Shmoop.com is an Amazing Resource for English or US History Teachers and Students

Shmoop.com http://www.shmoop.com/ is an amazing resource for English or US History teachers and students. The website is written by PhDs, graduate students, and advanced undergrads from some of the top universities in America including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and UC Berkeley.
You can create a login for the site but you don’t have to. You can select from any of the four tabs or subject areas which are Literature, History, Poetry and a Book Club. Once you click on the Literature tab for example, you can then select books from the hot topics, browse by title or browse by author. From this point you have about 160 books to choose from such as Fahrenheit 451, The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Frankenstein, Great Expectations, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Call of the Wild, Animal Farm, The Grapes of Wrath, Beowulf, Lord of the Flies, Our Town and many more. Once you choose a book you have the choice of reading an introduction or a summary, looking at themes in the book, quotes, a plot analysis, looking at study questions, doing a character study, exploring literary devices in the book or searching from a provided list of great related websites. The site even provides a list of did you know facts and a place to express your opinion of the book. Furthermore, you have the option to print the information or create a PDF.
If you choose to explore US History, you can also select from the hot topics, browse by title or browse by date. Once you select your war or event the choices are to view an introduction, in depth study, timeline, people, did you know, best of the web, citations, test review and opinions.
The website also has links to cite the source using MLA, APA or Chicago style. In the bottom left corner of the main page is a link to see how other teacher s use Smoop.
If you do create a login for the website, Shmoop will help you build an outline, take notes with stickies or clippings and drop them into your outline, save your outline in a folder or ask the Shmoop room a question in a discussion. Check it out. This site is a gold mine for English or US History teachers and students!