-creation tools, from National Archives, targets specific historical thinking skills to help educators create interactive learning activities using primary source materials.
  • The New Library of Congress Teachers Page provides tools and resources for using Library of Congress primary source documents in the classroom and include excellent lesson plans, document analysis tools, online and offline activities, timelines, presentations and professional development resources. (loc.gov) 
  • Connecticut History Illustrated – This is a collaborative digital collection of thousands of still and moving images, documents, sound recordings, (including oral histories), maps, books, pamphlets, broadsides, paintings, and three-dimensional artifacts all relating to the history and culture of Connecticut from the 17th to the 21st century. (chs.org) 
  • Connecticut: 50 Objects/50 Stories – Objects from the past and from today help tell the stories that define Connecticut as a changing place, a community, and an idea. Click on Events & Exhibits and scroll down to online exhibitions. (chy.org) 
  • HistoryCat Library Catalog – is the online catalog of the Connecticut Historical Society of books, manuscripts, broadsides, maps, serials, newspapers, and audio/visual materials. (chs.org) 
  • Online Research Tools at the Connecticut Historical Society include: manuscript finding Aids, a subject guide to African American resources, Civil War manuscripts. Additional non-electronic catalogs and resources may be searched on-site. Researchers of all ages and interest levels are welcome. 
  • K-12 Social Studies Articles - to build background knowledge and vocabulary. (readworks.org)  
  • Social Studies Reading Passages Meet the Common Core - 53 social studies passages to teach reading comprehension. (readworks.org)    
  • Literacy in the Digital Age: Five Sites with High Quality Informational Text – by Steve Figurelli and Natalie Franzi, August 19, 2015 posted on Tcher’s Voice, a blog series from Teaching Channel with Student Achievement Partners about digital literacy tools and their effective use by educators. (teachingchannel.org)   
  • Academic Word Finder - will help you identify which words to focus on with your students to help them become better readers. Copy and paste any text into the tool, select your grade, and the tool will generate a list of academic vocabulary words along with definitions and sample sentences. You can use the Academic Word Finder to guide instruction or develop a classroom handout or quiz. (achievethecore.org)
  • Text-Dependent Question Resources - provides tools to help write and evaluate text-dependent questions, as well as a link to lesson materials with examples of text-dependent questions. (achievethecore.org)
  • Gold Standard Project Based Learning (PBL): Align to Standards – This blog by John Larmer, posted on January 19,2016, is one example of the short, informative blogs that can be found on this website.  Other related titles in an extensive Archive collection include: Gold Standard PBL: Project Based Teaching Practices, April 21, 2015 and Gold Standard PBL: Scaffold Student Learning, January 29, 2016. (bie.org) 
  • Authentic Products Aligned to Common Core Writing Standards – This document focuses specifically on the writing component of final products.  Ideally, these products are created for an authentic audience, one beyond the classroom and the teacher.  (Expeditionary Learning, Plaut and Passchier, January 2015)
  • In Common: Effective Writing for All Students - provides a range of examples of Common Core-aligned student work to demonstrate how a student’s writing skills can progress as they gain fluency across the three major types of Common Core writing: argument/opinion writing, informative/explanatory writing, and narrative writing. (achievethecore.org)     
  • National Constitution Center: Living News Classroom Toolkit - This toolkit provides classroom activities designed to encourage students to explore various Constitutional issues from a personal perspective, develop an understanding of the Constitution as it impacts daily life, and to consider points of view different from their own. (constitution center.org)  
  • The Library of Congress American Memory is a resource for American history and general studies. Included are multimedia collections of photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and digitized text. In the Teachers Section there are primary set collections and themed resources. Teachers can also get updates on new tools, professional development opportunities, and Library programs, events and services.  (memory.lc.gov) 
