Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

December 12th is a Mexican National Holiday, and an important day for many Mexican-Americans — The Day Of The Virgin Of Guadalupe.

Many English Language Learners in the United States are from Mexico. Accessible materials on any high-interest topic helps motivate students to be more engaged in learning, plus, with The Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, students bring a whole lot of prior knowledge to make make the resources even more accessible to them.

So here’s another “The Best…” list — The Best Sites For Learning And Teaching About The Day Of The Virgin Of Guadalupe:

My top choices for materials accessible to English Language Learners are (not in order of preference):

A short article (with audio support for the text) and slideshow from Minnesota Public Radio.

An audio slideshow from a Texas newspaper that provides a good overview of the day’s history.

An article and slideshow of the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Another slideshow of images from various celebrations.

I want to add a slideshow from the Albuquerque Journal about a local celebration of that day to that collection. It has beautiful pictures and great music, though the narration is a bit stilted and probably not very accessible to English Language Learners. Happily, though, there’s only narration for a small portion of the show and most of it is music only.

As always, feedback is welcome.

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November 19th was World Toilet Day and, though it sounds funny, it was designed to bring attention to the lack of public sanitation in many parts of the world.

This list is a little late, but these resources can be used for an engaging lesson on any day of the year! I’ve included quite an eclectic mix of sites.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About World Toilet Day & The Issue Of Public Sanitation In The Third World:

Of course, ESL Holiday Lessons has a very accessible lesson on the day specifically geared towards English Language Learners.

Why Is World Toilet Day Necessary? has some good basic information.

Experts call for end of flushing toilets on World Toilet Day is a short article.

A Brief History Of Toilets comes from TIME Magazine.

On the lighter side:

Here’s a slideshow on strange toilet designs.

The strangest toilets from around the world is a series of images.

There’s an annual poll on the best public restrooms in the United States. You can see all the winners here.

14 of The Best Seats In The House is another series of unusual images.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to explore the other 350 “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Every year lots of organizations, ranging from the United Nations to the Gallup Organization, put out various types of “Best” lists using different criteria to rank cities, states, and countries on their quality of life.

Each year I do a unit with my students where they evaluate different neighborhoods using their own criteria. This year, I thought it might also be useful for them to see the criteria that others use to evaluate communities.

So, here are my choices for The Best Lists Of “Best Places To Live”:

World’s Happiest Places

Interactive Map On The Happiest Places In The U.S.

Best Places To Live

Another Best Places To Live

Best Counties To Live In

Countries With The Best Quality Of Life

The Ten Happiest Countries In The World

America’s Best Places To Live

World’s 20 Best Places To Live

World’s Friendliest Countries

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to explore the other 350 “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Here’s a quote from TIME Magazine about it:

The convention ensures children of the right to a name, a nationality, an education, the highest possible standards of health and protection from abuse and exploitation. UNICEF said these rights are based on four core principles — non-discrimination, the child’s best interests, the right to life, survival and development, and respect for the views of children.

The convention has the widest support of any human rights treaty, with ratifications legally binding 193 countries to its provisions. Only two countries — the United States and Somalia — have not ratified the convention, though have said they intend to.

I thought I’d quickly put together some resources about it that might be accessible to English Language Learners:

A Generation Later, Still Struggling is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

The World’s Children is a series of images from The Sacramento Bee.

UNICEF has a number of good multimedia resources on the anniversary, including this slideshow.

TIME Magazine has a good article that is probably accessible to Intermediate ELL’s.

ABC News has a longer piece. You could probably take excerpts from it.

Human Rights Watch has a good series of questions and answers about the Convention.

Feel free to offer additional suggestions.

Let’s Celebrate Thanksgiving is a brand-new online activity by Renee Manfroid, whose main site is on The Best Websites For English Language Learner Students — 2009 list.

I’ll be adding this new exercise to The Best Sites To Learn & Teach About Thanksgiving.

Just a reminder to readers that I’ve been continuing to update The Best Sites For Learning About Pearl Harbor
that I published last year.

You might find that list useful.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has some exceptional resources providing a Native American perspective on Thanksgiving.

I’m not sure how accessible they’d be to English Language Learners, but the lesson ideas can certainly be modified by teachers.

I’m certainly adding the link to The Best Sites To Learn & Teach About Thanksgiving.

Thanks to The School Library Journal for the tip.

Agence France Presse has an Interactive graphic on hunger in the world. 60 heads of state are attending the United Nations World Summit on Food Security in Rome.

I’ve added the resource to The Best Sites To Learn About World Food Day.

The Sidney Morning Herald sent a photographer to the United States to document some of the worst storms that hit the West. Stormchasers, a series of audio slideshows, is the result.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Natural Disasters.

You might also be interested in The Best Websites For Learning About Natural Disasters.

This “The Best…” list is a bit different from other ones.

I’ve already created a bunch of lists related to World War II, and I compiled extensive online lessons for my U.S. History class last year. So, in this “Part One” post, I will primarily be sharing links to those links and lessons.

Sometime in the future I’ll be more carefully reviewing all those lists and coming up with a much shorter one that just shares “The Best Of The Best” drawn from this larger collection.

Of course, another criteria is that the resources have to be accessible to English Language Learners.

So, with that explanation, here are my choices for The Best Online Resources For Teaching & Learning About World War II (Part One):

Before I share links to all of my related lists, I do want to include a link to a great multimedia interactive timeline for World War Two that the British newspaper The Guardian published today. Seeing it was what gave me the idea of putting together this post.

