Want to shape up your storytelling and pump up your prose? Whether you're a screenwriter, copywriter or, umm, a writer-writer, these online courses can help you master the craft:

BBC Get Writing

Coffeehouse for Writers

U of Calgary's Grammar courses

Writer's Boot Camp

Writer-on-line

In this lesson, students are asked to analyze various Shakespearean and contemporary puns and how particular words make these puns possible. They will use the Visual Thesaurus to examine the subjects of this wordplay and to help them create original puns in small groups.  Continue reading...

... and other nifty PowerPoint presentations on English usage are available for free from a website called the Guide to Grammar and Writing. If you or your students are interested in learning about "The English House of Commas" or "The Mighty Apostrophe" please click here.

Designing clothes isn't just a leisurely prance down the catwalk: It's art and industry with its very own, often technical, language. The words themselves may seem familiar to us non-designers, but the meanings are anything but. We called New York fashion designer Mary Ping to help us decipher this particular tongue. ( The dress on the left is from a recent collection.)

Grain "Refers to the direction of the threads of a fabric. When fabric is woven you have a warp and a weft. The warp are yarns that run parallel to the loom, the weft are yarns that run perpendicular."

Shuttle "A tool on a loom to pass yarn through warp to form the weft."

Bias "The diagonal direction of yarn. You have yarns running vertically, yarns running horizontally -- the warp and the weft -- and the bias is the 45 degree angle between those two. It gives fabric a natural stretch. When people refer to a "bias-cut dress" it means the entire fabric is placed on the biased grain, or direction. So the dress has a tendency to cling to your body more, because it's stretching out more."

 Continue reading...

Mention MySpace and other online "social networks" to educators and parents and you'll likely get a reaction worthy of Edvard Munch's The Scream. Take a peek at the Internet-style spelling and grammar on these sites and you might belt out a shriek yourself. But not so fast, says an educator named Joe Bellacero. A veteran New York City English teacher, Joe is now the associate director of The New York City Writing Project, a professional development organization that stresses teachers teaching teachers. As you can imagine, he knows a thing or two about the language arts. Joe explains why he thinks popular social networks might just be a boon for students -- and how teachers can tap their hidden value.  Continue reading...

Joe Bellacero, the veteran educator we interview in this week's "Teachers at Work" section, recommends the following books for teaching language arts:

Reading for Understanding "A book with real application to real urban classrooms to help bring reluctant readers into the reading discourse."

Writing for a Change "A program for getting kids to write to address real problems in their lives and communities. If you like the Freedom Writers movie and the idea that writing can transform the lives of students, you'll want to bring the ideas from this book into your classroom."

Because Writing Matters "A research based book from bringing effective writing programs into schools."

Last month we kicked off our blog recommendations for the New Year with a list of sites to help you write stronger. Just in case your resolve is wavering, here are more great websites to help you put pen to paper (or is it keyboard to screen?):

Writing, Clear and Simple

Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Business Writing

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