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Some of Walt Disney's best-known work is in the adaptation of popular fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, and The Little Mermaid. Over time, people have criticized these works for their treatment of the female gender, saying the "Disney Princesses" in particular are stereotyped as weak and dependent upon their male protectors. Still, Disney movies have become classics in the world of movies and home video.
Disney movies provide an easy exercise for examining gender representations and cultural stereotypes in film and media.
Begin by asking your class to list all the Disney films that they have seen. Then, have students make lists of the female characters from these films. Divide the class into small groups, and assign two or three of these characters to each group. Then, ask them to describe their assigned characters. For this description, they should consider:
- What are their physical attributes?
- How do they relate to the male characters in the movie?
- What do they seem to want out of life?
- Do they seem realistic?
After the groups discuss their characters, generate a class list of characteristics. Using this list, have students write a thesis statement that begins, "The female characters in Disney films are generally ...." You may want your students to continue writing this piece as a paragraph or as a full essay.
This comprehensive resource includes annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, and over 1,200 illustrations.
This article discusses a study of gender in Grimm fairy tales by Purdue professors, with extensive quotes from their research.
This resource examines racial and cultural stereotyping in some of Disney's most popular movies. The site is part of a tutorial for undergraduate students, but can easily be adapted for use by middle and secondary students as well.
This website provides information about Walt Disney, Disney art and artists, Disney's friends and family, and more. A link to an interactive timeline walks you through the important moments of Walt Disney's life and other historical events that took place during his lifetime.
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as a "potboiler," or an inferior work done purely for quick profit. Unfortunately, while the book was an instant success and remains one of his best-known works, Dickens made little profit because people purchased pirated editions. There were no copyright laws at that time in England.
Chances are, your students have either seen or will be seeing a production of A Christmas Carol in December. What a perfect time for a collaborative project for middle school and primary students!
Have a middle school English class or the drama club write a script for A Christmas Carol on a level that primary students can read and perform. Involve students in home and career classes to create the costumes and scenery for the production. Invite film students to record the performance and have computer students create a website showcasing photographs from the project.
This online resource from PBS provides information about the life and career of Dickens.
Since 2002, Stanford University has encouraged community reading and discussion of Dickens' novels through the serial release of his major works. Biographical and historical context information is included with each serial publication.
This webpage includes hundreds of links to primary and secondary documents on various aspects of Dickens' life and work.
This page from The Victorian Web provides extensive links to Dickens' biography, chronology, a list of works, an introduction, and other relevant essays.
Wilbur and Orville Wright's landmark flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, was the realization of their dream of powered human flight. Although their historic achievement lasted only 12 seconds, it continues to symbolize—even after more than 100 years—human determination, imagination, creativity, and invention.
The anniversary of the Wright brothers' amazing flight offers a great opportunity for a highly motivational learning experience. After your students learn about the Wright brothers, have an anniversary party to showcase their creative work. Remember to include a cake in the shape of an airplane!
In addition, the following activities for elementary school students can be used as extensions to the lesson plans listed below:
- Students can create a multimedia timeline presentation on the lives of the Wright brothers or on aviation over the last 100 years.
- Ask students to compare the Wright Flyer, which Wilbur and Orville flew, with the planes we have today. Have them imagine what airplanes will be like 100 years from now and design or illustrate a future model.
This website provides information about the Wright brothers' development of the first powered aircraft; included are interactive experiments, an electronic field trip, and information on the restoration of the Wright Flyer.
The Franklin Institute provides an excellent multimedia resource for students interested in learning more about the Wright brothers and seeing film clips of early flights.
This page from Scholastic celebrates 100 years of flight with a biography of the Wright brothers, information on how they invented their plane, and an activity that walks you through making some of the decisions you'd have to make to build your own plane.
NASA provides this site for kids, which includes information about the history of flight, how flight works, and how jet engines work. Also included is an interactive game about the Wright brothers.
On this day in 1967, Dr. Christian N. Bernard performed the first human heart transplant. He also developed a new design for artificial heart valves.
Chances are, every student in your class will know someone who has had heart problems. After discussing the causes of heart disease, talk about the role that diet and exercise can play in maintaining a healthy heart. Ask your students to go online and find healthy dessert recipes that do not involve cooking or to bring in magazines from home that include recipes for healthy desserts. You can also provide access to kid-friendly cookbooks, such as the Kids' Cookbook: All Recipes Made by Real Kids in Real Kitchens! (American Heart Association, 1993). After sharing their recipes, have students vote on which dessert will be made in class. Before eating the dessert, take your students on a brisk walk outdoors. If it's a rainy day, do some indoor aerobics to their favorite music.
