Let's go for a walk. Learners complete the mid-unit assessment by completing a gallery walk to analyze different primary sources discussed while reading A Mighty Long Way. After viewing the sources, class members complete organizers and...

Art, identity, and an imaginary community, three components that should make for an interesting lesson. Critical thinkers explore and evaluate the work of contemporary artist, Elizabeth Peyton. They discuss her use of subject and art to...

What skills do storytellers employ to bring to life the characters and events in their tales? After listening to a recording of a Haitian folk tale, class members consider how tone of voice, pace, and gestures can be used to enliven a...

Practice the skill of compare and contrast. First, show learners the different pairs of artwork in the project packet (included). Then, each learner chooses one of the pairs and finds the similarities and differences between the...

Young scholars research the social context of Elizabethan England for Shakespeare's "Hamlet". They identify cultural influences on the play focusing on the theme of revenge and then analyze and compare film interpretations of the play.

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...

There is a reason why an Oscar is given each year for the Best Adaptation Screenplay. Adaptations are the focus of an exercise that asks class members to compare a work of literature with a least one adaptation of the work into a...

A lesson plan instills the importance of locating reliable sources. Scholars are challenged to locate digital sources, analyze their reliability, search for any bias, and identify frequently found problems that make a source unusable. 

Quench the class's thirst for knowledge while building analytical skills. Scholars listen as the teacher reads excerpt from the book The Big Thirst. They then complete a close read and answer text-dependent questions from pages one...

Introduce your class members to allegory and propaganda with a series of activities designed to accompany a study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Readers examine the text as an allegory, consider the parallels to collective farms...

Students make connections between music and visual art. In this integrated arts lesson plan, students design paintings that challenge them to examine the relationship between art elements and principles.

Music has been used to convey thoughts, feelings, and the human condition for thousands of years. Your class will analyze several songs hear in the animated classic, "Charlie Brown." They will listen to several jazz pieces from the show,...

What did you say? Class members read Teen Slang: What’s, Like, So Wrong with Like and make notes in the margin to determine the gist. They then analyze the text to identify claims made and the evidence to support the claims....

Ninth graders continue their inquiry-based research projects focused on the topics in Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation. After formulating, honing, and adapting their research frames in the previous lessons, learners select...

Students study the significance of flowers in art from two periods. In this Medieval and Renaissance art lesson, students research the presence and meaning of botanical illustrations in twelfth, thirtieth, and fourteenth century...

Upper graders use the potter's wheel to make Japanese style tea cups, which they will use in a Japanese style tea ceremony. They hone their sculpting techniques while exploring Japanese cultural and the history of tea. There are two...

Upper graders explore the similarities, differences, and depth of pop music from the Romantic era and the 20th century. They listen to selections that exemplify the Baroque, Romantic, and 20th century periods, then create presentations...

Students analyze and critique theater events by evaluating and constructing meanings from improvised and scripted scenes and from theater, film, television, and electronic media productions.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides the lens class members use to analyze and evaluate the motivations of the characters in Sylvia Plath's "Initiation" and scenes from Mean Girls. Readers then select a character from A...

Who has the better argument? Class members work in small groups to compare the arguments on the Example of Strong and Flawed Arguments sheet. They then analyze Michael Pollan’s argument on pages 161–166 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and...

Readers apply Sigmund Freud's theories of the unconscious mind and the psychological approach to literary criticism to analyze and evaluate the relationship between two characters in A Separate Peace.

Let me check my schedule! Scholars set up discussion appointments with five classmates to discuss Shirley Chisholm's speech "Equal Rights for Women." Readers then use their Note Catcher guides to analyze the text of the speech more...

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...

After listening to a variety of interpretations of "When the Saints Go Marching In," partners compose and then perform their own renditions of this classic before joining a full-class jam session.