Curated OER
Lesson Plan: A Bird's Tale
Who wouldn't love to get a letter from a blue bird? Elementary art enthusiasts analyze the social and historical context of Ason Yellowhair's Navajo piece, Bird and Cornstalk Rug. They examine the construction and images on the rug...
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Printing and Publishing
Explore African literature and artwork in a multicultural literacy and art lesson. Begin with a read aloud of Tiger and the Big Wind: A Tale from Africa, and afterward, have kids retell the main events in the story. They identify and...
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Knights of the Round Table adapted by Gwen Ross
Everyone loves the tales involving King Arthur and his knights. After reading Knights of the Round Table by Gwen Gross, learners draw inferences and conclusions, analyze story elements, and discuss figurative language, including...
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My Own Cultural Traditions
Students complete a worksheet on personal traditions. In this cultural traditions activity, students discuss what a cultural tradition is and why they are important to the members of the culture. Students distinguish between cultural...
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Structure of Natural Narratives
Class pairs select a prompt from a provided list and tell (and record) their story to their partner. They then examine linguist William Labov's model for natural narratives, and apply his model to their tale. Next, class members watch...
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Storytelling Traditions
Young scholars demonstrate an evaluation of how the culture of a time period influences storytelling narratives by comparing Adeline's story to the plot summary of Cinderella and Anne Sexton's poem Cinderella. They write a poem which...
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American Folktales and Tall Tales
Students explore the elements of American folktales. They discuss how they are passed on from generation to generation, how they use exaggeration, and how they convey a message or make a point. Students identify common elements of tall...
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Once Upon a Genre
Young scholars examine fractured fairy tales before responding by writing in many different genres including a persuasive essay, a personal narrative, a letter, an advertisement, and a resume'. They create a pop-up book with their...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Animal Farm: Allegory and the Art of Persuasion
Introduce your class members to allegory and propaganda with a series of activities designed to accompany a study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Readers examine the text as an allegory, consider the parallels to collective farms and the...
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Pioneer Values in Willa Cather's My Antonia
Included in this resource are a variety of activities to do while reading Willa Cather's My Antonia. The activities, which range from mapping out Nebraska to writing activities about pioneer living, are all designed with one guiding...
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Exploring the Asian Cultural Tradition Through Multimedia Art
Learners conduct research using different varieties of resources that include the internet. They organize the research to make it usable. Then they discuss how to present the information in the form of a class project.
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Guided Reading: Three Little Pigs (Plus Wolf: Javalinas)
Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...
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The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Sixth graders demonstrate the ability to process and evaluate content from a variety of sources and apply comprehension skills to the material read. They organize information for practical use and design and develop an informational...
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Responding Syllables: Reading and Music
Shell Silverstein’s “Sick” provides an opportunity for kids to demonstrate their understanding of syllables and phonemes. The class creates a list of descriptive words used in the poem that have more than one syllable, and brainstorm how...
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Breaking News English: Tom Cruise's Son Makes Movie Debut
In this English learning exercise, students read "Tom Cruise's Son Makes Movie Debut," and then respond to 1 essay, 47 fill in the blank, 7 short answer, 20 matching, and 8 true or false questions about the selection.
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Breaking News English: A New Prince for Denmark
In this English worksheet, students read "A New Prince for Denmark," and then respond to 47 fill in the blank, 7 short answer, 20 matching, and 8 true or false questions about the selection.
Channel Islands Film
Cache: Lesson Plan 1 - Grades 9-12
Archaeologists have discovered a cache of Native American relics. They want to preserve these relics by removing them from the rapidly eroding site to a lab where they can be studied. Native American traditions demand that the items be...
Curated OER
Tell Me a Whopper!
Sixth graders investigate tall tales as a literary genre. They listen to a number of tall tales to discover how exaggeration is used as a story element. They write and publish a tall tale using word processing software. They illustrate...
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Sorting
Students practice sorting books. In this sorting lesson, students play the Flood Game on the PBS web site. With knowledge of the sorting system used by libraries, students sort small numbers of books using categories devised by their...
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Once Upon a Castle
Students complete a variety of activities surrounding castle communities and fairy tales. They write a letter to a fairy tale character, write a fairy tale, create a model of a castle, and draw a map of a castle community.
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Stories of Nepal
Students explore folktales and fairy tales from Nepal to help them understand the Nepalese culture, and to compare the stories to the ones the students may know. After reading the stories, students consider what rural life is like in...
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How does it feel? Why is the Civil Rights Movement so Important?
Fifth graders study the Civil War. In this US history lesson, 5th graders simulate what life was like during the Civil War by having two groups with one group given more materials than the other group. Students then draw a portrait of...
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Macbeth Madness
Students analyze Shakespeare's Macbeth through the reading and discussion activities. In this Macbeth lesson, students read Act IV and V and then discuss the ending to the play.
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Have I Got A Story For You - Folklore of Utah
Fourth graders identify the clues that folklore provides about Utah's past. They create a piece of folklore for a place or event in or near the community. They see that the legends and traditions we pass to one another are also sources...