# data[].attributes.body
Clever is a single-sign in digital learning platform that lets students and teachers log in and have their web applications at their fingertips. No more remembering multiple usernames and passwords because once students log in to Clever, all the applications are there and ready to be accessed.
Clever also has an instant messaging feature that allows students to communicate with individual students or whole classes.
One drawback is that Clever is not free. Your district would have to pay for students and staff to access and use this tool.
My students started using this tool during the pandemic as an easy way to access all the other websites and tools that we use daily. We also used it to take roll while we were distance learning. Students checked in each day so that I could count them absent. If students did not check-in, I would start calling them to check on them.
Clever is a convenient way for students and teachers to access online learning platforms and applications quickly and easily without having to remember multiple usernames and passwords.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Clever | Connect every student to a world of learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Clever is the platform powering digital learning for K12 schools--one single place for identity, access, security, and classroom engagement

# data[].attributes.body
As an 8th grade ELA teacher, CommonLit has been a resource I have counted on for several years. This tool has a vast library of nonfiction and fiction texts for every grade level. Each text includes guided questions that assist students in their reading. There are also discussion questions that allow students to work together in reading groups or whole-class discussions. The assessment questions at the end are standards-based and include multiple-choice and constructed responses.
Each text has other text that can be paired with it and media resources that can help enrich the student's understanding. For example, CommonLit has units for Civil Rights and the Holocaust, and there are several novel units. In addition, teachers can browse grade level, genre, literary devices, standards, and themes.
I set up classes in CommonLit and sync them to Google Classroom, allowing me to assign texts and post them directly to Google. My students log in and follow the link to the text. My students can read and answer the guiding questions and take the assessment. The multiple-choice are automatically graded, and then I can log in and grade the constructed response. I love not having tons of paper sitting on my desk! I can also set the texts to read aloud for students who have IEPs.
I love that I can find texts that correlate with the essential questions for each of our curriculum units. For example, the informational texts on the Holocaust have been very beneficial because we complete a unit on Holocaust literature. So many students lack the background knowledge necessary to understand the material.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

World-class content

Access thousands of reading lessons and our comprehensive ELA curriculum, CommonLit 360.

Accessible for all learners

Tailor instruction to students' needs with text-to-speech, translation, and digital note-taking.

Actionable data

Track students' reading performance, set goals, and plan instructional next steps.

CommonLit
Digital Library

Discover thousands of free, supplemental lessons and quizzes in English and Spanish - all featuring great authors.

CommonLit
Assessment Series

Measure growth in reading comprehension with three benchmark assessments when you unlock our premium packages.

CommonLit 360 &
Professional Development

Support a successful rollout of our research-backed ELA curriculum with personalized webinars and on-demand trainings.

"

CommonLit has made a tremendously positive impact on my teaching practice. I'm very proud to teach CommonLit!

Jennifer Lane ELA Teacher

"

CommonLit definitely keeps me organized. It's easy for me to grade and it's easy for me to see students' reading growth increase throughout the year.

"

The CommonLit assessment questions are aligned to our ELA standards, which is extremely helpful when prepping for the state exam.

Teachers trust CommonLit to foster students' reading comprehension

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
CommonLit | Free Online Reading Passages and Literacy Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CommonLit is a comprehensive literacy program with thousands of reading lessons, full-year ELA curriculum, benchmark assessments, and standards-based data for teachers.

# data[].attributes.body
My school is small and has very little diversity. Often, students of color don't have the opportunity to see themselves represented in our ELA curriculum. If students of color look for something to read and only find books with white main characters, the message they receive is that their experience is not important. White students receive the message their experience is the one that matters. Reading diverse material is important so that students of color can see themselves reflected in literature and for white students to learn about the experiences of other races and cultures (Flannery, 2020). 1000 Black Girl Books Resources Guide is a database that features books that feature black girls as the main character. Students can filter their search by title, author, and reading level.
Flannery, M. E. (2020, October 26). Why we need diverse books | NEA. Nea.Org. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/why-we-need-diverse-books#:%7E:text=A%20good%20book%20can%20help,middle%20school%20librarian%20in%20Tennessee.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This resource guide was created in direct response to the multiple requests made by educators, parents and students. Like Marley Dias, so many of you have asked for books with black girls as the main characters. And because of you, we have received thousands of books. Here we are sharing with you the first 700 book titles. We have not yet catalogued all the books. As a small organization with only two full-time staff, our resources are limited. Beginning in April, each month we will provide you with updates of new book titles.

