What's the most popular music style in Brazil? What about Cuba? Or the Dominican Republic? An immersive project teaches young learners about the salsa, the samba, and the merengue with research assignments and dance performances.

Develop novice script-writers. Small groups sift through a sample script, noting any script-writing conventions to share with the whole class. Using these conventions and plot structures, these groups compose a script for a 10-minute...

Turn your classroom into a music studio as groups work together to determine why music sounds different when performed live versus a recording. After listening to some different music, each group picks a poem, creates a recording, and...

As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...

Is your job a dream come true? Career seekers research to discover what their ideal jobs might be in the second of five career and college readiness lessons for sixth graders. After determining their occupational clusters, individuals...

Students study the elements of folktales. They write, perform and produce their own African folktales using camcorders and movie software.

Here is an authentic assessment task for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Young literature scholars prepare, perform, and record a news broadcast about the major events in the play. For example, groups may choose to report on the death of Lady...

Students write a friendly letter to 5th graders welcoming incoming students. In this writing lesson, students identify the five parts of a friendly letter, write a friendly letter to a current 5th grader, and perform a peer review and...

A three-part writing assessment challenges scholars to think critically about schools of the past and present. Learners read informative texts, answer questions to prepare for a discussion, research in small groups, complete a Venn...

Third graders listen to directions as they perform a theatrical role.  In this vocabulary lesson, 3rd graders listen to and observe the adjectives given to them during a practice of their performance by the director.  Students...

Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for expository...

What is the most favorite color in the world? The series of lessons all about color and the color wheel, asks kids to research color, create an eye-spy activity, watch videos, and examine the color choices made by artists in their...

Twelfth graders examine and evaluate their personal education plans and discuss the importance of life-long learning. They discuss personal education plans and goals and reflect on their own plans, complete a Personal Plan of Study...

Is there a way to determine a winner of a political debate? Use a helpful rubric to evaluate the issues, specificity, evidence, reasoning, and delivery of candidates in a debate. After assessing each person's performance, high schoolers...

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

Sometimes, you just need to get to the point. Scholars examine an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, analyzing it and gathering details to determine the central idea. Completing the Surfacing Issues Tool organizer and...

What makes a good leader? Use the curriculum guide for William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to help scholars answer that question. Pupils research the play's historical context and other background information before engaging in...

How do we learn the rules of society? How do beliefs and ideas affect these rules? Introduce your young sociologists to the factors that socialize individuals with a unit that uses observation and experimentation to analyze how factors...

Class members are presented with the image of a painting and asked to record their first impressions and analysis. They then research the time period in which it was painted and discuss how their research impacted their first impression...

The second and third movements of the Eroica, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, provides listeners with an opportunity to connect to French Revolution and to Napoleon Bonaparte. As they listen to the music, individuals draw what their ears...

As part of a study of printmaking, class members study the works of Tara Donovan and Donald Sulta. They go on to build a printing plate using glue, textured paper, and found objects.

Students explore the art of shadow puppetry. In this performing arts lesson, students study the functions of lighting in the puppet theater as they examine the transmission, absorption, and reflection of light. As a culminating activity,...

Students examine the artwork of a specific artist and attempt to create a painting in the style of the studied artist in this middle and high school level Art lesson. Rubric is included for self- and teacher assessment after the project...

Fifth graders give presentations on colonial research. The others take notes on the presentations. They play a card game which helps them review content. They take a summative assessment and present their research notebooks.