North Carolina Consortium for Middle East Studies
Using Drama to Address Social Justice Issues in School and the Community
Artists, musicians, and dramatists have long been the leaders in the quest for social justice. To gain an understanding of the power of the arts to address social issues, class members listen to a reading of Drew Daywalt's The Day the...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
From Ben’s Pen to Our Lives
What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...
Teaching Tolerance
Community Arts Showcase
An art showcase encourages class members to explore the themes of social justice and tolerance. They create an original artwork, engage in group discussions, and journal writing. The art gallery also provides a chance for families and...
Orlando Shakes
The Importance of Being Earnest: Study Guide
Historically, members of the upper class provide plenty of fodder for comedic writers. Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is no exception, and a study guide for the classic play discusses some of the Victorian social...
EngageNY
Grade 12 ELA Module 2
The second module in a series for high school seniors focuses on tracking the central idea of a text across genres and from multiple author and character perspectives. Twelfth graders read a speech by Benazir Bhutto entitled "Ideas Live...
ReadWriteThink
Designing Museum Exhibits for The Grapes of Wrath: A Multigenre Project
Challenge readers of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath to create a museum exhibit that uses artifacts to focus on one issue raised by the award winning story of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the Joads.
Curated OER
Social and Cultural Issues in the Civil Rights Movement
Students watch videos, listen to speeches and analyze the information that is presented about the civil rights movement. They examine visual art of the period.
Curated OER
We and Thee
Students examine class structure. In this diversity education lesson, students discuss stereotypes within their school as an introduction to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. After students have read the play and discussed social class...
Curated OER
Health Education: An Integrated Approach; Causes of Violence
Fourth graders brainstorm about situations that they think may lead to violence in order to learn how to predict when violence might occur. In this lesson on violence, 4th graders first participate in an activity to demonstrate how...
Curated OER
Celebrating Women: Toni Morrison
How authors address issues of their societies is addressed in this very detailed instructional activity. After researching Toni Morrison and her work, groups create a dramatization based on a scene from one of Morrison’s novels and act...
Penguin Books
An Educator’s Guide to Chraisma by Jeanne Ryan
Often, science fiction makes a lot of connections to real life. An educator's guide for the novel Charisma by Jeanne Ryan, has readers discuss many of the real-life issues that come in the text. A brief summary helps garner interest...
Shakespeare Globe Trust
Much Ado About Nothing
Love, deception, witty bante—that's much ado about a lot! As learners navigate the resource, they view an interactive character map and read character biographies from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Pupils also...
Curated OER
Exploring Values Towards Conservation
Students read First Nation story, identify values expressed in it and discuss how those values relate to conservation issues faced today. Students then seek out stories relevant to climate change from their own Elders and respected...
Curated OER
Theatre Lesson Plan- Tableau (part 2)
Students explore tableaux. In this social studies and fine arts cross curriculum lesson, students work in groups of four to create "frozen" stage pictures (tableaux) representing vocabulary and concepts from a "From Farm to You"...
Curated OER
Circle Sculpture
Students discover the Theatre of the Oppressed. In this diversity instructional activity, students practice confronting injustice as they participate in "circle sculpture" to role play performance models that deal with social justice...
Teach With Movies
Title: "The Red Badge of Courage" - Topics: U.S./1860 - 1861; Literature/U.S.
Designed to be used with a showing of the 1951 version of The Red Badge of Courage staring Audie Murphy, this learning guide includes discussion questions, suggestions for activities, and topics that can be discussed with parents.
Curated OER
English Literature: An Overview
Relate literary works and authors to the major themes of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period through the 20th century. Working in groups, high schoolers will evaluate period philosophy, religion, and politics that influenced...
Curated OER
Literature: Porgy and Bess
Young scholars examine the various portrayals of African-Americans in literature, focusing on the opera, Porgy and Bess. They conduct Internet research on African-American culture between the two World Wars. Students write fictional or...
Curated OER
More Than Mock Elections
Students create a presidential campaign story. In this presidential campaign instructional activity, students produce, direct and act in their own campaign story. Stories focus on setting, characters, context, critical incidents, and...
Curated OER
Act it Out
Students discuss racial stereotypes. In this racial stereotypes lesson plan, students develop a character from information given to them on an index card. Students give their character a race different from their own and...
Curated OER
Forms of Poetry
Students identify distinguishing features of poetry. They identify and use literary terminology including symbol, theme, simile, and alliteration. They recognize the effects of language.
Curated OER
Community Evolution: Putting the Puzzle Together
Students, working in groups, to study on aspect of their community history. They put their research together in one story about their community.
ArtsNow
Arts Now Learning: Cultural Characters [Pdf]
For this lesson, students use photos that relate to a social studies concept (i.e., country of study, historical person, natural disaster, geographical landmark, religion, or governmental strife) as a springboard to write a first-person...
CommonLit
Common Lit: Book Pairings: "Fences" by August Wilson
The play "Fences" explores the complex relationships of a 1950s middle-class, African American family and how they deal with issues of financial hardship, infidelity, and insecurities. Selected (7) reading passages (grades 7-11) to pair...