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Lesson Plan
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National Endowment for the Humanities

Character in Place: Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” for the Common Core

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty uses...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

To This Day

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Bring bullying out into the open with an involved lesson surrounding the animated version of Shane Koyczan's spoken word poem "To This Day." Class members discuss images related to bullying and watch the video without sound. They write a...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

Moments

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Examine homelessness through a series of writing and discussion activities and a short film. Learners first come up with their own stories based on images of characters in the film. They then watch the film and respond to a series of...
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Lesson Plan
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Film English

We've All Been There

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What does empathy look like? Encourage your pupils to put themselves in another person's shoes with several writing and discussion activities that relate to a featured short film. Over the course of the instructional activity,...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

Everyday

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What would you do if you got an extra day every week? Partners share some information about their routines and lives and write compositions about one another based on the information. Each partner tries to guess what the other person...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

Father and Son

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Explore word relationships and the relationships between people with an interesting lesson. Learners practice pairing words that typically go together and write brief narratives using these words. They then go through a similar process,...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

Serial Taxi

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Explore the murder mystery genre through film, discussion, and writing. The plan features several activities centered around a two-minute video that include collaboration, writing, and prediction. After the lesson, individuals write...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

My Shoes

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Engage your pupils in short story and short film. Using a still from the film as inspiration, pairs compose short stories, which they later share and compare with other members of the class. They then watch the film and respond to a...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

The Conditioned

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Discover the lovely story of Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho with your class. Over the course of the lesson plan, pupils practice descriptive writing, write short narratives, collaborate in small groups, watch a powerful short film about...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

Two Fingers

For Teachers 11th - 12th Standards
Ask your class to think about how song lyrics can go with a video and more with a well-sequenced lesson plan that focuses on the song "Two Fingers" by Jake Bugg. Class members work together to make predictions about the content of the...
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Writing
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K12 Reader

Swooping Seagull

For Students 5th - 8th Standards
Take a dramatic trip to the beach with a narrative writing prompt. Kids examine a picture of a seagull stealing food from a man at the beach, and write a short story from either the seagull's or the man's perspective.
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Writing
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K12 Reader

Winter Attack

For Students 8th - 12th Standards
A pack of hungry wolves surround a panicked buffalo – who will come out alive? Have your young writers narrate this nature scene, taking the point of view of either a wolf or the buffalo. Perfect for a narrative writing unit or for your...
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Activity
Weebly

Holocaust Diary Project

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Here is a good interdisciplinary project that combines creative and narrative writing with studies of the Holocaust. Your young historians will compose a diary of experiences from the perspective of an individual living during the time...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Poetry Archive

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Listening to poems about feeling lonely and feeling like an outsider set the stage for a group activity that focuses on Stevie Smith's "Not Waving But Drowning." Groups examine the three stanzas of Smith's poem separately and identify in...
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Lesson Plan
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Edgate

The Intrusion of Strangers

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
How did Native Americans react to the arrival of the Lewis and Clark expedition? Here, learners review excerpts of journal entries that chronicle the arrival of the Corps of Discovery to the Shoshone and Blackfeet tribes. Your young...
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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

Vocabulary Comic Strips

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Who says comic strips aren’t educational? Prove these naysayers wrong by asking your class members to create a comic strip for a selected vocabulary word. Using online technological tools that provide access to an array of options for...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens Worksheet

For Students 8th - 11th Standards
Based on the bestselling series, this worksheet details seven habits of highly defective teens, and prompts young learners to consider their own social and emotional tendencies. What kinds of experiences do your pupils have with being...
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Lesson Plan
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Academy of American Poets

We Sing America

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Pair the famous poems "I Hear America Singing," by Walt Whitman, and "I, Too, Sing America," by Langston Hughes, with a more recent poem by Elizabeth Alexander called "Praise Song for the Day" to demonstrate a theme and introduce your...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

From Light to Dark and Back

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Experiment with light and dark in a series of interactive activities that lead up to reading and writing poetry. Class members have the opportunity to observe their feelings while sitting in the light and dark and to play with shadow...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Study History through Journal Keeping

For Teachers 8th - 12th Standards
Journal writing can be a fun way to bring history to life. Upper graders read a series of journals from the time of the westward expansion, specifically the pioneer journey along the Oregon Trail. They compose an ongoing journal from the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Multimedia Storytelling

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Experiment with multimedia storytelling. After watching a segment of American Family, first, middle and high schoolers tell a story about their families, clarifying the setting, characters, and script. They work on setting their story in...
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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

Let's Go Exploring!

For Teachers K - 12th Standards
Use a Courbet painting of a cave or tunnel opening to reinforce the importance of descriptive writing. Writers of all ages use sensory details to describe what the scene depicts as they pretend to be in the painting. Then they imagine...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Scriptwriting Skill Module: Dialogue

For Teachers 9th - 11th Standards
What is dialogue? What must it contain? Use this plan to discuss dialogue with your emerging writers. They write a dialogue in script form to dramatize a conversation. Dialogue examples are included. 
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

My Alphabetical Autobiography

For Teachers K - 12th Standards
Design a pictorial autobiography using the letters of the alphabet. For each letter, writers select visual images that represent life events and interests. Younger writers add words or sentences of explanation while older writers narrate...