Lesson Plans

380 Result(s)
Grade Range
9-12
Steinbeck’s Use of Nonfiction Sources in The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck drew from Tom Collins’s Arvin Migrant Camp reports to compose "The Grapes of Wrath." In this lesson, students consider how an author uses nonfiction sources to affect the reader’s perception of the novel’s authenticity.

Grade Range
6-8
Animating Poetry: Reading Poems about the Natural World

Centered on poems about the natural world, this lesson encourages students, first, to make the reading of poetry a creative act; and, second, to appreciate particular literary devices in their functions as semaphores or interpretive signals.

Grade Range
6-8
Understanding the Salem Witch Trials

In 1691, a group of girls from Salem, Massachusetts accused an Indian slave named Tituba of witchcraft, igniting a hunt for witches that left 19 men and women hanged, one man pressed to death, and over 150 more people in prison awaiting a trial. In this lesson, students will explore the characteristics of the Puritan community in Salem, learn about the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and try to understand how and why this event occurred.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 1: How "Grand" and "Allied" was the Grand Alliance?

This lesson plan will survey the nature of what Winston Churchill called the Grand Alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union in opposition to the aggression of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Grade Range
9-12
Seeing Sense in Photographs & Poems

Through close study of Alfred Stieglitz’ 1907 photograph "The Steerage" and William Carlos William's 1962 poem "Danse Russe," students will explore how poetry can be, in Plutarch’s words, "a speaking picture," and a painting (or in this case a photograph) can be "a silent poetry."

Grade Range
9-12
Colonizing the Bay

This lesson focuses on John Winthrop’s historic "Model of Christian Charity" sermon which is often referred to by its “City on a Hill “ metaphor. Through a close reading of this admittedly difficult text, students will learn how it illuminates the beliefs, goals, and programs of the Puritans. The sermon sought to inspire and to motivate the Puritans by pointing out the distance they had to travel between an ideal community and their real-world situation.

Grade Range
K-5
What Was Columbus Thinking?

Students read excerpts from Columbus's letters and journals, as well as recent considerations of his achievements in order to reflect on the motivations behind Columbus's explorations.

Grade Range
9-12
Using Historic Digital Newspapers for National History Day

In this lesson, students will examine a preselected set of newspaper articles drawn from the "Chronicling America" website. They will determine the right each article illustrates and the responsibility that comes with that right.