Letters About Literature

Writing to an author (even an author who is no longer alive!) is a good way to explore how a book has affected you. Kids can also enter a contest with their letters.

The Washington State Library hosts Letters About Literature for students in grades 4-12.

Letter writers compete at three levels: Level 1 is grades 4-6; Level 2 is grades 7-8 and Level 3 is grades 9-12. State judges select the top letter writer in each level and the three winning letters advance to the national competition.

This year, entries for Grades 9-12 must be postmarked by Dec. 10, 2013. Entries from children in grades 4-8 must be postmarked by Jan. 10, 2014.

Whether or not students enter the contest, looking through previous year's winning entries might give tutors and students something to talk about. Have you read this book? Do you feel the same way about it as the letter writer? Is there a book that means a lot to you? How would you describe your feelings?

Here, cut and pasted from the website, are links to past winners:

From 2013:

• Cora Tessaro, a fifth grade student at Daniel Bagley Elementary School in Seattle, is the Level 1 state champion.  She won $125 from the State Library.  Cora wrote her letter to Eric Schlosser about his book Chew on This.
• Julia Batson, a seventh grade student at Woodward Middle School on Bainbridge Island, is the Level 2 state champion.  She won $125 from the State Library.  Julia wrote her letter to Randa Abdel-Fattah about her book Ten Things I Hate About Me.
• Jordyn Tonkinson, a ninth grade student at Hockinson High School in Brush Prairie, is the Level 3 state champion.  She won $125 from the State Library.  Jordyn wrote her letter to Garth Stein about his book The Art of Racing in the Rain.

From 2012:

• Clare Doran, a sixth grade student at The Bush School in Seattle, is the Level 1 state champion and one of four national honor award winners. She won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1000 Reading Promotion grant which Clare has given to the Montlake Elementary Scho0l Library in Seattle.  Clare wrote her letter to Jamie Ford about his book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.
• Samantha Smith, an eighth grade student at Blue Heron Middle School in Port Townsend, is the Level 2 state champion and one of four national honor award winners.  She won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1000 Reading Promotion grant which Samantha has given to the Blue Heron Middle School Library.  Samantha wrote her letter to Julie Anne Peters about her book Keeping You a Secret.
• Oliver Reed III, a tenth grader at North Central High School in Spokane, is the Level 3 state champion and one of four national honor award winners.  He won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1000 Reading Promotion grant which Oliver has given the North Central High School Library.  Oliver wrote his letter to William Ernest Henley about his poem “Invictus”.

From 2011:

• McKenna Conlin, a sixth grader at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Kirkland, is the Level 1 champion. She won $125 from the State Library and a $50 gift card from Target. McKenna wrote her letter to Sherman Alexie about his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. 

• Abby Bateman, a seventh grader at Snoqualmie Middle School in Snoqualmie, is the Level 2 state champion and one of four national honor award winners. She won $125 from the State Library, a $150 gift card from Target, and a $1,000 Reading Promotion grant which Abby has given to the Mount Si High School Library. Abby wrote her letter to Katherine Paterson about her book Bridge to Terabithia. 

• John Kang, an eleventh grader at Lakeside School in Seattle, is the Level 3 champion. John won $125 from the State Library and a $50 gift card from Target. John wrote his letter to Mary Paik Lee about her book Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America.

From 2010:

• Reagan Nelson, a 6th grader at Hutton Elementary School in Spokane, has been selected as the state champion and one of two national award winners at Level I. . . . She wins $150 from the Washington State Library, a $550 dollar gift card from Target, and a $10,000 grant for Hutton Elementary School library. Reagan wrote her letter to Laura Ingalls Wilder about her book Little House on the Prairie.

• Stephen Hitchcock, an 8th grader at Overlake School in Redmond, has been selected as the state champion and one of four national honor award winners at Level II. . . . He wins $150 from the Washington State Library, a $150 dollar gift card from Target, and a $1,000 grant for The Overlake School library. Stephen wrote his letter to Jules Verne about his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. 

