After viewing and analyzing documentaries and working in groups to storyboard and prepare, your class should now be ready for the production stage of the documentary process. The eighth lesson in the series, this plan provides...

Wrap up a documentary creation project with the final lesson in this series. Class members reflect on their learning and compose responses to four questions relating to what they learned, whey they would do differently, and how the group...

Revisit the documentaries viewed in the previous lesson in this series in order to take a look at the persuasive techniques employed by the documentary creators. Small groups watch the films a second time, taking notes on two provided...

Use this general lesson guide to inform your instruction surrounding a documentary. The lesson is made up of five activities. The activities are intentionally general because they are designed to adapted for specific films. While the...

Students propose and create documentary films depicting a slice of "ordinary" life that reveals something unique or surprising about its subject. They, in groups, make films and present them to the school.

Everybody's a critic—even your pupils! Using the included resources as a guide, screen films related to social justice and ask film enthusiasts to critique them. Publish the reviews for your school community or develop a film festival...

Provide some group brainstorming and story-planning time with the fifth lesson in a series on examining and creating documentaries. After you've explained the purpose of each section of a documentary, groups meet to plan the beginning,...

The video clip that comprises the warm up is not available, but the related article from The New York Times and the movie trailer for Aliens of the Deep are, leaving enough material to make this a fascinating lesson on deep-sea...

During this lesson, which is all about making connections, learners watch a documentary about the teenage brain and connect it to Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science, their own lives, and the world.

"Let's Get Real," a documentary about cyberbullying, is the cornerstone of a curriculum guide intended to help instructors design an anti-bullying unit for middle school classes. Packet with suggestions for how plan the unit,...

Storyboarding is an essential part of planning a film. Introduce your class to storyboarding and allow groups time to plan out their documentaries in this sixth lesson in a series about creating documentaries. Class members review an...

How do meteorologists differentiate between droughts and dry spells? Introduce the concepts of weather forecasting and prediction with an insightful research-based activity from the K20 series. Partners synthesize individual research...

Students conduct background research about a Pacific Rim country to develop a premise for a documentary film about the fate of traditional fishing industries in the area.

Although not a complete lesson plan, this set of emotionally powerful texts could be used in a variety of lessons. From The New York Times' Learning Network site, the resource includes a poem, an excerpt from a New York Times article and...

In this online interactive vocabulary skills worksheet, students answer 10 fill in the blank questions regarding entertaining films. Students may submit their answers to be scored.

Continue with creating documentaries with the fourth lesson in a series. After explaining the concept of preproduction, send groups off to make some decisions about their films. Groups can use the handout and the four provided questions...

After viewing the West of the West's documentary Cache, individuals craft either a newspaper article chronicling the discovery of the cache on San Nicolas Island, a historical narrative of the placement of the cache in the cliff side, or...

Students read and discuss an online article as they consider what makes a center of activity in a city or town. They produce a documentary film of the hub of activity in their school.

Students watch a documentary film about arson and why children sometimes commit arson. They role play a scenario in which the school was deliberately set on fire. They develop a news report in which they interview three people regarding...

Students brainstorm what they believe makes a good reality TV show. Students compile a set of attributes that they feel distinguishes the best of the reality TV shows from the others. Using the attributes that the class agrees determine...

Students explore social issues that are meaningful to them and create documentaries in which they share their information, thoughts and impressions.