This resource includes words of welcome from Marley Dias, Creator of the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign. It also includes comments from Dr. Lauren Wells, Chief Education Officer, City of Newark who offers us tips on how we can foster and promote reading and literacy among our children.

As the President and Co-Founder of GrassROOTS Community Foundation, I have added a few words and call to action to the guide. My charge to parents and caregivers is a simple one: listen to your children, encourage them as well as promote their reading and literacy skills. Reading is a pathway to freedom and liberty. As caregivers it is our responsibility to develop the imagination of children so that they can dream, create and structure opportunities for freedom and equity.

We have reviewed the titles and descriptions of books to ensure that they fit the criterion of having a black girl as the main characters. We have also catalogued the books by reading level. This time-consuming task would not be possible without your financial donation to hire some interim part-time staff. We could not do it without all of you who donated, our volunteers and the librarians from West Orange Public Library.

Each month we will update the list and continue to serve as an information repository for Black Girl Books.

If you know of a black girl book, not listed here, please send us a copy so we can add it to our collection. We would like to see this list grow. Our address is:

GrassROOTS Community Foundation
59 Main Street
Suite 323
West Orange, NJ 07052

Financial donations are always welcomed. All donations are tax-deductible.

Thank you.

Welcome to the #1000blackgirlbooks Resource Guide. I started this campaign because I wanted to read more books where black girls are the main characters. With your help we have collected over 11,000 books; many of them are have the same title, but we do have lots of unique ones as well. This guide includes 1000 of those books and more is coming.

Love,

Marley Dias
Founder
#1000BlackGirlBooks

Sadly, in today's society we often lack the imagination to deal with some of the most deeply rooted social issues. Family and work obligations as well as our biases can stunt our imaginations; however, as adults it is our charge to foster the imagination of our youth. Marley Dias has an active sociological imagination. She imagined a world where black girls are the main, not minor, characters in children's books. She thought she was dealing with a personal matter, but she quickly learned from the outpouring response from the public that her personal problem is in fact an engrained social issue. Children's literature in the United States and abroad is homogeneous and exclusionary. Black girls are underrepresented and in many cases missing. Girls of color are almost completely absent relative to the majority culture.

As caregivers of children we must nurture our children's imaginations and equip them with the resources so they can be emboldened to act. The GrassROOTS Community Foundation through Super Camp enhances girls' sociological imagination and teaches them confidence grounded in the knowledge of history and self-hood so that they feel confident enough to feel like they can create change in their communities. Each year GrassROOTS encourages girls to develop a social action project. We choose the words social and action carefully. We want our children to understand themselves as social actors, connected to the world. In addition, we teach our girls that to achieve justice they must ACT. The #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign is Marley's 2015 social action project. As Marley's mom and the President of GrassROOTS Community Foundation, I have learned first hand what can happen when we foster and promote children's love of reading, educate them about their community, and their desire to create social change as well as fan the flames of their sociological imaginations.

Dr. Janice Johnson Dias
President & Co-Founder
GrassROOTS Community Foundation
#investingirls

A love of reading is the most important legacy we can offer to our children and our students. Reading opens windows to new ideas, peoples, places, and experiences. Reading also provides mirrors for students to see themselves and their lives reflected in the characters they meet in books. Reading builds vocabulary and background knowledge, empowering children with the tools needed to express themselves and think about the world around them. Nurturing joyful reading in children primes their brains for lifelong learning and develops important social emotional skills like stamina, reflection, and empathy. As we build readers, we must make reading pleasurable and help children understand that reading is a skill that builds over time.