The Franklin Institute Online provides an interactive, multimedia learning experience about the heart. Visitors can hear the sound of a heart murmur, see photographs of the human heart, watch an echocardiography and open-heart surgery video, and learn how to monitor their hearts' health!
On this website developed by NOVA Online, visitors have the opportunity to perform a virtual heart transplant. After the operation, students will have a pretty good idea of how surgeons perform heart transplants.
Research has shown that heart disease begins in childhood. Parents, teachers, and students will benefit from the information on this website.
The American Heart Association offers dozens of lesson plans, activities, and other resources for teaching about heart health.
This lesson plan from ScienceNetlinks has students examine changes in diet and lifestyle from prehistoric to modern times and how these differences have spurred the development (and better treatment) of heart disease.
On her bus ride home from work on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks sat in the first row of the "colored section." The bus was crowded, and when asked to give up her seat for a white person, she refused and was arrested.
Parks died on October 24, 2005 at her home in Detroit.
Rosa Parks clearly broke the law when she refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white person. As educators, we teach citizenship to students. Laws are made to benefit society and should be followed by all. In the case of Parks, your students will likely agree that the law was unjust and her actions were justified.
Ask your students to make believe that the year is 1955 and they just heard about the arrest of Parks. Invite them to write newspaper editorials explaining their points of view about the current segregation laws in Montgomery, Alabama.
Students can visit the Scholastic website to find interesting and easy-to-read information about Rosa Parks, including an interview with her.
Read an interview with Rosa Parks courtesy of the Academy of Achievement.
Tolerance.org offers educators a free curriculum kit for the classroom that revisits this familiar historical event. The kit includes a teaching guide, with classroom activities tied to the story of Rosa Parks.
A resident of the United States, Eve Bunting was an acclaimed author of picture books and novels. Bunting's picture books tackled sensitive issues such as homelessness, death, aging, and war. Her books won numerous awards, including the Golden Kite Award and a Caldecott Medal in 1995 for Smoky Night. Eve Bunting passed away in 2023.
One trademark of Bunting's picture books is her ability to see events through the eyes of a child. Smoky Night deals with the Los Angeles race riots as seen from the perspective of a young boy watching the fires and the looters. His reactions to this event are, understandably, different from those of his mother and neighbors. Before reading this picture book aloud to students, read them a news article that relates the details of the events in Los Angeles. Ask students how a younger observer might be affected by these events and might see the events differently than an adult. After reading Smoky Night, assess the accuracy of students' perceptions.
As an alternative or follow-up activity, have students locate and read two different accounts of the events of September 11, 2001, one written by an adult and one written by a child. Ask them to compare the two accounts.
This page from the Reading Rockets website includes the text of an interview with author Eve Bunting, several audio clips of the interview, and an annotated list of some of her most popular books.
Kidsreads.com offers a brief biography of Bunting and links to information about a few of her books. The biography is written simply, so it is an excellent resource for younger students to obtain biographical information on Bunting.
This feature from Scholastic includes a brief biography of Bunting, the transcript of an interview with her, and a bibliography of her books.
Houghton Mifflin offers this collection of classroom activities for use with several of Bunting's books, including Train to Somewhere, The Wednesday Surprise, and The Memory String.
According to the Wampanoag and the ancestors of the Plimoth settlers, no oral or written account confirms that the first Thanksgiving took place between them in 1621. The Wampanoag, and other Native Americans, did participate in daily and seasonal thanksgivings for thousands of years prior to the Pilgrims’ arrival. This process of thanksgiving continues today.
Provide students with a selection of texts about Thanksgiving. Invite students to partner-read their selected books, considering these questions:
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From whose perspective is the story told?
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Whose voices are active and passive?
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What words are used to describe the groups?
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Whose story has the most detail?
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What details were offered or implied in the text or illustrations about Thanksgiving and each group’s lifestyle (e.g., food, clothing, beliefs, and traditions)?
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Are the illustrations accurate? How do you know?
Next, share with students texts that are #OwnVoices. Oyate and American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) both provide critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.
Select one of the #OwnVoice texts to read, like Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message, a children's picture book, by Chief Jake Swamp. This version of the Iroquois Thanksgiving Address, or Ganohonyohk, is written especially for children who want to know more about Six Nations Iroquois spirituality. The Thanksgiving Address is one of the key speeches of the Six Nations Iroquois.
