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Keyboard and the Grand Staff
Students explore the treble and bass staffs, naming the lines, spaces, and locating middle C.  Individually, students complete a word game and then compare their answers with a partner.  They sight-read the grand staff and explore ways...
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A More Perfect Product
Students participate in a discussion about the basics of house design including the influence of site, materials, function, form and style. They explore these concepts by creating a floor plan and conceptual drawing of a house.
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Creating an Autobiographical Amulet Necklace
Students create their own personalized amulet necklaces after viewing images of artifacts from different cultures.
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Blues Improvisation
Students practice playing and improvising while playing the 12 bar blues. They practice compositional skills, evaluate and perform musical pieces focused on the blues.
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Thank You, Grandparents!
Students share important moments with their grandparents. Individually, they write one paragraph thanking them for being in their lives or for a specific event they have been involved in. They also identify ways they act like their...
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What Makes A Face A Face?
Students discuss what enables us to read a face: features, expressions, standards of beauty, age and gender.  They discuss what enables us to read motion: repetition, sequence, changes in form and scene.
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Message in a Bottle
Sixth graders write a short story about being stranded on a deserted island.  After a brief geography review of locations at various latitudes and longitudes, 6th graders draft their story about being stranded.  They use sensory and...
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"Some excellent dumb discourse:" Caliban as native American
Twelfth graders explore some of the colonial implications of The Tempest, analyzing how language and power interrelate in the play and using another American voice, American Sign Language, to consider the different forms of communication...
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Music to Your Ears
Students explore how the sounds made by everyday objects can be transformed into musical experiences, composing and performing musical pieces using non-traditional instruments.
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Using Lines, Dots, And Shapes To Create the Illusion O
Students create the illusion of texture using lines, dots, and shapes in a rendering of an animal.
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Bollywood, Philadelphia
Learners conceive a simple boy-meets-girl story. They write a screenplay, compose a storyboard, and produce the story with music and dancing in the style of a modern Indian operetta, using digital filming and editing. They screen the...
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Concert Ettiquette
Students investigate the concept of social ettiquette. They complete exercises that are targeted at finding the right kind of behavior to display while performing in a concert setting. They make a list of the most desirable behaviors for...
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Housing Styles Portfolio
Students are introduced to the various types of housing styles.  In groups, they use photographs of the styles to determine their architectural time periods.  Using the internet or magazines, they find their own images and create a...
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Time Zone
Eighth graders are given a year in history to research and identify the social and cultural situations at the time.  In groups, they examine and describe various styles and periods of art and present them to the class.  They relate the...
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Making a Pictorial Timeline
Students create a pictorial timeline of a biographical character. In this timeline lesson, students create a slide show illustrating the life of the person from a biography they've read. Students also use Kid Pix to create a pictorial...
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Going Batty - Part II
First graders apply the knowledge they've gained about bats to create bat poetry.
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Paw-er up for PowerPoint
Sixth graders explore how to transfer research material into a PowerPoint Presentation.
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The Dream Factory
Students compare postcard samples from Los Angeles, CA and Austin, TX. They examine them to find common elements they share (tone, mood, romanticized themes, artistic elements, etc.) They create postcards to show the "real" Austin.
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Self-Portraits
Learners use a software drawing program to produce self portraits. They draw using the available tools and matching their features such as eye color and shape. They print the portraits for a classroom display.
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Internet Research tied to Literature for Alternative Jr. High
Ninth graders research a career using different "center" activities and then write a paper.
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Composing with Non-Chord Tones to Ornament a Melody
Students develop melodies based on a simple chord progression. They develop the tools need to begin to compose their own music. Students explore the qualities of each NCT and identify them in a composition. They develop listening skills...
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Advertising Project
Students use word processing software to create slogans for products. They write their own jingles and create their own packaging for products they design. Then they write and act out their own television commercials for their products.
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Defining American Culture Photographic Parallels
Students assess the diversity of the photographs taken by a Czech photographer, that illustrate how existed in 1920's Texas. Then students compare and contrast these photographs with more current photographs of Texans and evaluate in...