All Lessons

Students may be familiar with this famous battle from its depiction in Zack Snyder's movie 300, based on Frank Miller's graphic novel. In this lesson students learn about the historical background to the battle and are asked to ponder some of its legacy, including how history is reported and interpreted from different perspectives.

Students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures.

In this lesson, students view archival photographs, combine their efforts to comb through a database of more than 2,000 archival newspaper accounts about race relations in the United States, and read newspaper articles written from different points of view about post-war riots in Chicago.

The Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal recovery and relief program provided more than a quarter of a million young black men with jobs during the Depression. By examining primary source documents students analyze the impact of this program on race relations in America and assess the role played by the New Deal in changing them.

This unit explores elements of wonder, distortion, fantasy, and whimsy in Lewis Carroll's adaptation for younger readers of his beloved classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

This lesson plan introduces students to allegory in the visual arts through the works of a number of well-known artists, including Thomas Cole and Caravaggio.

This lesson introduces students to American colonial life and has them compare the daily life and culture of two different colonies in the late 1700s. Students study artifacts of the thirteen original British colonies and write letters between fictitious cousins in Massachusetts and Delaware.

Curriculum unit overview. In this three-part curriculum unit, students examine structure and characterization in several short stories and consider the significance of humor through a study of several American writers.

Lesson 1: Mark Twain and American Humor
Lesson 2: “Old Southwest” Humorists and George Washington Harris
Lesson 3: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Literary Humor

This lesson plan looks at the major ideas in the Declaration of Independence, their origins, the Americans’ key grievances against the King and Parliament, their assertion of sovereignty, and the Declaration’s process of revision. Upon completion of the lesson, students will be familiar with the document’s origins, and the influences that produced Jefferson’s “expression of the American mind.”

Beginning in the 9th century the Khmer empire, which was based in what is today northwestern Cambodia, began to gather power and territory in mainland Southeast Asia. It would grow to be one of the largest empires in Southeast Asian history. In this lesson, students will learn about Angkor Wat and its place in Cambodian, and Southeast Asian, history. Students will attempt to “read” the temple, in a way which resembles the reading of a primary document, to gain insight into this history.

Centered on poems about the natural world, this lesson encourages students, first, to make the reading of poetry a creative act; and, second, to appreciate particular literary devices in their functions as semaphores or interpretive signals.

Drawing upon the online archives of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, this lesson helps students to put the events described by Anne Frank into historical perspective, and also serves as a broad overview of the Nazi conquest of Europe during World War II. After surveying the experiences of various countries under Nazi occupation, the lesson ends with activities related specifically to the Netherlands and Anne Frank.

This lesson engages students in the reading and writing of the ghazal, a public, participatory poetic form created by the ancient Bedouins of Arabia and Persia. Students examine the structure of the ghazal, which continues as a poetic form in India, Iraq, and Iran, to derive a definition of this intricate form of word-play, and collaboratively compose their own group ghazals.

Australian Aboriginal art is one of the oldest continuing art traditions in the world. Much of the most important knowledge of aboriginal society was conveyed through different kinds of storytelling.

Understanding the Patriot attitude toward the British monarchy is helpful in understanding the Founders’ reluctance to have a strong executive under the Articles of Confederation as well as their desire to build in checks of executive power under the Constitution.

Through studying Beatrix Potter's stories and illustrations from the early 1900s and learning about her childhood in Victorian England, students can compare/contrast these with their own world to understand why Potter wrote such simple stories and why she wrote about animals rather than people.

In this curriculum unit, students look at the role of President as defined in the Constitution and consider the precedent-setting accomplishments of George Washington

Lesson 1: The President Under the Articles of Confederation
Lesson 2: Chief Executives Compared: The Federalist Papers
Lesson 3: George Washington: The Precedent President

Noh, the oldest surviving Japanese dramatic form, combines elements of dance, drama, music, and poetry into a highly stylized, aesthetic retelling of a well-known story from Japanese literature, such as The Tale of Genji or The Tale of the Heike. This lesson provides an introduction to the elements of Noh plays and to the text of two plays.

