English teachers will welcome Crystal Composition because of its 15 superlative writing topics correlated to well-known web sites, such as the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. Other sites are rarer finds that teachers and students will be glad to add to their bookmarks. The program comes with a spiral notebook Teacher's Guide, which fully explains how to use the writing topics. Each topic has four activities and suggested timelines for use, ranging from one to 25 class periods. Crystal Composition is promoted for use online or offline, but in my opinion, you really need an active modem or direct Internet connection to use the CD properly.
Site licenses are quite reasonable.
Buy a single copy to see if your language arts teachers like it, and then decide if it would be worthwhile for a lab or site license. Middle School Language Arts Sofsource , a division of The Learning Company. The fourth-grade disk has 28 reading selections on dinosaurs and other activities involving spelling, remembering detail, and separating fact from fiction. Disks for sixth, seventh, and eighth grades focus on airplanes and flight, U.S. presidents, and computers. Language arts skills covered include persuasive techniques, inferences and drawing conclusions, and discerning the author's purpose.