Instructional Video7:52
Wonderscape

Unveiling Allegories: A Journey Through Symbolic Stories

K - 5th
This video explores the concept of allegory, a figure of speech where abstract ideas and moral lessons are conveyed through characters and events in a story. It uses Aesop's fables, like "The Goose with the Golden Egg" and "The Boy Who...
Instructional Video4:33
TED-Ed

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

7th - 12th Standards
What is reality, knowledge, and the meaning of life? Discover Plato's response to these bold questions in his "Allegory of the Cave" and explore this famous historical thinker's vision of an ideal society as he saw it within the...
Instructional Video5:09
TED-Ed

Why Should You Read Dante’s “Divine Comedy”?

11th - Higher Ed
Journey along with the narrator of a short, animated video who explains the political connections to be found in Dante's The Divine Comedy.
Instructional Video2:35
PBS

Heroes and Hope in Frank Herbert's Dune

7th - 12th Standards
Wil Wheaton shares his rationale for why readers should vote for Frank Herbert's Dune as their choice for the Great American Read program. His talk touches on the major themes of the novel and its central conflicts.
Instructional Video4:06
PBS

Dune

6th - 12th Standards
Dune remains one of the most popular science fiction tales ever written. Find out why with a short video that argues for including Frank Herbert's tale of sandworms and Fremen, Mentats and witches, villains and heroes in the Great...
Audio1:06
Lit2Go

The Bats, the Birds, and the Beasts

5th - 8th Standards
Allegiance is about more than being on the winning side. Aesop's "The Bats, the Birds, and the Beasts" presents the conundrum that occurs when a bat seeks to join the side of the victors, and learns the consequences of his inaction....
Instructional Video6:17
The School of Life

Plato On: The Allegory of the Cave

9th - Higher Ed Standards
What would you say if someone told you that your dreams and goals are merely phantoms in your own mind? A video analysis of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" from The Republic takes high schoolers through the famous metaphor,...
Instructional Video4:43
TED-Ed

Does "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" Have a Hidden Message?

8th - 12th
Like Mark Twain's introduction to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz warns readers not to search for a hidden message or moral in his tale. Yet many, such as Henry Littlefield, have done...