Resources for Close Reading and Literary Analysis Lessons

Great stories, just-right leveled reading; now mostly by subscription

Bottom Line: While pricey, Newsela has ascended into an all-in-one destination for leveled, non-fiction reading.

Feature-rich literacy resource offers superb support for readers

Bottom Line: Access a hefty collection of reliable, ready-to-print, leveled passages that allow you to tailor lessons, assign online reading, and track progress.

Elegant, customizable e-reader empowers close reading, boosts skills

Bottom Line: An excellent tool for in-text assessment. Maximize the platform's usefulness by uploading your own texts and setting up CCSS-aligned checkpoints.

Structured literacy program inspires deep analysis, thoughtful writing

Bottom Line: This is an expertly scaffolded and pedagogically sound resource for developing critical reading and writing skills.

Empowering reader invites students to read with purpose

Bottom Line: Far beyond the average e-reader, this tool helps students connect with texts and each other while giving teachers useful insight into student thinking.

Superb ELA resource features engaging activities, stellar support

Bottom Line: An exceptional, ever-growing resource for helping your students become close readers, careful writers, and critical thinkers.

Handy supporting features help demystify popular Shakespeare plays

Bottom Line: This is a thoughtfully-designed site that makes Shakespeare approachable while also encouraging students to read closely.

Shakespeare's greatest hits made more accessible, manageable

Bottom Line: This is a great starting place for students to connect with these challenging texts.

Rich collaboration and close-reading tool invites deep, easy-to-assess discussions

Bottom Line: Versatile, free discussion platform for teaching, peer review, assessment, and fostering active reading.

Versatile annotation tool helps users critically connect with content

Bottom Line: Kami is an effective way to promote student interaction with texts, authentic documents, and pictures.

Tool makes webpages and digital texts spaces of critique, discussion

Bottom Line: This tool opens up digital text and the web to analysis, annotation, and discussion, whether inside a classroom or with the world.

Useful Chrome extension lets teachers add interactivity to websites

Bottom Line: A potential go-to tool for teachers focused on building critical reading skills, especially those in Chromebook classrooms.

Chrome extension helps organize web-based research

Bottom Line: For Chrome users and mostly digital classrooms, this is a fairly intuitive tool that'll help students wrangle their research.

Collaborative tool lets users annotate songs, literature, web content

Bottom Line: Students can collaboratively engage in the process of annotation and analysis with various texts -- both within the forum and on the web.

Browser extension helpful for annotation and research organization

Bottom Line: A solid -- with room to grow -- annotation and research tool; serious users will need to pay for premium.

Free hub for literacy lessons aims to deepen learning, engagement

Bottom Line: This is a trustworthy site that teachers of all grades/subjects could find a way to use weekly for lessons or professional development.

Differentiate reading instruction with high-quality texts and lessons

Bottom Line: The quality and scope of texts, lesson plans, assessments, and supports on this platform can help facilitate online or offline targeted reading instruction in nearly any home or classroom.

Relevant media clips get students examining identity, culture

Bottom Line: Teachers will need to take time to build effective lessons, but if they do, this is a useful, relevant, high-interest resource for deconstructing identity and building critical thinking and empathy skills.

A decent support for understanding reading, but not a replacement

Bottom Line: Sometimes it’s OK to make friends with the enemy; there's potential to support students as they decipher challenging texts.