Pupils choose two composers to research and complete a compare and contrast study of them. In this composer research lesson plan, students select two composers to research. Pupils use Internet sources, the library, and music class...

Play a vocabulary game with words from an article about Savion Glover's contribution to the film "Happy Feet." Then, small groups of students design and create original movie advertisements using vivid vocabulary to give Glover the...

Get your class primed for a comparative analysis lesson with this activity. They compare and contrast their music preferences to those of their classmates. After reading an article, they identify current trends in popular music, analyze...

Learners read Spelldown, by Becky Mushko and consider how it portrays the Appalachian community. They define and discuss vocabulary presented in the story and write a comparison/contrast paper analyzing two of the story's characters. The...

Discuss tone and imagery with Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress." In an attempt to get his fair lady to consummate their relationship, he write a poem urging her to seize the day! Introduce the author to your high school class,...

Ambition is the keyword of a lesson that focuses on the contributions made by famous female artists. Specifically looking at European artists, Luisa Roldan and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, scholars examine a piece of their work then...

Artists working in different media often explore the same themes—to model how these same themes weave their way through different forms of artistic expression, scholars analyze images by Dorothea Lange, identifying key themes in her...

Students restate facts and details in text to inform and organize ideas and have a choice of four activities to enhance learning,

Students study the poetry of Poe. In this integrated arts lesson, students draw comparisons between the daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe by an unknown photographer with Poe's poetry.

Twelfth graders write a thesis regarding a modern artist of their choice for a 15-20 multi-media presentation. In this lesson students create a Power Point, video, or some other visual representation studying an artist or modern artistic...

With the Common Core State Standards' growing focus on informational text, it's the perfect time to showcase this PowerPoint to your team of teachers. It's 59 slides focus on seven best practice structures: reading-as-thinking,...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

Readers decode and deconstruct political cartoons to heighten critical thinking, extra-textual literacy, and making meaning from symbolism and metaphor. A compatible activity to use in English class when your 8th or 11th graders are...

A Dorothea Lange photograph launches this study of metaphors. Using the questions provided, the class examines the image and the title to consider how Lange uses her photo as a metaphor. Class members then select an object they can use...

Students locate and identify statues in their local community. They write what they would see or hear and how they would feel if they were statues. They illustrate their stories.

Young scholars define "metaphor" and discuss examples of it in writing. They look carefully at a photograph by Dorothea Lange and discuss its relationship to the concept of metaphor. They write effectively about their own experience,...

Students define metaphor in both art and writing. In this metaphor lesson, students examine a photograph by Dorothea Lange and discuss the metaphor that is displayed in the picture. They write about an object that symbolizes a personal...

Ninth graders watch the video, 'El Cid.' They participate in teacher-led discussion about the beliefs, customs, goals, and heroes of both Spaniards and Moors. They create and present an artifact to the class showing the results of their...

Students read and discuss 'Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Mixing Treasures by Duke Ellington and Edvard Grieg,' exploring how jazz transformed European music and the influence jazz has had on modern music. They write musical reviews.

Students are guided into creating their own self-portrait in steps using colored pastels. They also use their self-portraits as a springboard to write a personal narrative. This is a cool lesson!

Students investigate equality and racism by creating a word art project.  For this civil rights lesson, students discover the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and create a word art project using the Internet site Wordle Web. ...

Students explore statistics by conducting class demographic surveys. In this graph making lesson, students identify the family members of each classmate, pets they own, and favorite activities. Students organize their statistics and...

Eleventh graders trace Taylor's use of conceit or extended metaphor in his poem "Huswifery" where he compares the process of cloth making to God's salvation of man, and write a poem in which they compare a personal transformation with an...

Students practice dramatic 'living' through various drama activities. In this drama lesson, students define drama, view examples of dramatic elements in Cyrano de Bergerac and Roxanne, define characterization within the dramas, study the...