By exploring historical accounts of events surrounding the Boston Tea Party, students learn about the sources and methods that historians use to reconstruct what happened in the past.

Curriculum Unit overview. After the debacle of the one-party presidential campaign of 1824, a new two-party system began to emerge. Strong public reaction to perceived corruption in the vote in the House of Representatives, as well as the popularity of Andrew Jackson, allowed Martin Van Buren to organize a Democratic Party that resurrected a Jeffersonian philosophy of minimalism in the federal government. What issues were important to the presidential campaign of 1840? Why is the campaign of 1840 often cited as the first modern campaign?

Lesson 1: The Campaign of 1840: The Whigs, the Democrats, and the Issues
Lesson 2: The Campaign of 1840: The Candidates
Lesson 3: The Campaign of 1840: The Campaign

In this lesson students examine primary documents including photographs, film, maps, and essays to learn about Chicago at the turn of the 20th century and make predictions about Carl Sandburg's famous poem. After examining the poem's use of personification and apostrophe, students write their own pieces about beloved places with Sandburg's poem as a model.

Curriculum Unit overview. As the end of the 18th century drew near, relations between the United States and France were deteriorating. In 1797 President Adams expressed his concern about the possibility of war with France and dissension at home caused by France and its supporters. At the same time, two opposing political parties were developing in the U.S., with Thomas Jefferson-led Democratic-Republicans tending to sympathize with France in foreign policy. Their loyalty was called into question by the Federalists. It was a dangerous time both for the security of the young Republic and the freedoms its citizens enjoyed.

Lesson 1: From the President's Lips: The Concerns that Led to the Sedition (and Alien) Act
Lesson 2: The Debate in Congress on the Sedition Act
Lesson 3: George Washington on the Sedition Act
Lesson 4: Thomas Jefferson on the Sedition Act
Lesson 5: Consequences of the Sedition Act

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story "The Yellow Wall-paper" was written during this time of great change. This lesson plan, the first part of a two-part lesson, helps to set the historical, social, cultural, and economic context of Gilman's story.

Look into the sources of the Wife’s sermon on women’s rights to learn how real women lived during the Middle Ages.

This lesson introduces students to Achebe's first novel and to his views on the role of the writer in his or her society.

Native American groups had to choose the loyalist or patriot cause—or somehow maintain a neutral stance during the Revolutionary War. Students will analyze maps, treaties, congressional records, first-hand accounts, and correspondence to determine the different roles assumed by Native Americans in the American Revolution and understand why the various groups formed the alliances they did.

This lesson plan compares the plot and setting characteristics of several versions of the Cinderella tale to teach students about universal and culturally specific literary elements.

In this lesson, student groups create a short, simple play based on their study of broadsides written just before the American Revolution. By analyzing the attitudes and political positions are revealed in the broadsides, students learn about the sequence of events that led to the Revolution

Trace similar motifs in the artwork and folklore of India, Africa, the Maya, and Native Americans.

Learn how committees influence the legislative agenda and why your representatives’ committee assignments matter to you.

Witness the unfolding drama of the Constitutional Convention and the contributions of those whom we have come to know as the Founding Fathers. In this lesson, students will become familiar with four important, but relatively unknown, contributors to the U.S. Constitution Convention: Oliver Ellsworth, Alexander Hamilton, William Paterson, and Edmund Randolph.

Focusing on the means used by the Incas to send messages over long distances, this lesson plan illustrates one of the many creative ways throughout history that humans have devised to meet a universal need -- that of cross-country communication. The lesson introduces students to the Inca Empire, which extended from northern Ecuador to central Chile and from the Andes to the west coast of South America between 1200 and 1535 AD.

By studying Mark Twain's novel, Huckleberry Finn, and its critics with a focus on cultural context, students will develop essential analytical tools for navigating this text and for exploring controversies that surround this quintessential American novel.