  • Beyond the Bubble—This website offers more than 65 Common Core-aligned History Assessments of Thinking (for grades 6-12) using source material from the digital archive of the Library of Congress. Interactive rubrics to evaluate student responses and annotated examples of student work are included. (developed by the Stanford History Education Group in collaboration with the Library of Congress’s Teaching with Primary Sources Educational Consortium.)
  • Artifacts & Analysis: A Teacher’s Guide to Interpreting Objects and Writing History - This site presents a strategy for incorporating historical artifacts and documents into the teaching of U.S. history. Designed as a companion to the Advanced Placement Program U.S. History course, it is also effective in any instructional setting that emphasizes analytical thinking and writing. (smithsonianeducation.org)
  • Catching Fire: Models of Student Work Can Spark a Chain Reaction of Deeper Learning – Education Week’s Learning Deeply 4-22-15 blog By Contributing Blogger Wilhelmina Peragine, Teaching Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Education. (edweek.org)
  • Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior –This free downloadable resource from Facing History is a collection of primary and secondary sources that explore the consequences of discrimination, racism, and anti-Semitism. As students read and reflect, they investigate the forces that undermined democracy in Germany and ultimately led to the Holocaust.(facing history.org)     
  • Common Core Writing Prompts and Strategies: Holocaust and Human Behavior—This free downloadable resource from Facing History connects the text Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior with writing prompts that align with the expectations of the Common Core State Standards. This supplementary guide includes specific writing prompts and teaching strategies that ask students to use evidence as they craft a formal argumentative essay. The resource features effective writing strategies for general use in the social studies or English classroom. (facing history.org) 
  • Teaching Mockingbird - This guide created by Facing History presents educators with materials to interweave the historical context of Depression-era rural Southern life to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. A free PDF download of the instructor’s manual that ties the curricula activities to the Common Core State Standards is provided. (facinghistory.org)  
  • ELA Instructional Samplers: These ELA Common Core Samplers, written by Delaware teachers and specialists, are designed to assist educators in incorporating the three “big” shifts into their instruction and to provide a model for assessments that can inform instruction.  The samplers include grade-appropriate complex texts, academic vocabulary, and text dependent questions. (doe.k12.de.us)
  • Video Playlist: Educating Digital Citizens (teachingchannel.org)
  • Appendix: Protocols and Resources for ELA CCSS Curriculum, Grades 3-8—This Appendix contains a comprehensive listing and description of the purpose and procedure of: protocols that teachers could use to check for understanding, different types of ongoing assessment strategies, and teacher strategies for building academic vocabulary (developed by Expeditionary Learning for engageny.org)
  • Fluency Chart, Grades 1-8 - The Hasbrouck-Tindal table shows the oral reading fluency rates of students in grades 1 through 8, as determined by data collected by Jan Hasbrouck and Gerald Tindal. Teachers can use this table to draw conclusions and make decisions about the oral reading fluency of their students.  (readnaturally.com) 
  • Fluency Packet for the Grade 2-3 Band - This 82-page document has 40 passages to help Grades 2-3 students build fluency. Comprehension questions and key vocabulary are also included. (achievethecore.org)
  • Fluency Packet for the Grade 4-5 Band - This 89-page document has 40 passages to help Grades 4-5 students build fluency. Comprehension questions and key vocabulary are also included. (achievethecore.org)
  • Fluency Packet for the Grade 6-8 Band – This 90-page document has 41 passages to help Grades 6-8 students build fluency. Comprehension questions and key vocabulary are also included. (achievethecore.org) 
  • Fluency Packet for the Grade 9-10 Band – This 87-page document has 40 passages to help Grades 9-10 students build fluency. Comprehension questions are also included. (achievethecore.org)

