Sometimes, we know a great deal about the meaning and inspiration behind a work of art. In many cases, the artist has left information about their art in an artist's statement. Sometimes though, it is up to the viewer to construct their own meaning of a work of art, regardless of what information about... Read more »
Ekphrastic Poetry
Students will participate in a scenario where the government is in chaos. In small groups, they will determine what societies need to form new countries that would be sustainable. The characteristics of state and theories of governmental power will be introduced and applied to the new countries that... Read more »
US Government
In this lesson, students learn about the story of the near extermination and subsequent re-introduction of the Gray Wolf of Yellowstone National Park. Through this narrative, students learn about apex predators, keystone species, and ecosystems. They learn to form cause and effect statements, analyze... Read more »
Human/Environment Interaction
A letter of introduction can serve as a personal statement. It paints a picture of who someone is as a unique individual based on experiences at home, in school, within their culture, and learned within their community. In this lesson, students will compose a formal letter of introduction that allows... Read more »
Writing a Letter of Introduction
In this lesson, students will explore how the sense of taste functions in The Great Gatsby by composing recipes that make connections between culinary creations and character. Read more »
the Great Gatsby and the sense of taste
This is a quick and simple twist or extension of the lesson "Sweet and Savory Writing" that can be found in the K20 LEARN lesson repository. In this lesson, students will apply knowledge of the five senses to enhance descriptive writing. Students review the five senses, utilize that practice to rewrite... Read more »
Descriptive Writing
In this lesson, students play the role of a nosy detective, digging through a mysterious neighbor's garbage to make observations and inferences in order to solve a case. Using images and "artifacts," students create a character profile to show how their observations and inferences help them come to... Read more »
Observations and Inferences
This lesson should be taught as a culminating project after the novel "The Great Gatsby" has been read completely. In this lesson, students will explore the essential question "What can one's observations about a person reveal about their character?" to create a multimodal composition that explores... Read more »
The Great Gatsby and the Sense of Sight
It has been said that poetry is a place to break all the rules. In this lesson, students will not quite be rule-breakers, but rather work with rules of grammar to find how to integrate more structure and variety in verse. Using Shel Silverstein's poetry, students will initially analyze pieces for elements... Read more »
Poetry and Grammar
In this lesson, students explore the essential questions, "Who am I?" and "What makes me, me?", through multimodal narrative writing. For this creative composition, students engage in preliminary reflective writing and in an up-close look at their thumbprints. Throughout this creative writing process,... Read more »
Thumbprint Autobiography