Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee  and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write...

Young scholars investigate Native American culture reading and writing about early Native American authors. They listen to an expert to extend their understanding of the culture.

Although the work Americans do has changed over time, the plight of the American worker has largely remained the same. Facilitate a class discussion aboutAmerican workers using Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith" and...

Students participate in a lesson plan that investigates post-modernism in American literature. They conduct the lesson plan with the help of reading "America" by Ginsberg to create context. Then students define the genre and the culture...

Young scholars form groups to help each other read, analyze, and conduct research on important background information about Jews and their assimilation into modern American society. They write their own stories of assimilation.

Learners examine the suggestion that the subjective experience of everyday life and sense of identity has changed in America in recent years. In this post-modernism and mass culture lesson, students engage in 4 multi-step exercises that...

Pupils begin the lesson with a review of the elements of poetry. Individually, they read a variety of poems and literature one white and one black author focusing on decay, sterility and alienation. They identify these images within...

Learners engage in a study of the literature of modernism in America. They conduct research and read different texts for clarification of the genre style. Students discuss the background influences of culture that shaped modernism.

Students explore community problem solving. In this cross-curriculum literature and social studies instructional activity, students listen to The Legend of the Bluebonnet by Tomie DePaola and discuss how a Native American community...

Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil changed history. Their sit-in at the lunch counter of the Woolworths in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960 became a model for the nonviolent protests that...

Satires may be designed to expose a bias to ridicule but if misunderstood can they reinforce that bias? Langston Hughes poem, “Minstrel Man” opens a discussion of racist stereotypes, the minstrel tradition, and the musical, “The...

Create meaningful illustrations to accompany stories in a web-based art and literacy instructional activity focused on "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" by Rudyard Kipling. The class takes a virtual art safari with the Museum of Modern Art and then...

High schoolers compare Cameroonian and African-American folktales. In this folktales lesson, students participate in a jigsaw activity that requires them to read "The Owl Never Sleeps as Night," "Why the Lizard Often Nods," "Tappin, the...

High schoolers consider the implications of the Salem Witch Trials. In this literature lesson, students read Arthur Miller's The Crucible and compare the witch trials to McCarthyism of the 1950's. High schoolers rewrite scenes from...

High schoolers explore cultural aspects such as gender roles and their impact on Indian culture and compare and contrast issues associated with those roles in America through literature.

Students investigate how early European exploration and colonization resulted in cultural and ecological interactions among previously unconnected peoples. They comprehend that Europeans had misconceptions about Native American literacy...

Students identify racial stereotypes in advertisements from the past and survey their sources and implications. They compare advertisements from the past with those of today using similar approaches and create an original advertisement...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

The length of Queen Victoria's reign, surpassed only by Queen Elizabeth II in the modern era, stretched through much of the 19th century and into the 20th century. Explore the many social, industrial, and political shifts that occurred...

Learners explore the American dream. In this contemporary music lesson, students analyze the lyrics of songs by Neil Diamond, Bruce Springsteen, and David Massengill. Learners create 3-D representations of the American dream and write...

Students read a variety of biographies to gain insight on the experiences of an African-American's life. Individually, they try to determine the time period it was written and compare the event with ones that occured in their own lives....

Students explore the Chautauqua movement. In this Pennsylvania history lesson plan, students use primary documents to explore what the Chautauqua was and how it made a difference in the American way of life.

The Great Gatsby, The Jungle and study HRC's Teaching the American Twenties-The Dream Factory are the focus of this lesson, Your students will rewrite a small scene from the novel into a dramatic film scene and then create a modern...

Discuss a Nero Wolfe mystery on brining criminals to justice. Secondary students will read the book A Nero Wolfe Mystery: The Doorbell Rang. They then will watch the movie depicting this story and answer discussion questions. There are...