Fully analyze the elements of art and unexpected beauty in the William Merritt Chase's Still Life with a Fish. The class will examine the painting very closely, then use photography to express unexpected beauty in still life. This is a...

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

If you could build your own treehouse, what would it look like? Using a piece of contemporary art as inspiration, learners draw their own treehouses and add geometric and organic shapes. The lesson touches on Visual Thinking Strategies...

Color, light and shadow, the placement and size of objects. These are some of the tools artists used to tell their stories. Model for learners how to read a painting by closely examining these features. The richly detailed packet...

Introduce young musicians to the history of and different styles of music with an inquiry-based learning activity that asks them to play detectives to determine the similarities and differences among the sheet music found at a series of...

Point of view, purpose, and tone: three concepts readers of primary and secondary source materials must take into account when examining documents. Class members view a PowerPoint presentation and use the SOAPS strategy to identify an...

Learn about the ancient Near East through a close examination of ancient artifacts. Lead your class into analysis by first observing an artifact as a class. Pupils can then work in pairs to analyze the other artifacts and compile a list...

What are the musical elements that characterize a school's fight song or its alma mater? Class members listen to examples of fight songs and alma maters from various schools, play a listening game, and then create a list of the...

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, considered by many to be a seminal piece of American literature, contains many complex literary themes that carry through United States history. Use a series of discussion questions and classroom...

In this engaging activity involving close analysis of abstract expressionist art, your class members will not only discover more about artist Friz Scholder's Native American art, but they will also have the opportunity to consider...

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

For classes tackling To Kill a Mockingbird, this lesson plan sets readers up for discussions or essay writing with questions and prompts. The prompts encourage individuals to explore beyond the novel itself, looking at...

Is it possible to tell a true war story? Tim O’Brien says that fiction is for “getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” To get at the truth about war, class members examine primary source materials from the...

Students view the film Fog of War and discuss the most striking elements of the film. They focus on chosen lessons from robert McNamara's life such as: empathy, rationality and proportionality.

Is it a calendar? A religious symbol? A political statement? One thing for certain is that Aztec sun stone designs remain an important symbol in Mexican cultural art. Young artists craft their own Aztec Sun design incorporating ideas...

Students closely read " To Build a Fire," to explore the use of narrative point of view and debate the distinction between knowledge and instinct. The elements of literary naturalism and how they relate to Jack London's work is examined...

Build your learners' self-esteem with a series of lessons that focuses on their identity and observation of the world around them. Applicable to many different subjects and lessons, the resources guide kids through the process of...

You can learn a lot from a robe, especially if that robe is from the Qing Dynasty. Examine the beauty and symbolism that covers a functional and piece of clothing entitled Winter Dragon Robe. The class will consider and analyze all...

Before your learners reached your morning class to learn about persuasive writing, they probably saw dozens of examples of persuasive communication in the form of advertisements. A short, introductory lesson inspires class members to...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Students are able to use the library and/or computer lab to research reliable information sources supporting arguments being put forward in the position paper. They are able to find examples of mission statements from various...

Students analyze the movement of the blues from rural Mississippi to urban Chicago and how place and the environment affected the development of the blues. They define the blues, where it originated and how and why it moved to Chicago....

Students create representations of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" using the main artistic elements of color, line, balance, movement, and space. The class is then asked to discuss the creative process.

Primary learners explore elements of wonder in The Nursery "Alice" by Lewis Carroll. They analyze the plot point after listening to the text. Next, they describe the imagery in various works of children's literature using the given links...