Students read excerpts from The Story of an Old Piano. They choose a personal object and write paragraphs from the object's point of view. Their stories can be bound for the class library.

Twelfth graders read different versions of P'ansori in an attempt to gain exposure to this form of literature. They gain information in order to help understand the context of how they are part of the Korean culture.

Students connect with an immigration unit through research, journal writing, digital photography, and a movie production using iMovie. By acting out the immigrant's experience, students gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of...

Fifth graders use photographs to tell the story of immigrants. They use the Internet to help them research immigration.

Students describe James Whitcomb Riley's poems and identify the themes they portray. For this poetry lesson plan, students read the history of James Whitcomb Riley and read some of his poems.

Eleventh graders investigate the practice of child labor as found in the history of the United States. The teacher reads the class a story from the year of 1914. This creates context for the lesson and then students answer teacher...

Students brainstorm what they believe having respect for someone else means. Individually, they share their own experiences about a time they felt respected and a time they did not. To end the instructional activity, they participate...

Students study the American sport and history of baseball. In this baseball lesson, students complete three levels of units to learn about baseball.

Students conduct a scientific experiment and make observations about the composition and sounds of pennies to determine the year in which the penny's makeup was changed. They graph their outcomes to chart results.

Students experience through role-play the art of shadow puppetry and appreciate the role of oral traditions in Chinese history. They research the origins and history of puppetry as a part of a unit on China. They discover what Chinese...

Students study the invention of the parachute and how Leonardo da Vinci came up with the design.  In this aerodynamics lesson students test the properties that make parachutes more efficient.

Students engage in a study that focuses upon the study of artifacts for the purpose of defining the heritage of family. They conduct research using a variety of resources. The information is used in order to create a personal family...

Students research the history of stained glass and Mother's Day. They practice mixing colors related to the artistic style of impressionism.Students also research the concept of landscape and how the impressionist artists used them.

Learn about the various styles of music from the 19th century. From romanticism to nationalism, this website goes into detail about the history of 19th century music.

A wonderful collection of sheet music from the Library of Congress. Search this site to find the primary source documents of music published in America from 1870 through 1885. The site is separated into many different topics with an...

This site uses historically significant documents to paint a picture of family life in 19th century Ohio. Music plays a large role in this picture.

What was life like for a western pioneer? Students take a journey through westward expansion using music to understand the experience of the pioneers. As they listen to lyrics and analyze the different types of music that was being sung...

Fordham University provides college-level reading on how the Nationalism of the 19th Century affected the music of the 20th, especially Classical music. These composers lived most of their lives in the 1800's, but are often classified...

A lesson unit on the people and movements that fought to abolish slavery. Looks at the Triangular Trade, and at the Underground Railroad and famous abolitionists. Includes a play about emancipation, a black history rap and a trivia quiz...

The Moldenhauer Archives at the Library of Congress contain approximately 3,500 items documenting the history of Western music from the medieval period through the modern era.

Song sheets, which containedonly lyrics, were a popular form of printed music. The Library of Congress holds over 4,000 of these from the 1800s that can be viewed online.

This site contains the lyrics to a popular nineteenth century folk song. A MIDI file of the song is also available to download.

The guitar in America began as an instrument used in popular music in the city and then branched out to minstrel shows, ragtime, and even jazz. Read about the history of this ubiquitous instrument and how it took on its American character.

This University of Pittsburgh site provides a wealth of information about American songwriter Stephen Foster. This link discusses his professional career with various other links within the text about minstrel shows, etc. Return to the...