This lesson will help teachers and students to investigate Edo Period Japan through the window provided by these images of the landscape, life, and interests of the rising townspeople. Students will use the famous woodblock prints of artists such as Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Hokusai (1760-1849) as primary documents to help them gain insight on Japanese history.

More Americans lost their lives in the Civil War than in any other conflict. How did the United States arrive at a point at which the South seceded and some families were so fractured that brother fought brother?

The lessons in this unit provide an opportunity for students to learn about and discuss two U.S. families in which both the father and son became President.

Relive the decisions that led to the attack on Fort Sumter to determine whether Lincoln aimed to preserve peace or provoke the hostilities that led to the Civil War.

Students explore the historical context and significance of Lincoln's inaugural address through archival documents.

The most important festival in the Chinese calendar is the New Year or Spring Festival. One of the annual events used to commemorate the festival is a colorful parade complete with animated dragon and lion figures.

In the first activity the student will learn the major differences between Eastern and Western dragons and discover why Eastern dragons are associated with Chinese New Year. They will hear a story about how the dragons came to rule major rivers of China. In the second activity, they will also learn about the Chinese New Year Dragon Parade and discover why firecrackers are used to drive off evil spirits, especially one called the Nian. In the third activity the students will see images of parading dragons, including sound-enhanced video and read poems about the New Year. In the fourth lesson the students will discover that the Chinese lion has imaginary characteristics similar to the dragon. They will view images of the lion and hear about how this highly stylized beast once fought the ferocious Nian. They will learn about the lion dancers in the New Year parade and compare them to the dragon dancers. Finally they will make their own lion masks.

This lesson in poetic sound offers students the opportunity to "experiment" with the sounds of sonnets. Students read sonnets from a variety of authors, compleing a series of tasks that make them focus on different audible aspects of the poetry.

Our literary glossary provides a comprehensive list of terms and concepts along with lesson plans for teaching these topics in K-12 classrooms. Whether you are starting with a specific author, concept, or text, or teaching a specific literary term, but do not have a lesson or activity for students to work with, teachers and students will find what they're looking for here.

Students will have an opportunity to develop such "live interviews" with ancient athletes; working in small groups, they will produce a script based on the results of their research and they will perform the interview for other students in the class.

The Magna Carta served to lay the foundation for the evolution of parliamentary government and subsequent declarations of rights in Great Britain and the United States. In attempting to establish checks on the king's powers, this document asserted the right of "due process" of law.

When most people think of the civil rights movement, they think of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Malcolm X's embrace of black separatism, however, shifted the debate over how to achieve freedom and equality by laying the groundwork for the Black Power movement of the late sixties.

This lesson uses Thomas Day as a focal point for students to learn about ways that free blacks attained their free status and “crafted freedom” for themselves and others through their craft and entrepreneurial skills, through political activities, through leveraging their social position and contacts, and through their art and creativity.

Students learn to interpret the built environment through text and image. They also study maps as a key way of shaping territory and transmitting cultural knowledge. This lesson explores the landscape of New England as a way of understanding the contrasting ways that the Europeans and Indians understood the land and how to use it.

Students explore the world of maps and learn how to view the world around them in a two-dimensional format.

This lesson provides students with experience in working with historical maps as cultural artifacts that reflect the views of particular times and places. Students begin by examining European world maps from three eras -- the Middle Ages, the Age of Discovery, and the period of New World exploration -- in order to discover how people of those times understood their world and interacted with it. Then students look at maps that record the early exploration of the American West, noting how mapmakers kept alive hopes of finding a Northwest Passage and how this hope is reflected in what Lewis and Clark marked as significant on the map produced by their expedition. Finally, students collect present-day maps, using library and/or Internet resources, to investigate the range of perspectives we adopt toward our world and how our maps reflect our own cultural concerns and aspirations.

Students will learn about the remarkable travels of Marco Polo. They will consult maps to locate Venice and follow the routes Marco took to Beijing and back. They will learn about the challenges of traveling along the Silk Road, discover some interesting facts about China under Mongol rule, and find out how Marco came to produce his famous book.

This lesson introduces students to the philosophy of nonviolence and the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi that influenced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s views. After considering the political impact of this philosophy, students explore its relevance to personal life and contemporary society.

Students examine Martin Puryear's "Ladder for Booker T. Washington" and consider how the title of Puryear's sculpture is reflected in the meanings we can draw from it. They learn about Booker T. Washington's life and legacy, and through Puryear's ladder, students explore the African American experience from Booker T.'s perspective and apply their knowledge to other groups in U.S. History. They also gain understanding of how a ladder can be a metaphor for a person's and a group's progress toward goals.

The focus of this lesson is the Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Students will put themselves in the shoes of the men of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment as they read, write, pose, and then create a comic strip about these American heroes.

Poet. Orator. Actress. Activist. Writer. Singer. Phenomenal Woman. These and many more superlatives are used to describe the incomparable Maya Angelou. Gone too soon in 2014 at the age of 86, Dr. Angelou's legacy will live on through the words she used to eloquently, powerfully, and honestly express emotions, capture experiences, and spread hope.