Lesson Plans

434 Result(s)
Grade Range
9-12
Allegory in Painting

This lesson plan introduces students to allegory in the visual arts through the works of a number of well-known artists, including Thomas Cole and Caravaggio.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 4: Line in the Visual Arts

In this lesson plan, students will learn how line is defined in the visual arts and how to recognize this element in painting.

Grade Range
6-8
Thornton Wilder's Our Town: The Reader as Writer

To appreciate some of the extra-literary elements of a play, students pause at various intervals in their study of Thornton Wilder's Our Town to develop their own settings, characters, and conflicts.

Grade Range
9-12
Realistic Impressions: Investigating Movements in the Visual Arts

Impressionism, Cubism, Realism, Neoclassicism, Mannerism. When we visit a museum or flip through a book we often see these terms, along with the word movement (or sometimes style). This lesson plan will help students to understand the idea of movements in the visual arts, and begin to differentiate between some of the most well known movements in Western art- particularly in painting.

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
K-5
Australian Aboriginal Art and Storytelling

Australian Aboriginal art is one of the oldest continuing art traditions in the world. Much of the most important knowledge of aboriginal society was conveyed through different kinds of storytelling.

Grade Range
9-12
Genre in the Visual Arts: Portraits, Pears, and Perfect Landscapes

Still Life, portrait, and landscape are all categories, or genres, of painting which your students have probably seen examples of on their trips to the museum or when looking through an art book. This lesson plan will help students to understand and differentiate the various genres in the visual arts, particularly in Western painting. Students will learn to identify major genres, and will learn to discriminate between a painting’s subject and its genre.

Grade Range
9-12
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: ‘You Kiss by the Book’

As one of literature's most iconic figures, both Shakespeare's plays and poetry provide an interesting glimpse into a variety of essential themes. In this lesson, students will examine how Shakespeare used the sonnet tradition to enhance his stagecraft by performing a scene from his play Romeo and Juliet.

Grade Range
9-12
Chinua Achebe’s 'New English' in Things Fall Apart

This lesson provides a Common Core application for high school students for Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart. Students will undertake close reading of passages in Things Fall Apart to evaluate the impact of Achebe’s literary techniques, the cultural significance of the work, and how this international text serves as a lens to discover the experiences of others.