This video of Elizabeth Alexander reading the poem “Praise Song for the Day” that she composed for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration ceremony is the seventh in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. The companion lesson contains a sequence of activities for use with secondary students before, during, and after reading and listening to the poem.
Did you realize the humanities understood as the study and interpretation of languages, history, literature, jurisprudence, philosophy, comparative religion, history of art, and culture along with the fine and performing arts are considered worthy of support by two federal agencies?
It is perhaps no surprise that Fyodor Dostoevsky is known as one of the greatest psychological writers of all time, given his own dramatic history of suffering.
Mission US is a multimedia project that immerses players in U.S. history content through free interactive games.
In Mission 2: “Flight to Freedom,” players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky. As they navigate her escape and journey to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) was a former slave who became the greatest abolitionist orator of the antebellum period. During the Civil War he worked tirelessly for the emancipation of the four million enslaved African Americans. In the decades after the war, he was the most influential African American leader in the nation.
Perhaps the best-known pilgrim in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is Alisoun, the Wife of Bath. The Wife's fame derives from Chaucer's deft characterization of her as a brassy, bawdy woman—the very antithesis of virtuous womanhood—who challenges the prevailing gender inequality of the times.
Mission US (Mission 1: Crown or Colony?) is an interactive adventure game designed to improve the understanding of American history by students in grades 5 through 8. The first game in a planned series, Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” explores the reasons for Revolution through the eyes of both Loyalists and Patriots in 1770 Boston. This website provides information and materials to support the use of Mission 1 in your classroom, including assessment rubrics.