Curated OER
1900 America: Primary Sources and Epic Poetry
Using Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Hart Crane's The Bridge as models, class groups first craft their own epic poems for 1900 and, using primary sources, create a multi-media presentation that captures the sights and...
University of Chicago
Using Artifacts for Clues About Identity
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...
National Endowment for the Humanities
In Her Shoes: Lois Weber and the Female Filmmakers Who Shaped Early Hollywood
Lois Weber has been forgotten. So have Dorothy Davenport Reid, Gene Gauntier, and many others. High school sleuths use advanced search engines to investigate these women and discover clues to their disappearance from filmography and...
Curated OER
Old Hobbits Are Hard to Break
Explore film adaptation of literature with this lesson, which focuses on the world of film advertisements. Middle schoolers discuss various films (including The Lord of the Rings) and create advertisements for a pretend film based on a...
Curated OER
The Finer Things in Life
Momoyama and Edo are periods in Japanese history that can be defined culturally and artistically. Learners explore and discuss how the samurai used sword guards and grip enhancers. Pupils read the story "The Inch-High Samurai," examine...
Curated OER
World War I
Eleventh graders investigate propaganda used during World War I. In this World War I lesson, 10th graders examine propaganda from the war and analyze war posters. Students then create their own propaganda posters on listed topics.
Curated OER
Conflict in the Frontier town of Deerfield
Students use primary sources to investigate, explore and represent varying perspectives on the 1704 Deerfield Raid. They consider the reasons Deerfield was at the center of English, French and Native American conflicts in the early 18th...
Curated OER
Using Rock as Primary Source Material
Students listen to a song which functions as an entertaining primary source. It illustrates the part angry, part irreverent anti-war sentiments of the counter-culture in the late 1960s. After hearing the song, students discuss how it...
Concordia College Archives
Introduction and Student Inquiry
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...
Curated OER
Exploring the Design Process
Students analyze the design process and architecture of Ludwig van der Rohe. In this architecture and art analysis lesson, students explore the design process through photographic documentation and architectural plans. Students use...
Concordia College Archives
Our School Song
Show your school spirit! Class members use instruments or sing along and employ what they have learned in the two previous lessons to perform their school's songs.
Curated OER
"Jazz is About Freedom": Billie Holiday's Anti-lynching Song Strange Fruit
Working in small teams, learners analyze a variety of primary source materials related to lynching (news articles, letters written to or written by prominent Americans, pamphlets, broadsides, etc.) in order to assess the effectiveness of...
Curated OER
Presidential Picture
Pupils create miniature portraits of George Washington using a primary source image, watercolor pencils, colored pencils and white drawing paper. This Art instructional activity can be used as an introductory instructional activity on...
Concordia College Archives
History and Musical Aesthetics
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...
Curated OER
Real-Life History
Young scholars collect artifacts which are part of their family/community history. They gather at home and share in the classroom at a specified time when extra care and supervision might be provided.
Curated OER
Shakespeare: Standing on the Bookshelves of Giant
A phenomenal lesson on Shakespeare! Middle and high school learners create WebQuests about the texts and authors that Shakespeare himself studied when he was in grammar school. They use a variety of media in order to create dramatic...
Curated OER
A Lens into the Past
Explore the history of immigration through photographs. Scholars will view and discuss photographs depicting the culture and lifestyle of late 19th and early 20th century immigrants. They take pictures of current examples of culture in...
Curated OER
The Minerva Mosaic of the Library of Congress
Students analyze the Minerva mosaic. In this Library of Congress lesson, students conduct primary source analysis of the mosaic as they interpret the symbolism and mythology featured in the mosaic.
Smithsonian Institution
Looking at a National Treasure: George Washington
Learners explain the definition of a portrait. They identify the visual clues that Gilbert Stuart included in his portrait of George Washington. They compare the reproduction to other images of Washington. They discuss the importance of...
Curated OER
The blues highway: An integration of music with geography
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....
Curated OER
The Kei School
Learners create their own Nio sculptures to guard the entrance to the classroom by using knowledge of the Kei school in Japan, primary source documents, and basic art supplies.
Curated OER
Red is the Word!
Through the use of stories, artwork, and the KidPix program, youngsters explore the color word red, and engage in activities around the word. Teaching kindergartners about the color words can be so much fun. This could be adapted for any...
Curated OER
Giants of the Animal Kingdom
Fourth graders examine the megafauna found in Australia. They create a food web using cut-outs and develop a timeline to show changes in the fauna over time. They draw their own megafauna scene for their classroom.
Curated OER
Your Attention Please: Iatmul Orator's Stool
Learners investigate art by observing historical sculptures from New Guinea. In this art history lesson, students observe pictures of the "Orator's Stool"from Papua New Guinea, while identifying the small details that make it unique....