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"my Dear Little Boys..." Using Wwii Primary Documents: a Letter Home From the War

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students read letters written by soldiers during World War II in order to analyze the soldier's feelings about the war. They explain how these primary sources teach appreciation for the World War II soldier's experiences.
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Ceramics: A Vessel into History

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers evaluate the works of their peers using criteria for value and meaning.
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Learning How To Include Proportional Figures and Objects in Landscape Drawings

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders are shown a slideshow of paintings showing landscapes. They create their own landscape painting using proportional figures.
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Celebrating the Smithsonian's Birthday

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students examine online objects from the Smithsonian website and use them as subjects and inspiration for creative writing exercises.
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What Do Portraits Communicate?

For Teachers Higher Ed
Students make connections between their personal experiences and portraits. define a portrait and identify different kinds of portraits in artworks and their own lives. They look closely at a portrait using visual analysis to describe...
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Newsworthy Images

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students examine images made for newspapers and create their own photos to tell a story. They experiment with cropping to reframe their images and explore how photographic images can be manipulated.
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Return to Vietnam: Healing on the Hill

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students view a film about soldiers returning to Vietnam years after the war. They discover the need of closure by the soldiers because the war was not won. They examine the results of the war and answer questions to complete the lesson.
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Exploring Photographs - Writing the Artist's Statement

For Teachers 7th - Higher Ed
Learners read an artist's statement by Dorothea Lange and write a statement based on their own photographs. In this photograph and writing lesson, students examine the relationship between photography and the artist's statement. Learners...
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Dorothea Lange and the Relocation of Japanese Americans

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students analyze a photograph and translate the analysis into words. They explain and explain the impact of governmental decisions made during a specific historical time period.
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Ceramics: A Vessel into History

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers produce a ceramic vessel based on elements derived from historical examples.
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How Do Portraits Communicate?

For Teachers Higher Ed
Students read a visual image very much like they would read words in a story. They write about portraits using new portrait vocabulary. They, in groups, use their written analysis to hypothesize about the story of the sitters in the...
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Looking at Portraits: Reading Poe

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students compare the daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe by an unknown photographer with Poe's writings in an effort to discover the character of this mysterious author.
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Looking at Portraits: Looking at One's Self

For Teachers K - 2nd
Pupils examine Charles-Antoine Coypel's Self-Portrait and explain what he shows in this work.
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Buildings, Buildings Everywhere

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students gain awareness of shapes in architecture by creating a painting of their school and writing a reflective summary of their study of architecture.
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Ceramics: A Vessel into History

For Teachers 10th - Higher Ed
Students create a ceramic vessel, discuss their artistic choices, and identify elements derived from historical examples. In this ceramics lesson, students identify symbols and imagery that are connected to a specific...
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Women's Roles: Then and Now

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders investigate women's roles during the frontier era in what is today's West Virginia. In this US history lesson, 4th graders discuss similarities and differences of women's roles in the past with what women's roles...
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The Laundress

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students explore the concept of work, and work typically assigned to women, through artwork depicting laundresses.
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Read All About It! Events and People of the 1930s and 1940s That Shaped California and the Nation.

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Learners look carefully at four photographs by Dorothea Lange and discuss them in terms of what is depicted and what she may have wanted to communicate. They review what they learned about the Dust Bowl, the Depression, the war era, and...
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Looking at Illuminated Manuscripts: An Illuminated Day Planner

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students examine the contents of a book of hours and then compare it to the modern day-planner. They create class day-planners/ calendars with illuminations that correspond to modern holidays and season.
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Interview With...

For Teachers K - 5th
Students study a portrait and connect its visual components with contemporary understandings of people and their attributes.
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Demon Masks

For Teachers K - 5th
Students, using a story for inspiration, create their own demon mask. They are to use lots of color, texture and imagination.
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Telling the Stories the Past Tells Us

For Teachers 4th - 9th
Students create historical stories based on factual evidence. In this Telling the Stories the Past Tells Us lesson, students write historical stories using strategies such as characters, plot, setting, and voice. Students analyze several...
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Using Photographs and Models for Drawings

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Students make drawings of their classmates in photographs.
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Creative Writing Inspired by Paintings

For Teachers 3rd
Third graders view a PowerPoint presentation of the images by Maxfield Parrish. They wirte a short story based on one image and create drawings of an imagined character.