Where can you make a Wordle?

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. (from the Wordle website)

The word of the week posters at Grand Forks Central have been made using Wordle, which is referenced above. To learn more about Wordle, click the above hyperlinked text.

Looking for vocabulary activities?

What's available at VocabularyCoach?

The choice to view words according to difficulty.
Think you are a word guru?
Various word games and activities to better help you master new words.
Enjoy both active games and hands-free games, where you just watch and learn.
No account needed, and it's free.

To learn more, click the above hyperlinked text.

A little reminder

 Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.
Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree.Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections.

• It's a dictionary! It's a thesaurus!
• Great for writers, journalists, students, teachers, and artists.
• The online dictionary is available wherever there’s an internet connection.
• No membership required. (from Visuwords)

National Student Poets Program

The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services have partnered with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers to launch the National Student Poets Program (NSPP), the country's highest honor for youth poets presenting original work. Five outstanding high school poets whose work exhibits exceptional creativity, dedication to craft, and promise will be selected annually for a year of service as national poetry ambassadors.

To learn more, click the above hyperlinked text.

What's up at Reading Today Online?

Reading Today Online is updated daily with articles on the following topics: Articles on Reading Today Online are divided into six topics: Teaching Literacy, Children’s Literature, Councils & SIGs, Research & Grants, Legislation & Policy, and Member News. You can access articles one at a time by clicking on their links, or you can view all of the articles of a certain topic by clicking on that topic name. You can also view all of the articles in a list, shown in reverse-chronological order. If you especially enjoy a certain article, click on the sharing links at the bottom of its webpage. There are links to Facebook, Twitter, and more, as well as a link to share the article URL via email. Some articles even have “discuss on Engage” buttons that allow members to login to chat with other members about topics covered in the articles.  (from the "About" page at Reading Today Online)


To learn more, click the above hyperlinked text.

Note: You don't need to belong to the International Reading Association to access content at Reading Today Online.

Young authors guide at New Pages

This is guide where young authors (as defined by each publication - sometimes it includes college-age) can find places to publish their writing. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a select list of publications in print as well as online that have open submissions with guidelines, an editorial selection process, and a regular print cycle. Some publish only young authors, some publish all ages for young audiences. For more specific submission guidelines, visit the publication's website. (from the New Pages blog)

How to denote foreign words

Whether or not to italicize foreign words depends upon the word’s familiarity to the intended audience, the context in which the word appears, and the frequency with which the word appears in a given text.


In American usage, if a foreign word has an entry in Merriam-Webster, it need not be italicized. According to that rule of thumb, kafé and nan would be italicized; retsina and puja, not. (from Daily Writing Tips)

To read more, click the above hyperlinked text.