Learning Projects Aligned to Core Standards

Illuminating Standards Video Series

What would it look like if standards were met with depth, and imagination? The Illuminating Standards Project, a collaborative project of Expeditionary Learning and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, showcases a video collection of long-term, interdisciplinary, arts-infused, community-connected projects illustrating how to make standards come alive in project-based learning. (centerforstudentwork.elschools.org)

Elementary School

  • Our Presumpscot School Community - This video shows how students learned the meaning of community by creating “community cards” as a way to become familiar with the staff members in their school. They learned how to interview, illustrate, and write as they created cards. These community cards were compiled into a directory of staff members and were used as a guide for visitors, new students, and their families. (Presumpscot Elementary School, Portland, ME, grade: K)
  • Six-Word Memoir Self-Portraits - This video showcases students using personal narrative, in written and artistic forms, to develop a sense of community in the classroom that facilitates learning throughout the school year. (Downtown Denver Expeditionary Learning School, Denver, CO, grade: 2)

Middle School

  • Revitalizing Rochester – This video features a civic project in which students successfully led a campaign to revitalize their community. Students researched and collected information about other cities around the United States who have engaged in successful waterway-revitalization projects.  They then wrote a position paper titled “Revitalize Rochester” for the reconsideration of an unsuccessful bond issue to revitalize the Rochester downtown by restoring water to the Erie Canal waterway and building a surrounding commercial district. (Genesee Community Charter School, Rochester, NY, grade: 6)
  • Character File of Autumn Helena Washington Hawn – This video showcases one student’s authentic project based on the class’ study on deaf culture that included: a study of world and U.S. history from the perspective of the deaf, the reading of fiction and non-fiction books related to deaf culture, and presentations by deaf people of all ages as cultural experts. Students also did fieldwork at different schools for the deaf, studied the anatomy and physiology of hearing, the physics of sound and hearing, and worked with communication scientists at a local university lab. (Shutesbury Elementary School, Shutesbury, MA, grades: 5, 6)
  • Mohammed and the Number Genie – In this video, small groups of students write their own chapter, taking key concepts in math and embedding them into a narrative. Each group worked together to explain their mathematical concept accurately and within the context of the story. (High Tech Middle Chula Vista, San Diego, CA, grade: 6)
  • Small Acts of Courage – In this video, students explored the Civil Rights Movement and became historians as they researched events, interviewed local heroes, and documented their experiences. In celebration of their work, students organized a community presentation to honor those interviewed and to share their collection of stories.  (King Middle School, Portland, ME, grade: 7)
  • Peacekeepers of Chicago – This video shows students collecting data on gun violence in their own neighborhood. The statistics, showing high numbers of fatalities near the school, and their own personal experiences with violence compelled them to take action. They completed two projects: a citywide “Day of Peace” event and a book to honor the stories of local citizens working for peace. (Polaris Charter Academy, Chicago, IL, grade: 7)
  • A Little More Than Just People - This video shows students engaged in a community-based project to create and publish a book titled “A Little More than Just People: Monologues of Community Cultivators.” (Four Rivers Charter Public School, Greenfield, MA, grade: 8)
  • This Is Why I Cry - This video showcases students creating a historically accurate fictional narrative told through a character’s perspective. (Pioneer Charter School, Fort Collins, CO, grade: 8)
  • A Rainbow of Religion – In this video, students interviewed leaders of different faiths in their community, asking questions about life, morality and meaning. Students then wrote, critiqued, and edited their work in order to publish a book that explored fundamental life questions. (Four Rivers Charter Public School, Greenfield, MA, grade: 8)
  • ReVOLT – This video shows students engaged in an interdisciplinary project using design to solve a real world problem: the limitations imposed by our current ways of using energy. After investigating science and social issues such as environmental concerns behind wind power, they used what they learned in all of their classes to design and build devices that solved a modern-day energy need in a unique way. Designs and research were pitched to a panel of community members. (King Middle School, Portland, ME, grade: 8) 
  • The 20 Years Project – This video features a project that shows how Common Core math standards can be addressed in work that is engaging and compelling; it asked students to imagine their life 20 years in the future. Each student created a portfolio that included an interview of someone who had taken a career path similar to what they envisioned for themselves and a monthly budget based on their projected lifestyle. Each student’s portfolio ended with “20 Years Reflection”, an imaginative look back at the last 20 years. (High Tech Middle Chula Vista, San Diego, CA, grade: 8)

High School

  • Perspectives of San Diego Bay: A Field Guide – This video showcases students engaged in collaboration across academic disciplines to create a professional-quality field guide that met a genuine market need in their community. Students researched, collected data, did analysis, and designed the field guide with the help of teachers, scientists, and community members. (Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High School, San Diego, CA, grades: 9-12)
  • Economics Illustrated – This video showcases students creating a book that used writing and art to demonstrate economic terms and concepts in ways that their peers and non-economists could understand. (High Tech High School, San Diego, CA, grades: 9-12)
  • Chemistry & Conflict - This video shows a cross-disciplinary research project where students studied both chemistry and history to create a book titled “Chemistry and Conflict.” To create this book, pairs of students worked together to research the relationship between a chemical element or compound to both a historical and a contemporary conflict. This project started with extensive research, leading to the writing of a research paper. Students also made copper etching illustrations to accompany their writing.  The students’ work is featured in a professionally designed and printed book. (High Tech High, San Diego, CA, grade: 10)
  • The Human Face of Human Rights – This video features a project in which students interviewed international refugees about the human rights abuses they had experienced in their home countries. Students wrote about the immigrants’ reflections and included photography to retell their experiences. (Casco Bay High School, Portland, ME, 10th grade)
  • Iconic – In this video, students are the authors of a book titled: “Iconic: The Black and White of Our Heroes & Heroines”, a collection of essay reflections on their personal relationship with a chosen icon (both famous and little-known heroes who inspired them) paired with black and white photographic self-portraits. This book was printed as a paperback. (High Tech High Media Arts, San Diego, CA, grade: 11)
Other Projects Aligned to Core Standards