In this lesson, students analyze, compare, and contrast two famous but different poems about death. Students will study poetry form (elegy and villanelle) and poetic devices such as repetition and tone.

Help your students see the development of the Declaration as both an historical process and a writing process through the use of role play and creative writing.

By closely reading historical documents and attempting to interpret them, students consider how Arthur Miller interpreted the facts of the Salem witch trials and how he successfully dramatized them in his play, The Crucible. As they explore historical materials, such as the biographies of key players (the accused and the accusers) and transcripts of the Salem Witch trials themselves, students will be guided by aesthetic and dramatic concerns: In what ways do historical events lend themselves (or not) to dramatization? What makes a particular dramatization of history effective and memorable?

This lesson introduces students to the Aztec Empire and people and to the legend of their founding of Tenochtitlan, the city that later became the capital of Mexico.

Help your students consider a variety of narrative stances in Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "Tell Tale Heart," and Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

This lesson plan explores the characteristics of the nonsense poem as developed by British poet Edward Lear and focuses on Lear’s well-known poem “The Owl and the Pussy Cat.” Students learn to recognize poetic devices such as rhyme, syllabification, and meter, and figures of speech such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, and personification, by analyzing nonsense poems and writing one of their own.

This lesson introduces students to Egyptian pyramids and to artifacts and archaeology in general. Through a discussion of the size, scale, and purpose of pyramids, students learn how these structures tell audiences of today about the peoples of ancient Egypt. An extension lesson allows students to consider what messages modern monuments provide about present-day cultures.

This lesson introduces students to Egyptian art, culture, and history through the ancient tomb paintings and mythological figures of the Book of the Dead.

Curriculum Unit overview. The presidential election of 1824 represents a watershed in American politics. The collapse of the Federalist Party and the illness of the "official candidate" of the Democratic-Republicans led to a slate of candidates who were all Democratic-Republicans. This led to the end of the Congressional Caucus system for nominating candidates, and eventually, the development of a new two-party system in the United States. In this unit, students will read an account of the election from the Journal of the House of Representatives, analyze archival campaign materials, and use an interactive online activity to develop a better understanding of the election of 1824 and its significance.

Lesson 1: The Election Is in the House: The Denouement
Lesson 2: The Election Is in the House: 1824: The Candidates and the Issues
Lesson 3: The Election Is in the House: Was There a Corrupt Bargain?

The earliest writing systems evolved independently and at roughly the same time in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but current scholarship suggests that Mesopotamia’s writing appeared first. That writing system, invented by the Sumerians, emerged in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE. This lesson plan is designed to help students appreciate the parallel development and increasing complexity of writing and civilization in Mesopotamia.

By rendering aspects of Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path" into carefully considered graphical forms, students learn to appreciate elements of characterization, setting, and plot in a manner that engages them actively in the production of meaning.

Curriculum Unit overview. Why is it that when we walk into a museum so many people gravitate towards the same images? In this curriculum unit students will be introduced to composition in the visual arts, including design principals, such as balance, symmetry, and repetition, as well as one of the formal elements: line.

Lesson 1: Shaping the View: Composition Basics
Lesson 2: Shaping the View: Symmetry and Balance
Lesson 3: Repeat After Me: Repetition in the Visual Arts
Lesson 4: Follow the Leader: Line in the Visual Arts

Explore connections between family history and the history of the world around us.

In this lesson plan, students read and learn to understand fairy tales in order to recognize their universal literary structures and themes. They compare similar fairy tales from different cultural and geographic regions of the world to see over-arching plots featururing conflicts between good and evil and imagery and motifs that are repeated across many cultures and time periods.

The lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms to pass down their traditions and history.

This lesson shows students how broadly the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 empowered the federal government—particularly the President—and asks students to investigate how FDR promoted the program in speeches and then in photographs.

