In this lesson, students will watch a 25-minute video, Aretha Franklin ABC News Close Up (1968), as a pre-lesson activity. In class, students examine a timeline of landmark events that occurred during the women's movement from 1961 to 1971. While watching multiple live performances of Aretha Franklin, including "Dr. Feelgood," "Do Right Woman," "Respect," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," and "Chain of Fools," students will seek to identify Gospel influences and investigate whether issues related to women's rights are reflected in the songs as well. The extension activity includes an insightful personal narrative that provides an account of sexism that existed during the Civil Rights era.

In this lesson, students investigate a collection of musical performances, television interviews, and movie trailers, discussing how black artists of the 1970s, including James Brown, George Clinton, and Curtis Mayfield, addressed black audiences through the music and aesthetics of Funk, casting a light on all that the Civil Rights movement could not do for a racially divided America.

Reading Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess," students will explore the use of dramatic monologue as a poetic form, where the speaker often reveals far more than intended.

In this activity, students will divide into two teams to conduct a mock trial based on The Ransom of Redchief by O. Henry.

This lesson introduces students to the classic true-crime novel, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It contains two powerpoint presentations - one which gives just the facts of the crimes contained in the novel and another that tells the story through Capote's own words.

As a way to support teachers with English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during the pandemic, the NCDPI ELA team created choice boards featuring standards-aligned ELA activities.The intended purpose of these choice boards is to provide a way for students to continue standards-based learning while schools are closed. Each activity can be adapted and modified to be completed with or without the use of digital tools. Many activities can also be repeated with different texts. These standards-based activities are meant to be a low-stress approach to reinforcing and enriching the skills learned during the 2019-2020 school year. The choice boards are to be used flexibly by teachers, parents, and students in order to meet the unique needs of each learner.Exploration activities are provided for a more self-directed or guided approach to independent learning for students. These activities and sites should be used as a way to explore concepts, topics, skills, and social and emotional competencies that interest the learner. 

Students will learn how the field of war correspondence has evolved. Through reading chapters of Edith Warton's book, "Fighting France From Dunkerque to Belfort," students will cite examples of wartime reporting. FInally, students will create and present their own correspondence report.

In this lesson, students critically approach television commercials in an attempt to understand the advertising techniques being used. Stduents watch television commercials on their own time and try to identify the characteristics of the advertisements before discussing as a class and ultimately making their own commercials.

Students move around the room to show their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement on a particular issue. Includes prompts and resources for discussion and debate.

This activity engages students in an analysis of the 2008 speech by Barack Obama on race. Students will then create an annotated version of the speech that has them analyze and comment upon Obama's use of history, rhetoric, and language in his message. Students can also create a hypertext of this assignment in order to publish works in different media.

This lesson has students compare the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's to the novella of the same name by Truman Capote. Students are introduced to the movie, watch it, compare the two, and test their knowledge of the content of the film.

A teacher's guide to Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Includes common core aligned pre-reading promts, discussion questions, post-reading promts and writing activities.

In the TED Ed lesson focused on rhetoric, students will explore the fundamentals of deliberative rhetoric and discover some tips for appealing to an audience’s ethos, logos, and pathos. Discussion questions and additional resources are linked in the sidebar.

In this lesson, students will explore poetry through listening and reading the poem "The Great Migration." Pre-reading activity will utilize small group discussion of nuance in vocabulary. Post reading activity will utilize tableaux to reflect new ideas based on learning, and an optional poem or short narrative on community furthers student exploration of empathy.

In this three-part lesson on the inner chapters of "The Grapes of Wrath" students will first determine the function of Steinbeck's opening chapter then explore the relationship between the inner chapters and the Joad narrative chapters throughout the novel. Students will view two documentaries along the way as well as read two relevant articles in order to draw their own conclusions about the purpose of this novel's inner chapters.

Using an online blog, students will learn about the pilgrims in Chaucer's The Prologue of the Canterbury Tales. Students will understand how what an author choses to include or not include reveals the author's attitude about a subject.

Inspired by the references to the 16th Street Bombing and the four little girls who perished that Sunday morning, students will study history, georgraphy, and writing through various discussions in relationship to bullying, sibling rivalry, growing up, and Civil Rights.

In this lesson, students will recognize and discuss the role of protest songs in the Birmingham youth movement. Then, they will identify their own political agendas and write protest songs.

This lesson is inspired by the references to the 16th Street Bombing and the four little girls who perished that Sunday morning in The Watsons Go to Birmingham. In this lesson, the teacher travels back and forth from poetry to fiction to music to history to food and finally to writing. It is a good study of history and geography with regard to writing.

In this PBS Learning Media resource on Oratory Tips and Tricks, students will find a four minute video, various pdf handouts, and tips for effective public speaking.