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Huddled Masses Still Yearning to Breathe Free
Students examine the experience of modern-day immigrants through learning about the personal experiences of a variety of immigrants.
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In the Heart of Your City
Students analyze the changes in the community described in "Still a Contender on the Waterfront" and evaluate how the history of a city can be seen, regardless of changes, in a city as it exists today.
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Reliving History Through Writing
Young scholars read a first hand account of John F. Kennedy's assassination. They write an essay describing how a world or national event affected them.
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A Civil Action
Students explore the roles of law enforcement officials, the news media, and civilians in crime prevention and criminal apprehension. They envision ways to build and strengthen community partnerships to address concerns about crime.
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Making the Future Present
Learners draw and describe a new system for prison surveillance. After reading an article, they discover the use of a wearable computer by prison guards. In groups, they develop a proposal for a new type of technology to be used in a...
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Letters from Rifka
Fourth graders read Letters from Rifka and discuss the feelings of people forced to leave their homes and countries. In this migration lesson, 4th graders relate their feelings about moving from their home forever. Students trace...
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VH1 Storytellers for Save the Music Starring Billy Joel
Students pretend they are taking a certain job in the music industry and respond to questions.
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Literary Criticism
Students evaluate and debate whether movies, television shows, and other mass media cause violent behavior in students and whether books are the same as or different from these other media in their potential for causing violent behavior...
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A Nation in Mourning
Students reflect on what the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Lauren Bessette mean to them. They then work to compose and read aloud found poems from The Times' coverage of the burial and memorial services.
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Faces Behind the Guns
Students use the New York Times article profiling ordinary citizens who legally own guns as the basis of a role-playing exercise in which they explore the types of people who own firearms and their personal reasons for doing so.
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Celebrating Our Nation's Diversity
Second graders conduct a class census to measure diversity.
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Fish Stories
Students conduct background research about a Pacific Rim country to develop a premise for a documentary film about the fate of traditional fishing industries in the area.
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The Shadow
Middle schoolers identify career areas which are nontraditional for their gender. They tak a self-assessment survey type instrument that indicates the primary type of intelligence as based on the Multiple Intelligence Theory (Howard...
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Student Mad Libs
Students investigate the different parts of speech by participating in a fill in the blank activity. In this Mad Libs lesson, students define the different parts of speech and discuss how they are used appropriately in sentences....
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Separation of Church and Class?
Students examine the changing socioeconomic status of the evangelical Christian population in the United States. They discuss the relationship between class and religion in American society.
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Behind the Cover
Students develop questions they would have liked to ask an author about their written works. They read an article about their forefathers and research a back story to a written work of their choice. They create posters to illustrate the...
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Calamity Sane
Students observe responses to emergency situations by participating in and making observations about a fire drill. They then analyze the fire drill proceedings from the perspective of a sociologist investigating social order during...
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Government
Second graders run for various offices. They dress up like a politician, pretend to be running for an office, and tell the students why they should vote for him/her. They explain why it is necessary for a community to have a government
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Violence On TV
Students examine violence on TV. In this data collection lesson, students explore TV violence. Students watch TV shows and fill out a checklist about the amount of violence. Students organize and analyze the information to make a report.
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Tour de Force on the Tour de France
Young scholars explore the incredible obstacles that Lance Armstrong overcame to become the second American winner of the Tour de France. They choose a person whom they admire as the subject of a 'Man in the News' or 'Woman in the News'...
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In the Melting Pot
Students work in small groups, each group examining a different aspect of the immigration process (such as visas, work permits, and citizenship exams) or of illegal immigration (such as deportation), to better explain the immigration...
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Rights-Minded
Students expand their knowledge and understanding about the civil rights movement by investigating the lives of some of the people who contributed to it.
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The Taming of the Few
Learners consider the cultural, historical, and social implications of domesticating animals as pets. They create informative posters of various animals, illustrating their histories as pets.
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Making Change
Second graders explore how to incorporate a new type of technology, the cash register and/or a calculator, as a motivational tool for solving real life problems. They practice estimating money and counting back change from $20.00.