After students have read a book about the Holocaust, such as The Diary of Anne Frank or Night by Elie Wiesel, students will view Life is Beautiful and complete discussion questions that challenge their ability to analyze literature using film. When the film is complete, students will write a letter to the director conveying their opinion of the film.

This lesson is designed to provide students with the opporunity to enhance their understanding of allusion by examining artwork by Kehinde Wiley and comparing it to various works by the Old Masters. Students will use graphic organizers to identify qualities in two works to attempt to identify allusions that are made. As a culminating activity, students will use their skills to make a comparison of Pieter Bruegel's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," W.H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and the myth of Icarus. Students will focus on the work's differences in tone and emphasis of human suffering.

In this lesson, students will reflect and share insights about their impressions and experiences after reading both a print and an online magazine. Students will compare and contrast the structure and format of a print magazine versus an online magazine and delineate some of the factors that contribute to their similarities and differences, as well as compare their approach to reading an online magazine versus a print magazine.

Students explore the topics of interpretation and intertextuality by investigating and creating texts and works of art inspired by other texts. Essential Question: How does meaning change through interpretation?

In this lesson, students discuss the meaning of “A More Perfect Union,” a speech about race made by then-Senator Barack Obama, during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign. Students will also examine and assess how textbooks position groups differently in our national historical narrative — and how this positioning affects our understanding of ourselves.

Students will watch and discuss video clips that show how two men in Chile coped with being prisoners in concentration camps during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Each student will then create a non-fiction picture book that tells the story of one of these men and provides historical context.

In this lesson, students view podcasting as a form of communication. Students will read and discuss podcasting, listen to a podcast, and work collaboratively to produce their own podcast.

In this performance task, students will work cooperatively to research the history of radio drama. Resources include original scripts from the 30's and 40's and an audio recording of Orson Wells' "War of the Worlds." Using what they've learned from their research, each group will create a script for a new mystery series. Students can extend the lesson by recording their drama complete with sound effects.

This lesson introduces two different films about Shakespeare's life and times to students: Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth. These films offer an accessible lens into Shakespeare's world and serve as an excellent introduction to any unit about the playwright. Also included are viewing guides and a powerpoint.

Students will consider the nature of stories and learn to write more concisely by reading and writing flash fiction.

In this lesson on the Spanish American War from Historical Thinking Matters, students will use contrasting newspaper accounts of the explosion of the Maine to gain insight into how an author’s word and information choices influence the message and tone of the text. Students will view a 3-minute movie to establish context, use a graphic organizer to compare the articles, and write an essay where they take a position about which account is most believable.

In this lesson plan, students analyze a poem in groups on a very rigid schedule. Students read and annotate the poem, then prepare a three-minute presentation to the class about it.

Students will use The New York Times and George Orwell's Animal Farm and/or 1984 to explore the relevance of the novel in today's contemporary society and discern how many of the book"™s warnings are relevant today.

This lesson provides a guide for instructors to assist students with vocabulary acquisition and usage. Included within the resource are directions for extending this lesson for usage with multiple videos and various vocabulary lists. A rubric for grading and directions for peer evaluation are also provided.

In this recurring lesson, students watch an artistic video clip and use the words in their current vocabulary lesson to process the content through several types of creative writing. This gives students a chance to write in a unique voice and to understand the meaning of their vocabulary words in a new context. They also have the opportunity to analyze their peers' use of the vocabulary when they read and discuss each other's stories.

In this lesson, students examine various perspectives on gun violence and solutions to school shootings by reading an article and watching a series of videos.

This is a unit introduction for any unit that has a thematic focus on the concept of "home." The first activity asks students to use critical thinking with art from the Smithsonian collection. Students will ask questions and look at commonalities. The second part of the activity asks students to look at an artist's sculptural interpretation of the idea of "home." The final piece of the activity involves students watching a video ("Fatima's Drawings") about a young girl who had to leave her home in Syria due to war and violence. Student are asked to analyze her concept of home and how it evolves.