 EQuIP Resources for Common Core Alignment

Resources for Text Sets

Building Background Knowledge About Text Sets
  • Text Set Project: Building Knowledge and Vocabulary - This professional development module from Student Achievement Partners focuses on the Text Set Project: Designing and Integrating Expert Packs. The training is for teachers, those who support teachers, librarians, and media specialists to build understanding and experience with Common Core State Standards (CCSS)-aligned instruction and materials. Within the module, there are materials, activities and discussions to enable participants to begin creating and using Expert Packs to support students in building knowledge, vocabulary and the capacity to read independently. (achievethecore.org)
  • Newsela’s Text Sets Toolkit – This Learning & Support feature contains various resources to help educators to understand what text sets are, how to create their own text sets, how to edit them, how to use text sets in their classrooms…and more. (newsela.com)  
  • Text Sets, Deep Learning and the Common Core by Jean Donham - This informational article describes the integral role of text sets in meeting the expectations of the Common Core for deep learning. (posted on academia.edu, originally published in the School Library Monthly)
  • A Conversation about Implementing Text Sets - In this interview with the English/Language Arts Program Coordinator at the Louisiana Department of Education, she and the National Center for Literacy Education’s Associate Director talk about the implementation of the Common Core State Standards in Louisiana. Specifically, they discuss the work with teachers on constructing text sets for K-12 classrooms. (Literacy in Learning EXCHANGE)
  • “Text Sets: Your Chance to Lead the Common Core” by Marc Aaronson - This blog provides a rationale for implementing text sets that support Common Core Standards. (School Library Journal, 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 May 2014)
  • “Creating Cross-Curricular Text Sets for the Middle Grades” by Amanda Wall - This blog shares the process for creating cross curricula text sets; it also includes samples of middle school text sets. (Middleweb, April 20, 2014)
  • Facing History Resource Collections - These resource collections make it easier to find relationships and build connections among resources.  Collections include:  Anti-Semitism, the Armenian Genocide, Choosing to Participate, Civil Rights, the Darfur Genocide, Eugenics and Race. (facinghistory.org)
Sample Text Sets
Resources for Educators to Develop Classroom Text Sets
  • Bookshare - This site provides access to reading materials and supports for people with print disabilities. It is a free service for all qualified U.S. students who cannot read traditional print books because of a visual impairment, physical disability or severe learning disability. (Beneficent Technology, Inc. with sponsorship by the U.S. Department of Education)
  • Newsela’s Text Sets –There are several categories: Featured Text Sets, Spanish Text Sets, Text Sets for both literature and Social Studies, and News from Around the World.  
  • CommonLit—This website offers teachers a free collection organized by theme and Lexile level of news articles, poems, short stories, historical documents, complex nonfiction texts (including paired texts), related multimedia (videos, audio, and interactive websites, teacher guides, parent guides, text-dependent questions, and discussion questions. A new text view allows students to interact with the text on laptops and other one-to-one devices. (commonlit.org) 
  • Teaching Kids News -This site produces kid-friendly news articles that are appropriate for grades 2 to 8. Activities make vocabulary accessible, give a context for each news story, and encourage students to think critically—not only about the story itself, but about the journalist’s possible bias and/or how the story could be written differently by another journalist.  (teachingkidsnews.com)
  • Lit2Go -This free online audio collection of stories and poems provides: an abstract, citation, playing time, and word count for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for classroom use. (Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida)
  • Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) - This website provides original booklists created by the CCBC professional staff on a wide range of themes and topics, including those specifically aligned with the Common Core Standards. (School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
  • Education Lesson Planning Resources: Text Sets - This site provides information and resources to help educators create text sets. (Milne Library, State University of NY at Genesco)
  • Storyline Online - This site features celebrated actors reading popular stories aloud. (sponsored by the Entertainment Industry Foundation/storylineonline.net)
  • American Literature - This online collection of texts includes short stories, classic literature, Shakespeare, children’s stories, poems, speeches and essays. (americanliterature.com) 
  • Open Culture—Over 700 free cultural eBooks and audio books for iPad, Kindle& other devices can be found at this site.  (openculture.com)
  • Bartleby: Great Books Online - This site provides unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge.  (bartleby.com) 
  • Project Gutenberg - This site offers over 46,000 free ebooks that can be downloaded or read online. (gutenberg.org)
  • Poetry Foundation - This site provides an online collection of poetry. (poetryfoundation.org)

