The world is a stage, and so is your classroom! Hone the skills of the next generation of Tony® award winners with a set of exercises, reference pages, writing prompts, and excerpts from famous plays.

Introduce young thespians to all aspects of the theater. A syllabus for a one-semester drama course provides lessons that take learners from the history of drama to the many facets of play production.

How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...

Tenth graders analyze a biographical piece of art by Raymond Saunders. They identify shapes, symbols, and lines that are used, and how the piece relates to the artist's life and modern society. They design and create an original piece of...

A challenging lesson on writing a book for children awaits your fifth-graders. They must use laptops, document cameras, and a projector to create and present an original piece of writing. A checklist that has all of the requirements for...

Integrate history, math, and art into a study of The Grapes of Wrath with a series of activities that ask learners to investigate the social, political, economic, and environmental factors at play during the 1930s. Designed to be used...

Are you just about to teach persuasion in your class? If so, you should consider this short unit. In small groups, learners create a product, develop a magazine ad for the product, and pitch this product to the class using a visual...

What makes a good leader? Use the curriculum guide for William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to help scholars answer that question. Pupils research the play's historical context and other background information before engaging in...

This scripted lesson suggests using the journalist’s five W’s (who, what, when, where, why) to teach readers how to summarize a story and to how to distinguish between significant and supporting details. A template and rubric are...

Grow an understanding of short story with a well-sequenced plan built around an Academy Award-winning short film. Class members explore the elements of an effective short story, and practice writing their own. They also watch the short...

Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...

Students survey Neoclassical art and create a narrative based on their analyses. Focused questions and relevant background information provided by the Getty Museum provides a great foundation for students to understand art techniques as...

The practice of developing lyrics by elaborating with sensory details and examples continues in the third lesson on songwriting. This time class members examine Jesse McCartney's "How Do You Sleep?" Using procedures established in the...

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...

Students explore language arts by writing their own poems. In this haiku instructional activity, students investigate the Japanese culture and their beautiful music, poetry and art. Students count the syllables in every line of a haiku...

African-American history is an integral part of what America is. Learners examine important events, read informational texts, and create quilts depicting specific eras in African-American history. Each image created for the quilt will be...

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...

Class members are presented with the image of a painting and asked to record their first impressions and analysis. They then research the time period in which it was painted and discuss how their research impacted their first impression...

A picture is worth a thousand words, but political art may be worth even more! After examining examples of political cartoons, murals, and other forms of public art, class members create their own pieces to reflect their ideals and...

Hip Hop? Country? Punk? R and B? So many styles. Young song writers consider the emotional effects of various style options before selecting the style best suited to the emotions they want to express in their song. The sixth in a...

Imagine a project that informs and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a...

Students view different commercials and ad campaigns that present opposing notions of "truth." Students use these commercials to evaluate what makes an effective public service announcement (PSA) or advertisement, then choose a national...

A lesson all about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad introduces scholars to African American spirituals. By way of reading, speaking, and listening, learners discover, analyze, and decode African American spirituals. They...

Young scholars critique three Web logs, each of which offers first-hand accounts, but reflect different points-of-view, on the war in Iraq; students write a response to one of the entries and analyze what they learned about the war from...