• Tyler Christensen, a 12th grader at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie, is the Level III state champion. Tyler will receive his award of $150 from the Washington State Library, and a $50 gift card from Target at the awards ceremony in Olympia in May. Tyler wrote his letter to Brian Greene about his book The Elegant Universe.

And the website has more, going back to 2006.

The national program website is here. And you can read lots of great letters there too. A couple of weeks ago, I visited the site with a student and saw this great letter by Alessandra Selassie, a sixth-grade girl who explained how Laura Ingalls Wilder's books helped her understand her father's childhood in Eritrea. Pretty cool!

Acrobat Can Read to You!

A lot of students can understand more orally than reading it themselves. Here is a trick for having text read out loud. It can also be handy for having students review what they've written to see if it sounds right when read aloud.

1. Start with a Word document. (Or paste a Web document into a Word document—ideally as plain text, without hyperlinks.) 
2. Save the document as a PDF.
3. Open it in Adobe Acrobat's free PDF reader.
4. Under View, choose Read Mode
   

   

   Screen snip: Acrobat Read Mode

5. Read This Page Only or Read Tp End of Document

 Screen snip: choosing Read To End of Document

It's a "robot-y" voice, but it really does work. I think it could help a student who is struggling with reading. And, as I said, I could help a student who has written an essay that leaves out some words or skips some thoughts that the student thought were in there: hearing it might help the student "see" the gaps.

Simple English Wikipedia

Have you ever had a student who has to write a report on some topic—whether it's penguins or presidents—who turns to Wikipedia but then can't read well enough to understand the article? Consider trying Simple English Wikipedia.

Simple English Wikipedia uses "Basic English vocabulary and shorter sentences. This allows people to understand normally complex terms or phrases."
Here's the beginning of its article on Abraham Lincoln (without the links):

Abraham Lincoln (February 12 1809 – April 15 1865) was the 16th President of the United States. He served as president from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. Just six days after most of the Confederate forces had surrendered and the war was ending, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln. Lincoln has been remembered as the "Great Emancipator" because he worked to end slavery in the United States.[1]. Lincoln was the first president of the United States to be assassinated.

Compare that with the first paragraph of the regular Wikipedia's article (again without the links):

Abraham Lincoln Listeni/ˈeɪbrəhæm ˈlɪŋkən/ (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its greatest constitutional, military, and moral crisis—the American Civil War—preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, strengthening the national government and modernizing the economy. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was self-educated, and became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator during the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives during the 1840s. He promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, railroads and tariffs to encourage the building of factories; he opposed the war with Mexico in 1846.

Simple English Wikipedia is simpler, isn't it?

The Simple English Wikipedia doesn't have nearly as many articles as Wikipedia, but if it has one on your student's topic, it could be a big help.

Letters of Note

Letters of Note, a site highlighting "correspondence deserving of a wider audience," could be used with teenagers who don't want to read a whole book. The letters are short and yet have enough in them to spark conversation. Maybe they could even inspire some writing.

The site enables you to search and browse in various ways.

A selection:

• Letter from a school librarian to Francis Ford Coppola suggesting, on behalf of her students, that he make a movie of The Outsiders, and letters from the studio as the film took off.
• Letters from famous authors (e.g., Isaac Asimov, Dr. Seuss) about libraries.
• Letter from a freed slave to his former master
• Letter from the creator of Ren & Stimpy with advice to a teenager who wants to become an animator

Adventure and Danger—for History and Culture

One of my students is enthusiastic a out a TV series called "Prison Break." I take it there's a lot of action, and the main characters show a lot of ingenuity. I wonder if any of our students could get excited about this real-world adventure involving people who risked their lives to save thousands a manuscripts about Islam, law, medicine, and astronomy. Sudarsan Raghavan, How Timbuktu's Manuscripts Were Saved from Jihadists, Wash. Post, May 26, 2013.

Children's Choice Book Awards

Children's Book Week is coming, May 13-19, 2013. Kids can vote on the Children's Choice Book Awards, in categories for K-2, 3-4, 5-6, and Teens. There's also a place for teachers, parents, and librarians to vote. Maybe you haven't had a chance to read the new books published in 2012. You might like go look at the lists of winner from 2008-12 (and nominees from 2011-12) to find other good books to check out.