Here are links to the three lessons related to World War II that I used in class. Each lessons contains numerous resources. All the resources are accessible except for the ones connecting to Brainpop movies. You need a paid subscription to view them (you can also get a free trial):

World War Two Begins

Internment Of Japanese-Americans

The End Of World War II

Here are links to additional “The Best…” lists, all which contain multiple resources:

The Best Sites For Learning About Pearl Harbor

The Best Sites For Learning About The Holocaust

The Best Resources For Learning About The Warsaw Uprising

The Best Resources For Learning About The Atomic Bombings Of Japan

Feedback, as always, is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 350 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I’ve included Fact Monster in some of my “The Best…” lists.  Today, though, I’d like to highlight a specific feature of the site called People and Biographies.

It has links to short, accessible biographies of over 30,000 people. My English Language Learner students have found it very helpful.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Biographical Essay.

This is a little different from my usual “The Best…” lists.

Inspired by the twentieth anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall this week, I’ve begun to think about developing some lessons related to walls — physical, mental, and emotional — and how they’re used by us and others to stay separate. I’m thinking it’s also an opportunity to help students learn about metaphors and similes.

This list is different, though, because usually I don’t post a list like this until I have some specific ideas on how to use the resources in a lesson.

I’m not there year, and, instead, am sharing these resources and asking for ideas on how best to use them. Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Absent a lesson plan, here are my choices for the The Best Sites To Learn About Walls That Separate Us (and are accessible to English Language Learners):

Raising Walls is an intriguing feature from The Wall Street Journal highlighting famous….walls in history and around the world.  The interactive graphic is supplemented by a slideshow, video, and article focused on walls being built around slums in Rio de Janeiro.

Great Walls In History is a slideshow from Newsweek magazine.

Here are two sites on the Great Wall of China:   One is a site from the University of Washington called the Great Wall that has text accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners and some nice photos.   I really like this other site.  It’s from an organization called The China Guide, and it’s a cool Virtual Tour of The Great Wall.  It gives a 360 degree tour and you can click on “hot spots” to move throughout the wall.

Two nice sites on the Berlin Wall are a series of photos from The Denver Post and an interactive from The Guardian.

The Wall’s Rise and Fall is an interactive from the Wall Street Journal. The Berlin Wall, 20 years gone is a series of images from the Big Picture. Both are about the Berlin Wall.

Of course, the United States is building a huge border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. The New York Times has a map showing it. Here’s an interactive interviewing people who live near it. Earlier this year, the U.S. built a fence in the middle of ‘Friendship Park,” which is near San Diego and a place where friends and relatives from both countries would gather. You can watch a slideshow about what happened and also hear and read an NPR report on the event.

The Washington Post has an interactive about Israel’s plan to build a fence on the West Bank to separate Israel from the Palestinians.

Here are a series of images of Hadrian’s Wall, which was built in Great Britain long ago by the Roman Empire.

Walls of Incompetence is a series of photos of modern-day walls.

Baghdad: City of Walls, Pt.1: Scars of war is from the British newspaper The Guardian and highlights giant walls that have been built to separate Shia and Sunni neighborhoods.

Again, lesson ideas are welcome, along with suggestions of additional resources.

If you found this post useful, you might want to explore the other 350 “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

The National Parks Service has put together a really exceptional interactive on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I’m adding it to The Best Resources About President’s Day.

Flowing Data has some maps that very visually show where unemployment has increased over the past few years.

I’m adding them to The Best Sites To Learn About The Recession.

Student Day Protests In Iran is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The Protests In Iran.

Google announced today a new feature in their popular Google News page — you can now create your own customized news sections, and publish them so they’re accessible to anyone (if you want to). For example, I just created one on Hmong news, which is obvious interest to many of my students.

Of course, in a lot of ways you do something like this with an application like Daymix and, unlike with the new Google news feature, you don’t have to sign-in at Daymix to create your custom page.

But I could see Google’s page just being one more way for students to create their own high-interest content to read.

Thanks to Mashable for the tip, which also has more info on it.

Millions of Muslims make the annual pilgrimage, called the Hajj,  to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.  Because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar based on the motion of the moon, the time of the Hajj is different time each year in terms of the Gregorian calendar.

This year it begins on November 25th.  You can see future dates here.

I thought it would helpful to create a “The Best…” list about the Hajj.

As usual, I’m only listing sites that are accessible to English Language Learners.

You might also find The Best Websites To Learn About Various Religions & English helpful.

Here are my picks for The Best Sites To Learn And Teach About The Hajj ( not in order of preference):

The UK newspaper The Guardian has an excellent interactive about the Hajj.

Channel 4 in the UK also has a good site on the Hajj, including a “virtual Hajj.”

The Hajj and Eid al-Adha is a series of excellent photos and accessible captions from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.

The Hajj Goes High-Tech is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

CBBC Newsround has a simple explanation.

The Washington Post has a short article and slideshow.

Breaking News English has an online lesson on the Hajj for English Language Learners.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Here are some more additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:

Halloween At The White House is a slideshow from The Washington Post.

10 Best Halloween Houses

Not-so scary sights is another slideshow from The Washington Post.

Sacramento has hit the big time! The New York Times today has published a slideshow and article titled A Weekend In Sacramento.

I need to get around to making a “The Best…” list about Sacramento. I already have:

The Best Sites To Learn About San Francisco

The Best Websites To Learn About California

Find My Crowd is a great tool to find demographic information on any neighborhood or city in the United States. It has some unique data that I haven’t found accessible in other similar sites.

I’ve added the link to my website under Student Neighborhood Maps. You’ll find a lot of neat research tools in that section — I have to get around to writing a “The Best…” list about them. My students use them in a research project culminating in a persuasive essay about the best neighborhood. It’s a great project that I’ve written about in my upcoming book “Teaching English Language Learners: Strategies That Work” that will come out next year. I’ll try to summarize the lesson in an upcoming post.

Thanks to Interesting Pile blog for the tip on the site.