There’s not an enormous amount of material on the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama that’s accessible to English Language Learners.  I have, however, found a few useful sites.

You might also want to visit The Best Sites To Learn About U.S. Presidential Elections for a ton of accessible resources about Barack Obama’s life and the presidential election itself. Just to make things a little easier for readers, though, here is a nice overview of Barack Obama’s life (from the Associated Press) if you didn’t want to take the time to visit another list.

Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About The Presidential Inauguration:

National Geographic has a good article and slideshow about the history inaugurations.

EL Civics has a good lesson for English Language Learners on Presidential Inaugurations.

The Washington Post’s Inauguration Central has multimedia resources on just about every aspect of this upcoming inauguration and the ones that came previously! Not all of it is accessible to ELL’s, but much of it is.

The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies also has a number of resources. One good feature is on the theme of this year’s inauguration — A New Birth of Freedom. Another is an explanation of Inauguration Day Events.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee
has a few accessible materials, including a slideshow on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible, on which President-Elect Obama will be sworn-in.

The city of Washington, D.C. has a gallery of photos from past inauguration day parades.

The Washington Post has a slideshow on the History of Inaugural Balls.

The McClatchy Newspapers have two good interactives — one is a game about famous lines from previous inaugurations and the other is a simple virtual tour of the White House. They also have some other good resources on the same page.

Here’s a slideshow detailing the preparations being done for the inauguration.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper website has an interactive feature that provides images and a very accessible (and short) description of each presidential inauguration since Washington’s time.  Plus, they have a nice map of the parade route with images.

Inaugurals Of The Past
is the title of a slideshow from the McClatchy Newspapers.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has a nice page on the upcoming inauguration. It includes some excellent interactive graphics.

I’m adding a slideshow from The New York Times on the Inauguration Rehearsal to this list.

Inauguration Practice is a slideshow from The Washington Post.

The New York Times also has an online video called Inaugurations In Times Of Peril.

Preparation For The Inauguration is a series of photos and simple captions from the Sacramento Bee.

These next two additions are from The Washington Post:

A Photo/Video Collage called The Preparers and focused on preparing for the event.

A neat Panorama of the event’s stage.

An Inaugural Timeline is an interactive from the Associated Press.

Washington Preps For The Inauguration
is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Top Inaugural Speeches is an interactive with short highlights from past key inauguration speeches.

I Do Solemnly Swear… is an interactive from The Wall Street Journal that highlights biblical passages each president used in their inauguration, along with showing images.

Capitol Crowds is a slideshow from the Wall Street Journal about the large crowd the inauguration is anticipating to draw, and similar large events that have occurred in the past at the Capitol.

A Peek At The Official 2009 Inaugural Ball Sites is a slideshow from the L.A. Times.

Inauguration Day Through The Years is another slideshow showing past inaugurations.

USA Today has an excellent interactive map of the parade route.

The Guardian, a UK paper, has a good interactive, and accessible, schedule of Inauguration activities.

The Associated Press has a great series of maps about the inauguration parade route. Unfortunately, it’s a bit tricky to access it. Go here and click “Presidential Inauguration Day Coverage” right above “I Do Solemnly Swear.”

USA Today has a nice multimedia piece on modern Inaugural Speeches.  There are a bunch of other sites that provide something similar, but the great thing about USA Today’s interactive is that it just provides a short clip of the most well-known parts of the speeches.

USA Today also has a slideshow on the inaugural preparations.

Agence France Presse has a very nice interactive reviewing the events of the next four days.

You can see photos and a diagram of the new limousine created for Obama, and it’s pretty impressive, indeed.

Here’s another interactive graphic about the limousine.

Breaking News English has a good online lesson on the new Presidential limousine that will be unveiled on Inauguration Day.

The Sacramento Bee has a good graphic describing the new Cabinet.

The New York Times has a very intriguing interactive called I Hope So Too. They interviewed 200 people to find out what they hoped Mr. Obama would accomplish as President. In a slick graphic, you can see the primary hopes they said, hear their words, and then vote on which ones you think are most important.

