Curated OER
Descriptive Writing: Using Art to Inspire description
Write with the senses! Try using art to inspire writers to consider all of the senses. Here, the class is divided in half. Each group looks at one of two images, imagines the senses that would be engaged, and records answers to five...
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Literature and Art Through Our Eyes: African-American Artists
Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of...
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African Masks And Their Impact On Western Art
Explore the influence of African-style masks on Western art. Learners create individual masks using construction paper. They discuss and explore the techniques used to create these types of masks. The resource includes links to...
Penguin Books
An Educator’s Guide to Ruta Sepetys
Historical fiction novels give readers a chance to step into someone else's shoes. An educator's guide from Penguin Common Core Lesson Plans provides resources to accompany three historical fiction novels written by Ruta Sepetys: Between...
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Symphonic Poetry (SMART Board Lesson)
Let music and poetry collide in this well-orchestrated language arts lesson plan. After studying program music and C. Debussy's Prelude to an Afternoon Faun, view the attached SMART board lesson plan to read through "Fog" by Carl...
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The Words that Surround Us
Students investigate writing that we read daily by analyzing advertisements and articles. In this language arts instructional activity, students discuss the images and writing they see daily, where it comes from, and what it represents....
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A Boxful of Character
I can't wait to try this activity with my class. It's versatile and could be modified to fit any character analysis lesson. To analyze characters thoroughly, learners create life boxes. Each box will pertain to a character from any...
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Meet The Artist
Students investigate art history by researching a particular artist. In this biographical lesson, students are given a brief summary of a artist's life and are assigned to create a report on the person. Students create an outline based...
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Stained Glass for Your Class
Students investigate the history of stained glass and the creator of the art form. In this art project lesson plan, students utilize drawing paper to create their own style of stained glass using transparent paint. Students tape their...
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Symphonic Poetry
Students interpret the themes in Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, create a 6-line poem based on the themes in the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, and define musical terms related to the study of programmatic music in...
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Book Trailers/Sneak Peeks
Looking for a motivating and creative technology lesson? Then this lesson is for you! After viewing a movie trailer, middle-schoolers follow that design to create a video preview of a book's story elements. They also create a storyboard...
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The Tell-Tale Hearts of Writers
Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of a...
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Art-itecture
Students envision their dream house. In this architecture lesson, students imagine their dream house. Students are encouraged to think about their family, lifestyle, and how they would like others to see them. Students make drawings of...
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Coast-to-Coast Book Design -Part 2: What is Design?
Students explore the concept of design, and identify items in their lives that have been designed. They explore the concept of book design and create and arrange their own page layout.
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Uniform Design
Learners investigate the military by examining their uniforms. In this design lesson, students analyze the military uniforms from different locations and time periods. Learners create new ideas for current military uniforms.
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Memorial Day
As a way to understand Memorial Day, build citizenship, practice vocabulary, and discuss current international conflicts, learners create their own Memorial Day. They design their own memorial after learning about the various types of...
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Unlocking Soliloquies and Unleashing "the Dogs of War"
What is a soliloquy, and who is Julius Caesar? Explore soliloquies with this lesson plan that gets your kids up and moving! Learners line up, facing each other. Then they read the soliloquy (one side reads one line, and the other side...
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Can You Believe Your Eyes?
Students investigate hidden messages by analyzing images. In this art analysis lesson, students assess specific photographs by their use of light, framing, distortion and size. Students create their own juxtapositions in images and...
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Animation Pre-Production
Does your class love reading cartoons? Use their talents and interests to examine the process of writing a story they wish to tell through a cartoon. They develop the beginning, middle, and end of a story based on their original...
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A Light in the Night
Learners investigate fireflies by reading children books. In this art lesson, students examine the images from the book The Very Lonely Firefly, and discuss the contrast of the artwork. Learners utilize colored pens and glitter to...
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The People's Design Award
Students analyze, critique, and evaluate information from various sources and learn about the design process. In this design lesson, students critique work submitted to People's Design Award and create a design of their own to present to...
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Anon Methought the Umbrellas Began to Move
Students reenact a scene from Macbeth using umbrellas as props.
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M.C. Bard: Hip Hop and Shakespeare
Middle schoolers compare lyrics from hip hop songs with monologues from Shakespeare's plays, and perform both for the class.
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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Students design and create photo albums that tell the story of the play, Twelfth Night, using pictures they take of themselves recreating various scenes of the play.