Annenberg Foundation
Utopian Promise
Scholars learn all about the Puritans in the third installment of a 16-part lesson series. After watching a video, they read and discuss biographies of Puritans and Quakers from American history, write journal entries and poetry, and...
PBS
Mark Twain: Storyteller, Novelist, and Humorist
Scholars investigate the use of satire in Mark Twain's writing. Literary lovers research the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, political cartoons, and videos to see how Twain uses satire to make the stories more memorable....
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Many Bens: Character Revealed in Writing
Benjamin Franklin may be known as a Founding Father, but he was also a prolific writer. Scholars examine his better-known pieces to learn about genre, voice, and early American history. The resource includes options for various...
PBS
Catch-22: What It Means to Be a(n Anti)Hero
Catch-22, Joseph Heller's send-up of military organizational bureaucracy, provides readers with an opportunity to consider the importance of the anti-hero. Class members fill out a worksheet comparing and contrasting the qualities...
Curated OER
Respect for Authority
Students develop cross-cultural understanding. In this democracy lesson, students discuss core democratic values as they examine the governance in their school and their local community. Students also discuss the effectiveness of...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Comic Strips
Who says comic strips aren’t educational? Prove these naysayers wrong by asking your class members to create a comic strip for a selected vocabulary word. Using online technological tools that provide access to an array of options for...
Curated OER
Who Fought for the Union?
Learners read New York Times articles, letters, and listen to songs written from a soldier's perspective during the Civil War in order to understand who was fighting in the Union Army. This is a great lesson, complete with weblinks,...
Curated OER
Make a Mockery of Magazines
Young scholars examine tabloids. In this journalism lesson, students compare and contrast satirical magazines and then plan, write, and compile their own.
Curated OER
Analyzing Huck Finn: A Cooperative Learning Lesson
Learners answer questions from "Huckleberry Finn" in groups. They use the internet or other sources to help them in their answer. They share their responses with the class and discuss.
Curated OER
Exploring Heroism
Students examine the concept of heroism in this lesson plan, through personal reflection, group activities and a thoughtful analysis of the documentary, HEROES OF GROUND ZERO. They explore their own understanding of what it means to be a...
Curated OER
How Poets Evoke Social and Historical Representations
Students explore how poems represent the social, historical, and cultural times that they were written in. In this poetry lesson plan, students compare and contrast poems with music of the time and explore implications of writing poems...
Curated OER
The Parts of an Editorial
High schoolers take notes as the teacher goes over the contents of an editorial and four types of an editorial. Students view an editorial and identify the structural elements in the sample as well as identify the type of editorial they...
Curated OER
ABBA - Lesson 4
Students discover a connection between the genres of popular music and musical theater. They find and discuss musicals written in many different musical styles.
Curated OER
A New Candidate for Animal Farm
Students create an advertising campaign in which a candidate from Animal Farm will run for an upcoming election. In this follow-up activity to George Orwell's Animal Farm lesson plan, students explore propaganda, rhetoric, and satire as...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Literary Humor
Young scholars examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's style of humor and compare it to other humorists. They discuss the purpose of literary humor and determine how it develops characters and plots in stories. They analyze the use of different...
Curated OER
Unit Plan for Mark Twain and American Humor
Students create brochures about the humor of Mark Twain. In this literature-analysis lesson plan, students read "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and other short stories by Twain. Students write analytical paragraphs and...
Curated OER
Carnival Celebrations: Masks and Vejigantes
Students explore Carnival. In this Puerto Rico Carnival lesson, students discover the history of the cultural celebration as well as the significance of the elaborate masks worn for the festivities. Students create their own Carnival masks.
Curated OER
Twain: An American Humorist
Students examine American humor and character through analysis of works by Mark Twain. In this cross curricular lesson, students develop a definition of American humor and determine how and why some consider Twain the 'first truly...
Curated OER
Political Cartoons as Part of the Election Process
Students explore the impact of political cartoons on American elections. In this presidential elections lesson plan, students discuss the election process and then analyze political cartoons that were published during presidential...
Curated OER
Literature: Porgy and Bess
Learners examine the various portrayals of African-Americans in literature, focusing on the opera, Porgy and Bess. They conduct Internet research on African-American culture between the two World Wars. Students write fictional or...
Center for History Education
How Did the Public View Women’s Contributions to the Revolutionary War Effort?
Calling upon the legacies of Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, and Catherine the Great, Esther Reed rallied Southern women to support the American Revolution. Using a broadside by Reed and other primary sources, such as poetry, young historians...
Curated OER
Encounter with an Interviewer
Students read the Mark Twain short story, Encounter with an Interviewer. They study "the interview" and discuss the role of the interviewer and the person being interviewed. They conduct mock interviews, constructing questions and...
Curated OER
Lesson One: Mark Twain and Will Rogers - American Originals
Students research the lives of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. They watch videos and research websites to find information and compile examples of each man's writings which they present to the class.
Curated OER
Fractured Fairy Tales
Students use familiar characters, plots, and settings from traditional fairy tales to create "fractured" versions, while experimenting with satire, irony and parody. A fractured fairy tale is designed to be humorous by changing the story...