National Endowment for the Humanities
The Music of African American History
High schoolers examine role spirituals have played in African American history and religion, examine Harriet Tubman's use of spirituals in her work, explore power of spirituals in Civil Rights Movement, and work with oral tradition,...
Curated OER
Dream Career Presentation, Part 2
Fifth graders brainstorm a list of characteristics people have when they are happy with their career. In groups, they review their material from the previous lesson and share their information with the class in the form of presentations....
Curated OER
A Midsummer Night's Dream
You might not be able to put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes but you can generate interest in A Midsummer’s Night Dream in that length of time. As an introduction to Shakespeare’s comedy, pairs of students assume the roles of...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.3
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, "I Have a Dream," is one of the most famous in United States history, but why was it so effective? Ask your class to determine the answer to this question. While the resource includes a description of...
EngageNY
Characters and Consequences
Scholars consider how dialogue reveals aspects of a play's characters as they read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and complete a written conversation note-catcher. Additionally, pupils participate in an I Have/Who Has jigsaw...
Curated OER
Dream It, Plan It, Do It!
Fifth graders describe what their dream career would be. In groups, they complete a worksheet based on their career paths and share the information with the class. They discover the importance of having goals and making plans to meet them.
MacArthur Memorial
In Their Shoes: WWI Through the Eyes of Early Participants
Several social activities provide showcase the perspective of many prominent figures in World War I history. Students read an assigned case study about a memorable person and complete several activities to further understand this...
Curated OER
Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen
It is entirely fitting and proper that Wilfred Owen’s powerful “Dulce et Decorum Est” is the poem used for an exercise in close reading, discussion, analysis, and argumentative writing. Class members discuss focus questions in pairs,...
ReadWriteThink
Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments
A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....
Orlando Shakes
The Great Gatsby: Study Guide
Uncover the exciting world of the Roaring Twenties with The Great Gatsby study guide. Individuals become critics as they write a review of the production. Scholars also read historical information and analyze the differences between the...
Curated OER
"Playing in the Snow" - Reading Comprehension (Poem)
Have your English language learners puzzle through this activity. Class members read the incomplete poem about playing in the snow and use the given words to complete poem. This is challenging since some of the spaces are ambiguous. Ask...
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: "A Place in the Country" by Toi Derricotte
Build young scholars' confidence in analyzing art and poetry with a lesson that first asks pupils to list details they notice in Edouard Vuillard's painting "Garden at Vaucresson" and then to describe how the painting makes them feel....
Digital Public Library of America
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
A set of 14 primary sources provides background for a study of Lorraine Hansberry's drama, A Raisin in the Sun. Featured are images from stage productions of the play, white supremacy protests, a clip from a television interview, and...
Penguin Books
Teacher's Guide: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
It's the American Dream! A house of your own, a better life, freedom to be who you want. But what happens when the dream withers? Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama, A Raisin in the Sun, offers some powerful answers to these...
EngageNY
Launching the Performance Task: Prompt, Characters, Groups
Scholars unpack the word confession as they prepare to write confessionals based on characters from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Next, they read their narratives to a small group of peers as part of a final performance task.
EngageNY
Reading Shakespeare: The Play within the Play
Scholars continue reading the Greek myth "Pyramus and Thisbe," analyzing why it was written into Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Next, they complete a Venn diagram to compare the two texts.
EngageNY
Planning the First Draft of the Character Confessional Narrative
Scholars read and analyze a model character confessional narrative to help guide their writing. Then, they plan the first draft of a character confessional based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
K20 LEARN
The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg: The Great Gatsby and the Sense of Sight
To conclude a study of The Great Gatsby, class members create a multimodal project that represents what they feel the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg see about the hidden side of one of the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel....
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Willa Cather's My Ántonia
Willa Cather's My Antonia might seem like a hard sell for today's teen readers. Rather than dramatic plot twists, trysts, and terrors, the novel celebrates the pioneer spirit that lead immigrants to a small Nebraska town. The Signet...
University of Virginia
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Finishing the Novel
The reviews for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin were as divisive as the novel itself. High schoolers finish the novel unit with an evaluation of the book's initial reviews, its characters' dreams and fears of emancipation, and...
Curated OER
ANTICIPATORY SET
Learners are be able to analyze primary sources (photographs and speeches) and write a definition of American Democracy. They are shown a photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. by Ben Fernandez, students are asked what is happening in the...
Stanford University
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X: A Common Solution?
Much has been made of the differences between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. But was there any common ground between them? Class members reconsider what they think they know about these two civil rights leaders with biographical...
PBS
March on Washington: A Time for Change
Young historians conclude their study of the events that lead up to and the planning for the March on Washington. After examining videos and primary source documents, they consider the civil rights objectives that still need to be...
Penguin Books
Teacher’s Guide: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
A 10-page guide to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men includes a brief plot summary, information about preparing readers for the language in the novel, pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading questions, essay prompts, and project...