The 1930s were an era of profound change in America that especially affected the relationship between the American people and the federal government. It was in these tumultuous times that Franklin D. Roosevelt steered the country through economic perils and major social changes.

After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to summarize the contents of the First Amendment and give an example of speech that is protected by the Constitution and speech that is not protected by the Constitution.

Known as both a Southern and a Catholic writer, Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) wrote stories that are hard to forget. In this lesson, students will explore these dichotomies—and challenge them—while closely reading and analyzing "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

Learn how writer Zora Neale Hurston incorporated and transformed black folklife in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. By exploring Hurston’s own life history and collection methods, listening to her WPA recordings of folksongs and folktales, and comparing transcribed folk narrative texts with the plot and themes of the novel, students will learn about the crucial role of oral folklore in Hurston’s written work.

The famous Great Wall of China, which was built to keep the China’s horse-riding neighbors at bay, extends more than 2,000 kilometers across China, from Heilongjiang province by Korea to China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang. This lesson will investigate the building of the Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty, and will utilize the story of the wall as a tool for introducing students to one period in the rich history of China.

This unit on French language and culture focuses on the family and keeps the lessons simple and age-appropriate. Students will learn about French families and gain a preliminary knowledge of the French language, learning the French names for various family members.

Curriculum Unit overview. In 1845 Frederick Douglass published what was to be the first of his three autobiographies: the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. As the title suggests, Douglass wished not only to highlight the irony that a land founded on freedom would permit slavery to exist within its midst, but also to establish that he, an American slave with no formal education, was the sole author of the work.

Lesson 1: From Courage to Freedom: The Reality behind the Song
Lesson 2: From Courage to Freedom: Slavery’s Dehumanizing Effects
Lesson 3: From Courage to Freedom

Test the arguments on both sides in the case that shook the foundations of faith and science.

Students compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers.

Study Shakespeare's Hamlet in the context of Elizabethan attitudes toward revenge. The lesson includes activities in which students compare the text of Hamlet to the interpretations of several modern filmmakers.

King Hammurabi ruled Babylon, located along the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, from 1792-1750 BCE however, today he is most famous for a series of judgments inscribed on a large stone stele and dubbed Hammurabi's Code. In this lesson students will learn about the contents of the Code, and what it tells us about life in Babylonia in the 18th century BCE.

Many English speakers are familiar with the Sanskrit word karma, which made its way into the language during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is often used in English to encapsulate the idea that "what goes around comes around." A more complete understanding of the word is brought to life in the stories known collectively as the Jataka Tales. This lesson will introduce students to the concepts of samsara and karma, as well as to the Jataka Tales.

Compare the storyteller?s voice with that of the writer who was a contemporary of Whitman and Douglass.

The lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms (quilts) to pass down their traditions and history.

Curriculum Unit overview. Color has a tremendous effect on the way in which we perceive the tone, the story, or the message of art works. In this curriculum unit students will be introduced to the importance and effect of color in the visual arts.

Lesson 1: In Depth with the Full Spectrum
Lesson 2: Color Me Happy: Color, Mood, and Tone

Students reflect on what the presidential inauguration has become and what it has been by examining archival materials.

Using EDSITEment's vast online resources, you and your students read the correspondence of the famous, the infamous, and the ordinary and use these letters as a starting point for discussion of and practice in the conventions and purposes of letter writing.

As a class, students create an imagined travel experience and then compare it with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers.

How did the English picture the native peoples of America during the early phases of colonization of North America? This lesson plan will enable students to interact with written and visual accounts of this critical formative period at the end of the 16th century, when the English view of the New World was being formulated, with consequences that we are still seeing today.

Find out what it might feel like to grow up in an Asian, African, or Latin American country.

How shall we judge the contributions to American society of the great financiers and industrialists at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries? In this lesson, students explore a variety of primary historical sources to uncover some of the less honorable deeds as well as the shrewd business moves and highly charitable acts of the great industrialists and financiers, men such as Andrew Carnegie, J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt.