Below are five web sites that are reliable sources for information and resources pertaining to secondary English education:
www.ncte.org
This is the official site of the National Council of Teachers of English. It offers tons of links where teachers of secondary English can find current news articles, preview lesson plans and new books, find out about the standards of this professional organization that are meant to enhance state and national standards, write for the NCTE publication of <i>English journal</i>, find out how to participate in the National Day of Writing, and even get in touch with other English teachers through blogging and a leadership organization called CEL.
www.readwritethink.org
This site is a good site to find lesson plans for English classes of all grades. To find lesson plans, standards, and student materials for secondary grades, a teacher can simply select grades 6 through 8 or grades 9 through 12 under the lesson plan selector tab. Lesson plan subjects range from Shakespeare interpretation to creating a persuasive podcast.
www.reading.org
This site is geared more towards reading teachers, but would still be a good site to look at when teaching English. It offers meetings and events where teachers can find out about ways to more effectively help students read including English-language learners. It includes a literacy forum where teachers can participate in ongoing online conversation about teaching methods. The site suggests teacher resources to use in the classroom as well.
www.novelguide.com
This site may not be as visually pleasing as cliffnotes, but it does offer more information about novels over a longer range of time. This site includes summary and character analysis from modern classics and also offers short author biographies. Students could use this site as a starting point or review (it offers study guides) of novels they are studying but should be aware that some of the information given is opinion-based.
www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/britlit.htm
On this site, British literature is organized under subheadings that represent time periods. When you click on a subheading such as Victorian Period, for example, a list of authors comes up. You can click on an author's name to find out basic information about them such as their major works, their lifespan, and other links that offer criticism and more author information. This site would be a good resource for students who are going very brief research on British authors.