60-Second Science

 

Scientific American offers 60-Second Science -- short (60-second!) podcasts on science topics. I think this could be good for students in middle school or high school:

1. The stories are interesting.
2. Students can build general knowledge.
3. The stories would expose students to good vocabulary words and crisp writing.
4. Students can read the stories at the same time they listen, to help with pronunciation, vocabulary, and comprehension.
5. They're short! Teens who say they don't have time to read books can hardly say they don't have time to listen to a one-minute story once in a while.

The podcasts are about many different science subjects, for example:

• The human body (Better Bitter Tasters Bust Bacteria)
• Environmental engineering (Low-Tech Wastewater Treatment Recipe Features Onions)
• Wildlife (Bird Nest Ciggy Butts Lower Parasite Load), (Scats Reveal Gorilla Diet Stats)
• Psychology (Deeper-Voiced Women Have Election Advantage)
• Archaeology (Humans Said Cheese 7,500 Years Ago), (Cave Artists Had Leg Up on Moderns)
• The water cycle (Mercury Dumped in Ocean Returns in Fog)
• Mechanical engineering (Shock Absorber Dampens Baseball Bat Stings)
• Paleontology (Sauropod Neck Bones Were Really Tendons)

If you can't talk your students into reading books at home, try challenging them to listen to and read some of these. (Even if they do read books, you can suggest the podcasts as a garnish.) Later, you can have a conversation about what they listened to and learned.

Library Blogs for Teens

Seattle Public Library has a blog written by teens and the librarians who work with teens: Push to Talk. Other blogs to watch for good teen reading, homework tips, etc.:

• Online Teen Readers (King County Library System
• Sno-Isle Teens
• readergirlz
• Guys Lit Wire
• Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!
• Reading Teen

Teen Reads @ InfoSoup has lots of lists—Adventure Fiction, All One World (Multicultural Fiction), Animal Stories, Award Winning Books, and so on, all the way to Twilight Read-Alikes.

Poetry Sites

Poets.org 

From the Academy of American Poets, this site has a large selection of poems, as well as biographical information about poets, and other information.

• Poem-a-Day: You can skim the poems they've posted recently. And you can sign up to get a daily email with a poem to enjoy and think about.



Some of the themes listed on Poets.org

• Search for poems or look for poems sorted by theme here.
• Listen to audio (interviews and readings) and watch video here.
• Poems for Teens has a good selection—35 poems, by my count.
• The "For Educators" tab lists
  • Tips for Teaching Poetry
  • Poetry Resources for Teens
  • Curriculum & Lesson Plans
  • Great Poems to Teach
  • Essays on Teaching
  • Teaching Resource Center
  • Poetry Read-a-Thon

Users can set up accounts and create "notebooks" of poems. These lists might be good for kids:

• 7th Grade Poetry Online
• Sports
• Eng 10 Honors Poetry Project
• Forever Young!
• Children's Bedtime Poems
• Poems for Children
• Summer School Poetry Collection
• Grade 9 English Poetry

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Poetryfoundation.org

The Poetry Foundation has a large selection of poems, listed by subject (Love, Nature, Social Commentaries, etc.), occasions (Birthdays, Weddings, etc.), or holiday. You can also look at poems arranged by the "school" (Augustan, Beat, Harlem Renaissance, New York School, etc.), the poet's birthplace, or the poet's century.

You can also find examples of different verse forms (e.g., haiku, limerick), stanza forms, meters, and techniques (e.g., alliteration, metaphor). (This would have been handy with a high-school student I tutored last year who was studying some of these concepts.)

Whatever search you do, you can filter to include only poems that are good for children. Without any other search terms, there are 175 poems tagged as good for children.

There's a page for audio (readings, lectures, interviews) and a page for video. 

There's a page for Children's Poetry. A series of videos for kids is The Children's Poet Laureat Presents.  There are three very short (half a minute) videos from Classical Baby (I'm All Grown Up Now).

