Lesson Plans

364 Result(s)
Grade Range
6-8
"Three Shots": Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams

In this lesson, students study issues related to independence and conceptions of masculinity in Ernest Hemingway’s “Three Shots” as they conduct in-depth literary character analysis, consider the significance of environment to growing up and investigate Hemingway’s Nobel Prize-winning, unique prose style. In addition, they will have the opportunity to write and revise a short story based on their own childhood experiences and together create a short story collection.

Grade Range
K-5
Portrait of a Hero

Heroes abound throughout history and in our everyday lives. After completing the activities, students will be able to understand the meaning of the words hero and heroic.

Grade Range
9-12
Dramatizing History in Arthur Miller's The Crucible

By closely reading historical documents and attempting to interpret them, students consider how Arthur Miller interpreted the facts of the Salem witch trials and how he successfully dramatized them in his play, "The Crucible." As they explore historical materials, such as the biographies of key players (the accused and the accusers) and transcripts of the Salem Witch trials themselves, students will be guided by aesthetic and dramatic concerns: In what ways do historical events lend themselves (or not) to dramatization? What makes a particular dramatization of history effective and memorable?

Grade Range
6-12
What is History? Timelines and Oral Histories

This lesson plan addresses the ways people learn about events from the past and discusses how historical accounts are influenced by the perspective of the person giving the account. To understand that history is made up of many people’s stories of the past, students interview family members about the same event and compare the ifferent versions, construct a personal history timeline and connect it to larger historical events, and synthesize eyewitness testimony from different sources to create their own "official" account.

Grade Range
9-12
Tanka: Japanese Poetry

This unit on the Japanese poetic form tanka encourages students to explore the structure and content of the form and to arrive at a definition of the tanka’s structure in English. Students will read and analyze the tanka form and compare it to English structures of poetry, and will finally compose their own tankas.

Grade Range
9-12
Preparing for Poetry: A Reader's First Steps

Students are often gleeful to discover that their reading homework involves only a few short poems. Yet the attentive student realizes that carefully reading a poem involves as much work as reading a short story, article, or passage from a novel. This lesson teaches students how to read a poem so that they are prepared, rather than simply present, for class discussion.

Grade Range
K-5
French and Family

This unit on French language and culture focuses on the family and keeps the lessons simple and age-appropriate. Students will learn about French families and gain a preliminary knowledge of the French language, learning the French names for various family members.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 3: The Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy

A freshman senator from Wisconsin, Joseph R. McCarthy, shocked the country in 1950 when he claimed to possess evidence that significant numbers of communists continued to hold positions of influence in the State Department. In this lesson students will learn about McCarthy's crusade against communism, from his bombshell pronouncements in 1950 to his ultimate censure and disgrace in 1954.

Grade Range
9-12
Evaluating Eyewitness Reports

Practice working with primary documents by comparing accounts of the Chicago Fire and testing the credibility of a Civil War diary.