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Published in 1929, "The Sound and the Fury" is often referred to as William Faulkner's first work of genius. Faulkner's style is characterized by frequent time shifts, narrator shifts,…
This lesson will introduce students to the ways artists use color to set the tone of a painting or to convey a particular mood to the viewer.
The lesson focuses on two 17th-century maps of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to trace how the Puritans took possession of the region, built towns, and established families on the land. Students…
After a close reading and comparison of Edward Hopper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem about the painting, students explore the types of emotion generated by each…
This lesson plan compares the plot and setting characteristics of several versions of the Cinderella tale to teach students about universal and culturally specific literary elements.
This lesson plan compares the main characteristics of the heroine in several versions of the Cinderella tale to help students understand connections between a story’s main character and the plot’s…
The essay is perhaps one of the most flexible genres: long or short, personal or analytical, exploring the extraordinary and the mundane. American essayists examine the political, the historical,…
In White Fang, Jack London sought to trace the “development of domesticity, faithfulness, love, morality, and all the amenities and virtues.” In this lesson, students explore images from…
This lesson engages students in the debate over the Social Security Act that engrossed the nation during the 1930s.
One of the most famous political speeches on freedom in the twentieth century was delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union message to Congress. This lesson examines…
The Romans developed the alphabet we still use today. In this lesson we will introduce the Romans and ask how their alphabet got to us.
Shatavia Elder, Vice President of Education at the Atlanta History Center (Atlanta, Georgia), offers advice on the importance of historical significance when writing about a topic, event…
Anne Petersen, Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (Santa Barbara, California), addresses why multiple perspectives are important to developing a rich…
This resource provides access to classroom materials available at …
The NEH-funded website, Voices of Democracy (VOD), includes a…
A collection of essays and lessons created by the National Endowment for the Humanities and National History Day as part of the NEH’s special initiative to advance civic education and the…
This media resource features three videos that address a series of questions about The Papers of the War Department, a collection that provides insight into a broad range of issues…
From the exhausted hope of the Joads to the tenacity of Cesar Chavez; from the austere Garveyian self-reliance of Allensworth to the lyricism of the Bakersfield Sound, very few locales have…
Join eminent historians, literary scholars, design and architectural historians, and archivists for a week-long NEH “Landmarks of American History and Culture” workshop that will give you new…
More than ten-thousand Japanese Americans were incarcerated at Heart Mountain in Wyoming, from 1942-1945. This resource asks students to examine the question "why here?" through the use of videos…
A video interview series conducted with Sam Mihara, a Japanese American incarcerated at Heart Mountain, Wyoming during WWII, that includes primary sources and other materials.
Father Columba Stewart delivered the 2019 Jefferson Lecture, titled, "Cultural Heritage Present and Future: A Benedictine Monk’s Long View."
Dr. Rita Charon delivered the 2018 Jefferson Lecture, titled, "To See the Suffering: The Humanities Have What Medicine Needs," on Monday, October 15, 2018. In her lecture, Dr. Charon meditates on…
Martha C. Nussbaum delivered the 2017 Jefferson lecture, titled, "Powerlessness and the Politics of Blame" on May 1, 2017.
Ken Burns delivered the 2016 Jefferson Lecture on May 9, 2016.
Drew Gilpin Faust, historian and first female president of Harvard University, delivered the 2011 Jefferson Lecture.
Professor James O'Hara, a Trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, discusses an NEH-funded project to digitize the Society's library of rare, out-of-print, and fragile books about Supreme…
Learn about an NEH-funded program for veterans and college students in California, which places classical literature and the Greek-Trojan wars in dialogue with letters, articles, literature…
Chris Brown and Jason Deitch discuss the NEH-funded project "War Ink," which collaborates with veterans and libraries to tell the stories of veterans' tattoo art.
Wendell Berry delivered the 2012 Jefferson Lecture on April 23, 2012. He speaks of the importance of place in cultivating responsible relationships to the world: only if we are able to imagine our…