Shell Silverstein’s “Sick” provides an opportunity for kids to demonstrate their understanding of syllables and phonemes. The class creates a list of descriptive words used in the poem that have more than one syllable, and brainstorm how...

How can word choice affect a political speech? Middle and high schoolers examine the text of the 1999 State of the Union Address, and then determine how newspaper articles and television reports describe and analyze the event. Use this...

Why is it important to preserve historical documents and artifacts? Examine the role of primary source documents and the availability of these documents on the Internet. Middle and high schoolers write a journal about the nature of...

Young scholars examine food photography and the different techniques used by food stylists to make foods look appealing in advertisements. After learning some of the tricks of the trade, students plan and shoot their own food...

Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...

How can opinions slant facts? Workshop participants learn how to examine primary and secondary sources and identify the author's point of view. They also examine how visual art impacts the meaning and rhetoric of sources. Full of...

Young historians view and analyze photos and documents from WWII that are related to blood transfusions and blood plasma. A demonstration of correct and incorrect blood donors visually shows the importance of knowing blood...

Based on your current level of human capital, how long would it take you to earn $1,000,000? What about your potential human capital? Learners explore the importance of education and experience when entering the workforce, and compare...

Tenth graders analyze animated Disney movies. They demonstrate their awareness of how the artful use of language can affect and influence others. They evaluate how both genders and cultures are portrayed in mass media.

What a wonderful way to explore this topic! Learners take an imaginary trip to Asia, take a visual tour, and formulate questions for a research project. As a final project, they create a travel brochure.

Break down a quick conversation in Spanish. After the teacher presents the vocabulary, the class heads to the computer lab, where class members can watch a brief interactive video. The visual is one clip separated into four clearly...

Do you have financial goals? How will you make them happen? Help your pupils answer these questions through this interactive project. They create goals and a plan for reaching them as one of many high school algebra projects.

Mathematicians utilize artwork to help illustrate the major ideas of transformations and tessellations. They visually identify transformations including reflections, rotations, and translations. They discuss how artists have used...

Twelfth graders use computers and the Internet to research a specified area, word processors to prepare an essay, a digital camera, a video camera gather visuals, and a scanner to add visuals to a PowerPoint presentation as they discover...

Using a photo of themselves for inspiration, learners create a multi-media self-portrait. A digital image of each child is taken, it is uploaded into the computer where is can be experimented with in a digital format. Young artists then...

Class members have an opportunity to compare how a film and a play handle the same source material by viewing the opening chapters of George Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope and acts I and II of Ian Doescher's play, William...

High schoolers explore and analyze how the human face is proportioned and explore ways artists use mathematics to make art. They demonstrate the basic face proportions by creating a reference sketch and illustrating visual clues to...

Different media sources portray news in a variety of ways. In groups of three, learners look at different news sources, bringing in all the findings the next day. Three handouts help scholars compare sources, define specific terms used...

Explore the key elements of a contract with your young adults, and delve into the features and unique benefits of a rent-to-own contract through discussion and worksheet practice. 

Read The Napping House and describe the visual characteristics of the illustrations.  In this perspective lesson, learners identify color elements.  They recognize that the text is repetitive and find patterns in the...

“. . . the car looked as it had caught some terrible disease.” Pairs read and then illustrate a passage from either “The Year I Drove through the Car Wash” or “Riding Is an Exercise of the Mind” in preparation for a discussion of...

Here is an art lesson that combines visual arts and language arts into one very nice package. In it, youngsters study a fascinating painting called Painting of Bear and Sun Dances. They begin to understand the importance of...

How does a plant grow from a seed? Observe the process with a clever idea from the PBS television show ZOOM. Watch the video, then have your young botanists create their own germinators. The instructional activity described here is for...

Explore online profiles and social media with your middle and high school classes. Use blogs to inspire your class to craft a well-written, thoughtful response to a prompt you give.  A few example prompts are given.