Here are a few tips for parents and educators to create environments that invite children to confidently embrace and fall in love with stories and books.

Tips for parents:

Model reading. Read, read, read to your child, with your child, or in front your child every day.

Immerse your child in books. Transform your entire home into a reading zone by placing books in every room.

Affirm your child's culture, language, and race by choosing books and stories with characters, places, and experiences that reflect their background.

Awaken your child to new ideas, places, people, or experiences in books and stories by asking them questions and always answering the question they have.

Empower your child by allowing them to choose books to read, whether based on what interests them or on book covers and titles.

Arm your child by always leaving home with books. When your child gets older ask them if they have a book before leaving for school, the doctor, or a long ride.

Cultivate your child's use of language and words. Talk with your child about what is happening in their lives and the world around them.

Build your child's ability to make connections. When you watch television or movies, make connections to characters or ideas in books you have read together.

Expand your child's reading beyond fiction. Children have great curiosity about events taking place in the world, plants, animals, and people. It's never too early to expose them to historical fiction or non-fiction books.

Advocate for curricula, partnerships, books, and resources for classrooms and schools that are culturally relevant and responsive.

Tips for educators:

Model reading. Read, read, read to your students, with your students, or in front your students every day.

Immerse school culture in talk about books. Book talks over the intercom, book clubs, social media chats, and school-wide read alouds are a few ways to do this.

Affirm your students' culture, language, and race by integrating books and stories with characters, places, and experiences that reflect their backgrounds into the curriculum.

Awaken students as participants in their own learning by having them create reading goals for themselves, for example, minutes of reading, chapters read, and reading new genres.

Empower students by allowing them to choose books based on what interests them or on book covers and titles.

Arm your students with the power of their own language and stories by providing them with multiple ways to make personal connections to the texts they read.

Cultivate independent reading by creating comfortable reading spaces throughout schools. Classrooms, cafeterias, libraries, and cozy nooks in hallways are all fair game.

Build classroom libraries of interesting, appropriate, and relevant fiction and non-fiction texts.

Expand your reading beyond fiction. Students have great curiosity about events taking place in the world, plants, animals, and people. Use historical fiction or non-fiction books as tools to capture this interest.

Advocate for curricula, partnerships, books, and resources for classrooms and schools that are culturally relevant and responsive.

Dr. Lauren Wells
Chief Education Officer
City of Newark

Donations are the heart of the campaign. Because we value reciprocity, we donate the books we receive to schools and community members who need them. Children deserve to have windows and mirrors to the world. Please complete the form below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This resource guide was created in direct response to the multiple requests made by educators, parents and students. Like Marley Dias, so many of you have asked for books with black girls as the main characters. And because of you, we have received thousands of books.

# data[].attributes.body
I live in a small community. When my students look around, they see others who look like them and think like them. Just because my school is rural does not mean that my students are not curious and open to learning about arts and cultures. I have found that they are very receptive to experiences that are outside their frame of reference. This Ed Tool allows studetns to experience Google experiments that give students a glimpse into ancient civilizations, artwork, nature, classical music, and even manga.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Arts & Culture Experiments - Experiments with Google

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Since 2009, coders have created thousands of amazing experiments using Chrome, Android, AI, WebVR, AR and more. We're showcasing projects here, along with helpful tools and resources, to inspire others to create new experiments.

# data[].attributes.body
My students love vocabulary.com. I use it for the vocabulary in our curriculum and novels. I also teach academic vocabulary. Students can practice independently and compete against each other or the whole class through a vocab jam. It is a great way to reinforce the vocabulary we are learning in class. I can also sync vocab.com to my Google Classroom groups to make assignments and automatically grade assessments. There are thousands of created lists, and I can also create my lists. My students beg to use this website because it makes learning vocabulary meaningful and fun.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Find out how strong your vocabulary is and learn new words at Vocabulary.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vocabulary.com helps you learn new words, play games that improve your vocabulary, and explore language.