The Wall Street Journal has a new slideshow on Inaugural Oddities.

Here are even more additions — accessible coverage of the President-Elect’s “whistlestop tour” leading up to the Inauguration:

A Whistle-Stop Trip To Washington slideshow from The New York TImes.

Obama Kicks Off Whistle-Stop Tou
r slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Another similar slideshow from MSNBC.

CBS has yet an additional slideshow.

And here’s one from the Cable News Network, too.

A video of his short speech in Baltimore on the trip from the Baltimore Sun. MSNBC has a video of the same speech.

The Washington Post has a good video that’s ideal for English Language Learners. It shows a bunch of people trying to define the word “Change.”

The Voice of America has a video series on the Inauguration.

A little different kind of slideshow from The New York Times about the whistle-stop tour.

Every Business Loves A Parade is a slideshow from the Times. It’s about how local businesses are preparing for the inaugural.

Look at another panorama of the inaugural site from Gannett Online.

A USA Today slideshow on the whistle-stop tour.

A very accessible interactive
from The Chicago Tribune about the events of the next few days.

Inaugural Words from The New York Times, I believe, is one of the more useful resources that have been created for the Inauguration.  “Word clouds” highlighting the most-used words in each inaugural address can be seen. In addition, words that were used in each address much more than in the other ones given in history are identified. Plus, by clicking on each word you are shown how it was used in a sentence. Comparing the words and even just using them as a vocabulary-building exercise for English Language Learners make this an excellent resource.

The Times has also created what is probably the coolest looking interactive map of the Inaugural parade route.

Concert Kicks Off Inaugural Events is a slideshow from the Washington Post.

Reuters also has a slideshow about Sunday’s events, as does USA Today and CBS.

Another interactive agenda for the Inauguration
, this one from the Detroit Free Press.

“Anything Is Possible” is the video of Obama’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Here is the text of that speech.

The Wall Street Journal has a collection of slideshows.

The Sacramento Bee has a collection of images leading up to the Inauguration.

I think I’ve read in several other blogs about MSNBC having videos from the inauguration speeches from the past 120 years. However, I hadn’t realized that all you have to do is click “transcript” and you can see the words as they’re spoken. That makes them much more accessible to English Language Learners.

Here’s an MSNBC slideshow about Monday’s events.

Here’s a New York Post slideshow on the Obama’s Day of Service.

The New York Post also has one of the better interactive biographies of Obama’s life that I’ve seen.

The Detroit News has a new inaugural interactive, including an accessible quiz.

CNN has a good interactive on past presidents called Words From The Past.

Before Inauguration, A Busy Day is a slideshow from The Washington Post.

Setting The Stage and Day Of Service are two slideshows from The New York Times about Monday’s events.

Inaugural Firsts is a slideshow from National Public Radio (thanks to Infinite Thinking Machine for the tip).

The extraordinary Inaugural Words site at The New York Times has now added a word cloud of President Obama’s inaugural speech.

Two NY Times slideshows — one called The Scene and the other titled The Ceremony.

TIME Magazine also has two slideshows — How Barack Obama Prepared His Speech and Barack Obama’s Inauguration

MSNBC has an online video of the President’s speech. The text is shown as the words are spoken if you click “transcript.”

Newsweek has a slideshow of the inaugural crowd.

MSNBC has a good slideshow showing the worldwide celebration of the new president’s inauguration.

Obama’s Moment In History is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Here’s a link to an MSNBC slideshow of the Inaugural Parade.

The New York Times has put all their Inauguration slideshows on one page.

The Wall Street Journal has a slideshow on security for the inauguration.

USA Today has a slideshow of the parade that includes a great picture of the Obama’s dancing on the reviewing stand.

Reuters has one of the best slideshows about Inauguration Day that I’ve seen.

Here’s one from CBS on some Inaugural Balls.

The Chicago Tribune has a collection of images from the past two days.

Behind The Scenes Of Obama’s Big Day is a TIME Magazine slideshow.