End the session by allowing students to share "What are some things you are thankful for and where do they come from?"
Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed with honesty and integrity, and that all people know that our stories belong to us.
American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.
The words in this book are based on the Thanksgiving Address, an ancient message of peace and appreciation of Mother Earth and all her inhabitants, that are still spoken at ceremonial and governmental gatherings held by the Six Nations.
Invited to speak at the consecration of a memorial honoring the dead at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most well-known speeches in American history. While the speech is extremely short-just 267 words-Lincoln used the opportunity both to honor the sacrifice of the soldiers and to remind American citizens of the necessity of continuing to fight the Civil War. The Gettysburg Address stands as a masterpiece of persuasive rhetoric.
Middle and high school students should be able to do a close reading of the Gettysburg Address by using the Pre-AP strategy called SOAPSTone. Print a copy of the Address. Then, ask students to identify and discuss the following:
While younger students may find the text of this speech too advanced, they can certainly begin the process of identifying the purpose, structure, and means of persuasive speech and writing.
This site contains the full text of the Gettysburg Address as well as rough drafts and the only known photo of Lincoln at Gettysburg.
The Library of Congress offers this collection of over 30,000 items by and about Abraham Lincoln. The collection includes letters and other items from Lincoln's presidency, as well as sheet music, pamphlets, and other items that reflect Lincoln's life and times.
This site ranks the top 100 American speeches of the 20th century as determined in a nationwide survey. The speeches were rated on two criteria: rhetorical artistry and historical impact.
Before the invention of the railroad, people used local "sun time" as they traveled across the country. With the coming of the railroad, travel became faster, exacerbating the problems caused by the hundreds of different "sun times." At the instigation of the railroads, for whom scheduling was difficult, the U.S. Standard Time Act was passed, establishing four standard time zones for the continental U.S. On November 18, 1883, the U.S. Naval Observatory began signaling the new time standard.
After learning about different time zones, ask your students to plan a video conference with a class from a different country or from a different time zone in the United States. As they plan, ask students to:
- Use the World Time Engine to find the best time to schedule this meeting.
- Research the country or state of the students with whom they will video conference and brainstorm a list of questions and topics for discussion. The place selected can be coordinated with topics they are currently studying.
- Brainstorm a list of topics about their own town or country that they would like to discuss. Alternatively, they could brainstorm a list of questions they think students from the other time zone might ask them.
- Use a time zone map to figure out how many time zones they would have to travel through to have this conference if video conferencing hadn't been developed.
If you decide not to carry out an actual video conference, alternatively, divide your class into two groups and allow them to conference with one group playing the role of the class from another time zone.
This page from the Library of Congress' American Memory site offers excellent information and primary documents about the history of standardized time.
Students take a journey from ancient calendars and clocks to modern times, at this NIST Physics Laboratory website.
This site provides a clickable map that gives the official time for each time zone in the U.S.
BBC News looks at time zones--how they are worked out, why they cause so many arguments, and how they affect us all.
In 1804, at the request of Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from St. Louis with their 33-member team to explore the American West. By mid-November of 1805, guided and aided much of the way by a young Shoshone woman named Sacagawea, they arrived at the Pacific Ocean. Their accounts, describing the American Indians they met, the wildlife they saw, and the physical environment they withstood, paved the way for the great western expansion.
Think for a moment about how descriptive Lewis and Clark needed to be in their writings for an audience back East who had never seen, or imagined, what they were seeing. This is a wonderful opportunity to practice descriptive writing with your students.
Depending upon your school's technology, you can have students look at Kenneth Holder's paintings of various scenes from the Lewis and Clark trail, available here. If this is not possible, print out landscape scenes-or slides from your own vacation-that are vivid in their details. Then, ask students to write words and phrases that describe what they see, what they imagine they might hear, etc. Remind them that they are writing for an audience that has never seen these pictures before. Ask students to transform their notes into a descriptive paragraph as if they were a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Last, ask students to return to a piece that they have already written this year and revise it by adding more sensory words and phrases.
This portion of the PBS website dedicated to the Lewis and Clark expedition is an interactive story where portions of the journey are recounted and students are expected to make a choice about what Lewis and Clark should do next.
This is a short, easy-to-read article on York, William Clark's slave, who played a vital, but underappreciated, role on the expedition.
This National Geographic site tries to uncover some of the mystery surrounding this teenage Shoshone woman who acted as an interpreter and guide for the expedition.
This site, dedicated to Lewis and Clark, includes an interactive journey log, timeline, games, and information about supplies used and discoveries made by the Corps of Discovery.