 Toolkits and Materials

  • DOCS TEACH: Historical Thinking Skills - DocsTeach activity-creation tools, from National Archives, targets specific historical thinking skills to help educators create interactive learning activities using primary source materials.   
    • Finding a Sequence activities encourages students to practice chronological thinking.
    • Focusing on Details activities teach students to pay close attention to detail in primary sources and understand them in context.
    • Interpreting Data activities teach students to analyze historical data, consider a document’s source, and hypothesize about the methods used to collect the data.
    • Making Connections activities encourage students to analyze relationships among historical documents.
    • Mapping History activities teach students to use geographic information and information gleaned from primary sources to formulate historical conclusions.
    • Seeing the Big Picture activities help students recognize that numerous events, actions, and individuals have an impact on historical outcomes.
    • Weighing the Evidence activities teach students to formulate interpretations based upon historical evidence.
  • Text to Text Graphic Organizers – As students read and discuss, they might find one or more of these organizers helpful for taking notes.  They can be printed or used as editable PDFs on computers. (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)
  • Toolkit for Evaluating the Alignment of Instructional and Assessment Materials to the Common Core State Standards (achieve.org) 
  • WordSift 2 is a tool designed to help teachers manage the demands of vocabulary and academic language in their text materials – as well to support English Language Learners. It easily sifts through texts to quickly identify important words. This function is widely available in various Tag Cloud programs on the web, but this particular tool has the added the ability to mark and sort different lists of words important to educators. (ell.stanford.edu) 
  • SweetSearch is a search engine designed for students that lists websites reviewed by a team of educators. It also provides social media tools that enable users to send their results to others. (sweetsearch.com)    
  • WebTools4U2Use: Finding the Right Tool (webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com)
  • Wordle – This website turns text into word clouds—words or phrases that are repeated show up larger in the completed word cloud. The word cloud can be randomized to change colors and patterns. (edwordle.net)
  • VISIBLE THINKING – This website is for teachers, school leaders and administrators in K-12 schools who want to encourage the development of a culture of thinking. Many resources for classroom use are described in detail. (visiblethinkingpz.org)    
  • See, Think, Wonder Visible Thinking Routine – This is a routine for exploring works of art/photographs and other interesting things; it encourages students to make careful observations, thoughtful interpretations, and sets the stage for inquiry. (visiblethinkingpz.org)     
  • See-Wonder-Think Strategy Sample Video Lesson demonstrates a routine that helps students to analyze and interpret art and/or photography. It was developed by Visual Thinking. (teachingchannel.org) 

