This primary source set includes documents and images from the lives of American authors in the 19th century. A teacher guide is included to assist educators in utilizing the primary sources in their instruction.
My World Media Literacy, developed in partnership by BBC Learning, BBC World Services, and Microsoft, is a free educational platform for students ages 11-14 designed with the goal of increasing global media literacy and the evaluation of information presented in modern journalism. Featuring ten 45-minute lesson plans, each with activities and a companion video, these 21st century resources increase students’ critical thinking skills needed to be responsible consumers of news while inspiring them to become citizen journalists in order to navigate the news and form their own opinions.
This lesson plan meets the secondary requirements for The Engish Language Arts Standard Reading: Literature Grades 7-12 with the option of meeting the additional standard of Speaking and Listening. This lesson offers specific details with flexibility for implementation in the classroom. Students can work independently or in groups and be able to create their final book project using technology.
How does a bill become a law? What is the role of Congress and the President in this process? How did the Clean Water Act of 1972 become a law?
To what shared principles did the Founding Fathers appeal as they struggled to reach a compromise in the Constitutional Convention? In this lesson, students will learn how the Founding Fathers debated then resolved their differences in the Constitution. Learn through their own words how the Founding Fathers created"a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise."
Students will engage with primary source documents to explore the reasons behind memorializing people in public art. Students will craft written or oral statements to support an argument in favor of installing a statue of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, Philo T. Farnsworth, or Brigham Young in National Statuary Hall.
When students are given the opportunity to express themselves, they need creative options and a variety of formats available to meet their needs. See how AI supports the student's content through design and publishing process in tools like Sway and Stream to allow students to share professionally designed work without wasting time and energy on executive tasks.
Well known for addressing social issues in the world through her poetry, Maya Angelou's moving poems serve to teach historical topics in this lesson. To understand the world that surrounded her, students practice their visual literacy skills as they first examine photographs from the Library of Congress. These primary sources illustrate some of the events that affected her life and thus her writing. Next students research these events in order to create trading cards using the ReadWriteThink Trading Card Creator Student Interactive. While reading Angelou's poems, students share the trading cards to better understand the background for her writing.
This lesson focuses on the debates among the U.S. Founders surrounding the distribution of power between states and the federal government. Students learn about the pros and cons of state sovereignty vs. federalism and have the opportunity to argue different sides of the issue.
In Headlines and High Water, players take on the role of a young journalist in the fictional town of Twin Lakes, where the annual Cherry Festival is thrown into chaos by a catastrophic flood. The player is tasked with interviewing locals and writing stories to keep the town informed—all while staying safe during the town’s worst flood of the century.
Throughout the game, players build trust with the townspeople and interview a cast of quirky characters—like Birdie, the aptly-named nature conservationist, and Fred Finkler, the gardener who’ll talk your ear off. In the end, the player’s reporting will determine if Twin Lakes is still around a year from now, or if future floods wash the town right off the map.
Students will analyze primary source documents from the women’s suffrage movement–both nationally and in Utah–to examine the tactics, strategies, and imagery used in this social movement. They will also evaluate the effectiveness of these tactics and strategies in affecting social and civic change.
About a century has passed since the events at the center of this lesson-the Haymarket Affair, the Homestead Strike, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. In this lesson, students use elementary historical sources to explore some of the questions raised by these events, questions that continue to be relevant in debates about American society: Where do we draw the line between acceptable business practices and unacceptable working conditions? Can an industrial-and indeed a post-industrial-economy succeed without taking advantage of those who do the work?
This is a lesson plan created by Amy Baldwin.Students will interviw each other using an interest inventory. They will work work in pairs and then indepently create a google slide presentation based on their answers to their inventory.They will present their slide show to the class. Teacher will use a rubric to grade while student is presenting.
How does Congress gather information, and how does it use that information to create legislation? How can this research impact the lives of Americans in both the short and long term? How can a bill that has been deemed unconstitutional still inform future legislation?
In this co-taught 80-minute face-to-face lesson (assessment is homework or given time in a second class session) students will rotate through stations to make personal connections with the book, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. (Stations can be removed or customized to allow for time, budget, or supervision constraints.) Please note, this lesson works best when you have several adult volunteers to run stations. This lesson is best co-taught with an ELA teacher who will be reading and discussing the book with their students. (It can be slightly adapted to fit similar stories.) It is also an effective way to deepen understanding and connections after the class has read the book. Thumbnail Image: Woodwayne, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This week, we talk to Kent Porter about his work as a photojournalist at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in Northern California. We examine the role of ethics in visual journalism, including the steps photojournalists take to document stories accurately and fairly. Porter explains how he has earned the trust of his community after covering the area for more than three decades. He also shares his perspective on the rise of artificial intelligence to generate images and underscores why photojournalism remains important in the digital age. Grab your news goggles!
This is a fun and creative way for students to demonstrate their understanding of eukaryotic cell organelles. Students will create a bio poem about an organelle as if the organelle were a person. Their final product will be a poster or video of their poem that can be shared with the class. This lesson includes a bio poem organizer for students, as well as various links to interactive organelle structure and function websites.
How are concepts, such as freedom, represented in works of art? What do specific works of art or architectural features tell us about what was important to the people who designed or made them, particularly if they are telling a story about the importance of freedom?
Learn about the idiom "red herring" in this video from Say What?! that explains how the phrase signifies something that diverts attention from what's truly important. Students will explore its historical origins among British fishermen and its integration into storytelling and popular culture.
This resource includes teaching tips, discussion questions, vocabulary, and a critical thinking activity where students must identify “red herrings” that are a distraction from the main goal.
Students learn how to research and develop a topic for a student choice project.