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Poetry Everywhere

Here is a series of short videos of poets and actors reading poetry, produced by a public TV station (WGBH, in Boston) in association with the Poetry Foundation. Most of the videos are recent, but there's one black-and-white video of Robert Frost reading "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Poetry Everyhwere also includes a collection of 34 short animations created by students at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Students might enjoy these. Who doesn't like clever animation? Plus they could help with reading skills, because you hear the poems read while seeing animated characters and, usually, animated words. Very cool.



Animated poetry menu

(These might require Flash. They don't work on my iPad, anyway.)


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Library of Congress Poetry and Literature

If you like videos, check out the Favorite Poem Project, which shows people reading and discussing their favorite poems. A lot of the people in the videos are students or ordinary folks (a construction worker, a doctor, etc.), but some are famous. (Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton each read a poem.)

Poetry Webcasts and Podcasts include readings and interviews with poets.

Poetry Resources has lots of helpful links.

Poetry 180 (collected by Billy Collins)

is designed to make it easy for students to hear or read a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year. I have selected the poems you will find here with high school students in mind. They are intended to be listened to, and I suggest that all members of the school community be included as readers.

A poem a day, picked out for students!

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Poetry.org

This site doesn't indicate who produces it. It has a comparatively small selection of famous poems. It's page listing poetry genres and terms links to Wikipedia entries.

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Why list poetry resources?

1. Most important: students might like it and find it meaningful.
2. Students who are already interested in poetry can learn more and develop their own craft.
3. Students might have homework that these resources could help with.
4. Some of those students who can't be talked into reading a book might be persuaded to try just a poem or two.
5. Hearing authors and actors read poetry could help reading fluency. Students who are assigned to do interpretive reading in class can hear how it's done.

True Stories of Quileute Tribe

A couple of years ago, the Twilight books were popular with some of the teen girls at our tutoring center. I'm always happy to see students reading anything, and the Twilight books are appealing because they have interest teens but are comparatively easy to read.  If the movies add a reason to read, all the better.

The stories include a theme about the Quileute Indians being werewolves. They aren't really, of course, but they do have some wolf legends. You can learn more in this post from the Smithsonian Institution and even more in the Real Story of the Quileute Wolves from the Seattle Art Museum. (SAM created an exhibit, which has now traveled to the Smithsonian.)

If you have a student interested in Twilight (and its sequels), it could provide an entree to Native American  culture, Washington State history, or Washington State geography,

Tips for Studying Science

Studying Science: The Six Keys to Success (from ExploringScienceCareers.org) could be helpful to older students, especially those planning to go to college. The summary:

Key Number 1: Manage Your Time New students often don't know how much time it really takes to study science. You'll need to make the most of every minute. Our time-saving tips may not make you a science whiz overnight, but they will help you get on top of all that studying!

Key Number 2: Create A Study Space Whatever and wherever it is, your study space should be your own personal sanctum sanctorum. Your brain comes to associate that space exclusively with studying - so as soon as you enter it, you just click into the study mode. This, in itself, is an enormous time-saver.

Key Number 3: Master the Textbook Are you intimidated by your science book? If so, you're not alone. Tackling a difficult text can be daunting, even for the most intelligent student. Our experts offer advice about how to approach, read, take notes on, and (best of all) understand those gargantuan science texts.

Key Number 4 - Note-Taking ABCs If you want to be a successful student of science, you need to master two essential in-class skills: effective listening, and effective note-taking. We can help you notice - and take note of - what's most important in the lecture hall.

Key Number 5 - Join A Study Group The best students - like the best health professionals - do not work in isolation. The friends you study with become allies in learning: You cheer each other on, brainstorm together, divvy up topics, and help each other study for exams. There's strength in numbers!

Key Number 6 - Don't Cram For Exams Cramming is stressful and exhausting - but even worse, it's not very effective. Our experts tell you how to be so well prepared that you'll spend the night before your next exam actually sleeping.

Since we tutors spend so much time on reading, the tip on how to read a science textbook is especially worthwhile. Getting the most out of a science textbook takes some differ skills from reading a novel or history book!