The New York Times also has online video of President Obama’s speech — with the text shown as the words are spoken.

The NY Times also some panoramic images of the day.

A collection of images from the Sacramento Bee.

The Galas, a slideshow from The New York Times.

After The Ceremony, The Celebrations is a slideshow from The Washington Post.

Inaugural Balls is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

The Newseum shows the front pages of hundreds of newspapers from around the world each day. Obviously, today’s papers (January 21st) focus on the Inauguration of Barack Obama. However, that link will only be good until the 22nd. They don’t save most of the daily collections they feature. However, they do keep the ones they believe to have historical significance. So, starting on the 22nd you can find today’s historical front pages on the inauguration in their Archived Pages section. It’s worth looking at the other events they’ve chosen to save, too.

Here’s an even better version of a similar collection.

The Big Picture from the Boston Globe, which is just about the best source of news photos out there, just published The Inauguration of President Barack Obama collection.

Delve Networks has applied their audio search technology to the Inaugural Speech. Basically, you type in a word in the search box below the video, and then a heat map (colored strips) will appear showing words that are related. You can then click on the stripes to be brought to the part of the video where the related words are spoken by President Obama. For example, I typed in “equality” and was shown where he spoke the words “men” and “women.” It could be an intriguing word exercise for English Language Learners (thanks to Mashable for the tip).

In The Moment is an excellent multimedia presentation by the Washington Post.

The World Watches Obama’s Inauguration comes from TIME Magazine and shows worldwide reaction.

One of my favorite columnists, E. J. Dionne, wrote a great analysis of President Obama’s Inaugural speech. It’s titled A Radical Inaugural Speech.  I think it offers an excellent political analysis but, particularly important for my teaching English Language Learners, it highlights several words and phrases that I’m using with my students as both an opportunity to build vocabulary and to also develop higher-level thinking skills.   It’s been a hectic week with semester exams, and I just haven’t had the time to think about the speech carefully.  Dionne’s discussing, for example, the phrase “tolerance and curosity,” reminded me how useful those and other words in the inaugural are for follow-up activities.

The Inauguration Scrapbook is an ever-growing collection of images taken by people who attended the inauguration of Barack Obama. Viewers can vote on which photos they like the best.

The Wall Street Journal has a multimedia feature highlighting inaugurations since 1960, including providing both the audio and text of the speeches, along with “word clouds.”

The Wilmington News Journal has a nice interactive showing videos of past inaugurations.

The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have prepared several lesson plans that can be modified for English Language Learners.

Most of the time, I’ve found Teaching Tolerance lesson plans to be thoughtful and designed to further higher-order thinking from students. They’ve just announced a series of ideas for classroom activities around the Presidential Inauguration that are worth a look.  Most would have to be modified for English Language Learners, but you can at least get some decent ideas.

The New York City Department of Education has put together Inauguration Day 2009: Activities and Resources. It’s an eighteen-page downloadable document that has many surprisingly-good lesson ideas and resources.

Veterans of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-Americans trained as fighter pilots and who flew with distinction during World War II, have been invited to the inauguration by President-Elect Obama. Here are some accessible resources about them:

Voice of America Special English provides audio support to the text in this report.

The Tuskegee Airmen Memorial Fund has several excellent features. One is an interactive history. Another shows a series of videos about the struggles they faced. Finally, you can take a quiz to see if you have the attributes that would have made you persevere to become a member of the Airmen.

CBS has a short and accessible description of the Airmen.

The New York Times has an online video about the Airmen.

I thought it would be good to add a few resources to this list that show and tell about Washington, D.C. in an accessible way.

Here are four:

The Library of Congress has a feature called Explore the Capitol, which includes audio support for the text.

EL Civics has a lesson on Washington, D.C. specifically designed for English Language Learners.

MSN has a good slideshow on the key places in the city, and Infoplease has a similar presentation.

Their First Words is a visualization, and a searchable database, of all presidential inauguration speeches.  The ability for students to search for specific words makes it a good vocabulary-building exercise for English Language Learners.

As always, feedback is welcome.

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