Textile Investigations

Students identify four different African cloth design styles and associate them with the cultures examined in this instructional activity. The instructional activity also includes a creative project where each student creates their own...

Could you live without your phone? What about cars, steel, or clothing? Class groups collaborate to produce presentations that argue that either the telephone, the gramophone, the automobile, the textile industry, or the steel industry...

The industrialization and urbanization of Alabama during the New South era (1865-1914) is the focus of a lesson that asks class members to use primary source documents to examine the impact of industrialization on Alabama workers and...

Eleventh graders explore Connecticut slavery. In this American slavery lesson, 11th graders analyze primary sources relating to slavery in the state as they research in collaborative groups. Students determine whether Connecticut should...

Can you grow clothes? Sure, wool, cotton, and Angora are all natural resources used to make textile products. Learners investigate the differences between synthetic and natural fibers, then consider textile processing careers. They watch...

To unionize or not to unionize? That is the question high schoolers consider in their investigation of the labor union movement of the 1920s. After a brief review of the Industrial Revolution and the importance of the textile industry in...

Pupils explore the idealistic expectations of the industrialists who financed and built mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. They research how the expectations of Lowell mill founders compared to the reality of life in the textile mills for...

A critical discussion regarding the nature of Shinique Smith's second-hand clothing art is the foundation for the lesson. Critical thinkers fully analyze the meaning behind her work, taking close consideration of where the clothing came...

Students investigate the broad range of jobs that can be found in the world of design. Students explore sound design, language architecture, etc. Students design a resource book and post it on a website for others to share.

Students examine the culture and history of the Hmong. Using story cloths, they investigate how they were used as expressions of their culture. They discover the Hmong's economic conditions and how they were able to form a new way to...