Resource Libraries

  • iCONN, a comprehensive search engine for educators and students – provides all students, teachers and administrators with free online access to a wealth of essential library and information resources from trustworthy sources. It is freely accessible from every school, library, and home. Access from home requires a public library card. (iconn.org) 
  • Teachinghistory.org - National History Education Clearinghouse: This website is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. The site includes links to content by topic, teaching strategies, and multiple resources for lesson development. (U.S. Department of Education and the Center for History and New Media)
  • Social Studies Instructional Resources from the Colorado Department of Education (cde.state.co.us)
  • Tween Tribune – This news website by the Smithsonian provides daily news articles for K-12 students. Articles are selected by professional journalists working in collaboration with teachers and students. As a Smithsonian resource, it has a plethora of science and history focused articles. There are also articles in Spanish, different lexile levels, technology, a junior version for grades K-4 and more. (tweentribune.com) 
  • The Teaching with Primary Sources Journal - Strategies and resources for K-12 classrooms from the Library of Congress. The TPS Journal is an online publication created by the Library of Congress Educational Outreach Division in collaboration with the TPS Educational Consortium. Each issue focuses on pedagogical approaches to teaching with Library of Congress digitized primary sources in K-12 classrooms.   
  • The Teaching with Primary Sources Journal: Historical and Geographic Thinking - This issue of Teaching with Primary Sources Journal features an article that explores how the Five Themes of Geography can be used to analyze primary sources. (Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring 2016-Library of Congress)  
  • Student Discovery Sets - The new Library of Congress Student Discovery Sets brings together historical artifacts and one-of-a-kind documents on a wide range of topics, from history to science to literature. Interactive tools let students zoom in, draw to highlight details, and conduct open-ended primary source analysis. Full teaching resources are available for each set. (Library of Congress/iBooks)     
  • Open Professionals Education Network: This website provides openly licensed education content that can be used in whole or in part. It includes links to photos, videos, audio/music, general recorded lectures & video tutorials, open textbooks, simulations and animation, as well as modular course components and complete courses. (open4us.org)
  • Hispanic Heritage Month: All About the Holidays – This video is part of a set of emerging videos from PBS Learning Media designed for grades K-4 to help teachers supplement classroom lessons on holidays celebrated in America.
  • Social Studies Articles & Text Dependent Questions – This collection of grade-appropriate articles with text-dependent questions can be used to help students build background knowledge and become stronger readers. (readworks.org)
  • The America Achieves Common Core website helps teachers to implement the Common Core by showing videos of real classrooms and teachers demonstrating key shifts of the Common Core. The site also has downloadable lesson plans and worksheets, examples of student work, as well as links to videos of teachers analyzing their own lessons and progress in implementing Common Core.
  • CommonLit website offers teachers and students a free collection of news articles, poems, short stories, historical documents, and complex nonfiction texts-all organized by theme and Lexile level. 
  • CommonLit: New Features Video - CommonLit is an educational non-profit dedicated to advancing children’s literacy in grades 5-12. Their resources are flexible, research-based, and aligned to college and career-ready standards. (published on April 4, 2016 by Michelle Brown for commonlit.org) 
  • The International Children's Digital Library is a project of the ICDL Foundation in collaboration with the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab. The Foundation promotes tolerance and respect for diverse cultures by providing access to the best of children's literature from around the world in many languages. (en.childrenslibrary.org)
  • OPEN eBOOKS is a free resource for educators who work directly with students attending Title 1 schools, students with disabilities, and several other qualifying categories. Each collection of titles has a variety of genres, of both fiction and informational text. (openebooks.net)
  • 40 Resources and Tools for Deeper Learning: Resources include a video series with supporting materials including rubrics, lesson plans, research, and strategy documents. (teachingchannel.org)
  • The Hartford Courant Newspaper in Education Program is an online interactive classroom resource to help teachers connect students to the news. Many of the resources list Common Core Standards. Programs have been specifically designed to address the needs of Connecticut students in social studies, geography, science, math, and language arts. Resource pages are written by educators, museums, nature centers and other professional organizations. Current offerings include: Cartoons for the Classroom, Front Page Talking Points, Geography in the News, Green Room, News Video, Pulse of the Planet, This Week in History, Use the News and Words in the News. (nieonline.com)
  • Newsela’s SPANISH articles – These articles are available on a wide variety of topics and reading levels, in both Spanish and English.(newsela.com)  
  • SELA website provides teachers and students nonfiction articles that are Common Core aligned. Each article offers a choice of five different Lexile levels, making it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at level that is just right for each student. High interest articles are updated daily on such topics as: War and Peace, Science, Kids, Money, Law, Health and Arts. (newsela.com)
  • FYI for Kids is a collection of engaging and high-quality magazine articles designed to enhance the Common Core classroom’s reading repertoire. The objective of this project is to demonstrate a type of text that is essential for increasing students’ engagement in and proficiency with complex texts—short engaging articles that communicate critical information. (textproject.org)
  • The Washington Post Newspaper in Education Program allows all teachers to access topical NIE Curriculum Guides on a variety of topics in all subject areas. Common Core Standards aligned to the suggested activities are listed at the end of the most recent curriculum guides. (nie.washingtonpost.com)
  • K-12 Informational Text and Multimedia Resources (Library of Congress)
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Resources for Educators (ushmm.org)
  • National Archives 
  • Library of Congress   
  • United States House of Representatives 
  • United States Senate   
  • U.S. Federal Court 
  • Presidential History   
  • U.S. Supreme Court  
  • National Constitution Center