Washington State Kids Going to College

The Seattle Times reports that Washington State is near the bottom in the rate of students going to college (two-year or four-year) after high school. There's a companion story about an elementary school in Kent that's trying to get kids thinking about college from the very beginning.

• Why Washington's kids aren't going to college, Seattle Times, Sept. 22, 2012
• In Kent, the path to college begins in elementary school, Seattle Times, Sept. 22, 2012

Washington has a higher percentage of adults who have gone to college than average and yet a low percentage of young people who go. Why? Because a lot of well-educated people move here. See Trends: Washington state's higher-education paradox, Seattle Times, Sept. 22, 2012. Wouldn't it be great if our own students could get the educations they need to work at Microsoft, Nintendo, Boeing, Amgen, Genentech, and so on?

We need to remember vocational programs in community colleges and technical schools, too. I know a young man who is finishing a two-year welding program at a community college, and he should be able to get a job and make a good living. We need good mechanics, carpenters, chefs, electricians, nurses, medical technicians, dental hygienists, and more. To get training for these fields, students still need to get through high school and enroll in a program. Study skills, reading, math, and language arts will be important to them, even if they don't choose to go to a four-year college.

I have sometimes tutored a teenager who didn't have enough homework for the hour and yet did not want to read a book. If your student is like that, you try reading these articles together and talking about them, for a little reading practice and an opening to talk about what comes after high school. There are some math skills to practice, too—reading charts, talking about percentages.

If your or your student like Vocabulary.com, try this list based on these news stories.

Free Webinar: Reeling in Reluctant Readers

Want to learn about ways to encourage reluctant readers? Check out this free webinar from the American Library Association 11 a.m. Sept. 25:

Reeling in Reluctant Readers

Teachers and librarians are always looking for new ways to connect with children and teens categorized as “reluctant readers.” In this free, hour-long webinar, a reading specialist and literacy coach—along with representatives from Orca Book Publishers and Saddleback Educational Publishing—will discuss strategies and resources effective in reaching struggling readers ages 10 and up, as well as present books that combine high-interest topics with accessible writing. Also hear about new releases and best-selling series from Saddleback Educational Publishing and Orca Book Publishers. Moderated by Books for Youth associate editor Ann Kelley. Can't make the date? Register anyway so a link to the video archive of this webinar can be e-mailed to you after the event.

PBS Kids

PBS Kids has lots of games and videos for kids.

Some games are aimed at very young kids—e.g., in Bubble Pop the child clicks on bubbles that rise out of Curious George's bathtub and counts them, 1, 2, 3, . . ., while Curious George giggles. Others for little kids help teach colors, shapes, etc.

Some games are aimed at older kids. For example, Cyberchase games are designed for students who are 8-12 years old.

How do you find an appropriate game for the skills your student is working on? Take a look at PBS Teachers. A navigation bar lets you choose a grade level (Pre-K, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12). Then you can choose a subject (The Arts, Health & Fitness, Math, Reading & Language Arts, etc.). The result is a long list of videos, interactive games, and offline activities. You can search within the list.

If you're looking for math games, go to the Parent & Teachers page for Cyberchase. And for a variety of science, technology, and math lesson plans and resources, for K-12, see the STEM Education Resource Center A lot of the games require Flash, so will have to be played on a computer.

If a tutor likes to let a student play a game on an iPhone or other mobile device, use the mobile version of PBS Kids (m.pbskids.org).

The PBS sites for parents and teachers have some ads (the ones I saw were for the Seattle Aquarium and Applegate Organic & Natural Meat). The PBSKids site is free of ads—something I look for in sites for students. Kids are exposed to plenty of advertising as it is. Why distract them with ads for, say, KeyBank, Target, Amazon, and Marriott (the ads I saw on Learning Games for Kids.com when I visited it just now)? I make an exception for Free Rice.com because the sponsors are supporting world hunger relief. This isn't to say I'd never recommend Learning Games for Kids.com—or other sites with ads. I just prefer not to have ads.

