Lesson Plans

380 Result(s)
Grade Range
9-12
What's in a Picture? An Introduction to Subject in the Visual Arts

When you visit an art museum and enter one of the halls filled with paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures your eye falls on the image closest to you and you wonder, "What is that picture about?" This lesson plan focuses on helping students to answer that question by investigating the of works of art. This lesson plan will provide a guide for gathering clues embedded in works of art, as well as an introduction to searching for the underlying meaning and messages that are present in many works of art. Students will work, step by step, through the layers of meaning, delving more deeply into these layers with each work as they progress through the lesson.

Grade Range
6-12
Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion

Students weigh the choices Washington faced in the nation’s first Constitutional crisis by following events through his private diary.

Grade Range
9-12
The Path of the Black Death

The Black Death ravaged Europe during 14th century and left a lasting impression on the surviving population. In this lesson, students analyze maps, firsthand accounts, and archival documents to trace the path and aftermath of the Black Death, the most devastating public health crisis of the Middle Ages.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 2: Dramatic Perspective in Moby Dick

Lesson 2 has students perform a close reading of one genre, dramatic script, in Chapter 37, to examine Melville’s characterizations of Ahab as a foil to Ishmael. Students then analyze the shifting perspectives that this chapter provokes within the novel, and delve deeply into Melville’s complex protagonist – the multifarious character of Captain Ahab. Finally, this lesson addresses the impact this drastic shift has on the reader.

Grade Range
6-8
On the Oregon Trail

Work with primary documents and latter-day photographs to recapture the experience of traveling on the Oregon Trail.

Grade Range
K-5
Edward Lear, Limericks, and Nonsense: A Little Nonsense

This lesson plan explores the characteristics of the nonsense poem as developed by British poet Edward Lear and focuses on Lear’s well-known poem “The Owl and the Pussy Cat.” Students learn to recognize poetic devices such as rhyme, syllabification, and meter, and figures of speech such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, and personification, by analyzing nonsense poems and writing one of their own.

Grade Range
6-12
Doing Oral History with Vietnam War Veterans

Oral History Interviews that bring students together with veterans help to foster empathy and make history come alive. This lessons offers a step-by-step guide to doing an oral history project with Vietnam War Veterans.

Grade Range
9-12
Witnesses to Joan of Arc and The Hundred Years’ War

Joan of Arc,one of France's most famous historical figures, has been mythologized in popular lore, literature, and film. She is also an exceptionally well-documented historical figure. Through such firsthand accounts students can trace Joan's history from childhood, through her death, and on to her nullification trial.

Grade Range
9-12
Composition and Content in the Visual Arts

How do artists create a story that provides a message or provokes emotions in that single frame? This lesson will help students analyze ways in which the composition of a painting contributes to telling the story or conveying the message through the placement of objects and images within the painting.