Biomedical Research Story

Maybe a teen is more interested in medicine than rocket science. Try reading  this recent article about research at the UW: UW researchers see work as step toward regenerating human heart, Seattle Times, Aug. 7, 2012.

Want to work on some of the hard words? Try this vocabulary list on Vocabulary.com.

Rocket Science Story

Here's another fairly short story that might interest some older students who are thinking about careers and college—or loud, exciting rockets that go fast: Student-built rocket with experimental motor blasts to 1st-place finish, UW Today, Aug. 10, 2011.

There's a cool video showing the rocket taking off. It went over 5 miles high!

The team of students worked on the project for a year and a half. That's a lot of work—but designing a new rocket motor is a big deal!

Of course to talk about rocket science, you need some vocabulary, like "propulsion" and "design." A vocabulary list based on the article is here. As with other lists on Vocabulary.com, it gives you practice with new words (along with points and "badges" when you get them right).

President Obama's Speech to Students

During President Obama's first year in office, he gave a speech to students at a high school that was televised to schools around the country. You can read the speech and watch a video of it here. (Some students might find it helpful to be able to listen to Pres. Obama speaking as they read the trasncript.) Are some words hard? Check out the vocabulary list at Vocabulary.com.

[T]oday I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education—and do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending some time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all young people deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. . . .

But whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work—that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you're not going to be any of those things.

The truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject that you study. You won't click with every teacher that you have. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right at this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

Most students like President Obama: maybe that would help make this a good, short reading exercise—and, of course, an opportunity to talk about starting the new school year with a commitment to engaging with the work.

Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary.com is a terrific site. It has a very fast dictionary and lots of tools for helping you learn words. AND it has NO ADS!

 To use the vocabulary lists (and create your own), you need to register (free). You have to be at least 13 years old to register. Once you register, you can keep track of the words you're learning. And the system keeps track of what you've already done so it can help you practice and improve.

There are lots of lists of words that are already put together, at different levels of difficulty. For example, if you like The Hunger Games but you stumble over some of the words, you might decide that it would be helpful to use "The Hunger Games" Vocabulary from Chapter 1.


You can look over the list of words ("canvas," "cocoon," "insist," "scrawny," etc.). Or you can look at a list with definitions. Or a list with definitions and notes, including the sentences from the book where the words are used. Want more? Click and you can read notes about any word. For example, for "venture":

As either a noun or verb, venture implies risk. Your family won't like it if you leave school to go on an artistic venture. Those who chose to venture off school grounds were never seen again.

You've probably noticed that venture is a shortened form of adventure. This happened sometime between 1100 AD and 1400 AD during the time that Middle English was spoken. While the two words are similar in meaning, when you subtract the "ad," you lose a teaspoon or two of fun, and add a heaping tablespoon of risk.

The same page offers more detailed definitions. On the right side, you can click to see the word used in different sentences from the news, sports, business, science, and so on.

You can try out your vocabulary by clicking on "Learn this List."  You get a series of multiple-choice questions about the words in the list. If you guess right, you get a cheery message ("Nice work!"). If you don't, you get another chance, and another. You can also ask for hints—either having the program eliminate two wrong answers or give you a sample sentence. When you don't get a word on the first try, the system remembers it, so you'll get a review later.

After 10 questions, you get a score. You see your best streak (e.g., 6 in a row), and you get a bonus if you got all 10 right.  Then you can keep going to the next round. Getting the scores so often makes it into a game. It's fun to try to get a long streak going or to get a bonus for a perfect round.

After you feel pretty good about the vocabulary from chapter 1, then you can move on to the list for chapter 2, and then chapter 3.

There are lists for famous speeches (e.g., Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech, a speech by Nelson Mandela) and lists for literature (e.g., Walden, The Great Gatsby).

And there are lists designed to help students prepare for standardized tests, like the SAT.
Vocabulary.com is produced by Thinkmap. Thinkmap has other products that require a subscription, but Vocabulary.com is free. Here is Thinkmap's press release from when it launched Vocabulary.com  (April 2011).  


In 2012, Vocabulary.com was an Official Honoree in the Education category of the Webby Awards. 
The more I use this site, the more I like it.