Curated OER
What Can You Learn About Dinosaurs by Watching an Ostrich?
Students collect a variety of drawings of dinosaurs and maps of a zoo. Students observe an animal in motion during a field trip to a zoo from reproducible worksheets. Students study about the process by which scientists and film...
Curated OER
Righteous Among the Nations: Oskar Schindler as a Study Case
The Righteous Among the Nations are non-Jews who risked their lives during the holocaust to save Jews in countries under Nazi rule. Class groups examine the criteria for being named to this group and then must decide, based on the...
Historical Thinking Matters
Spanish-American War: 1 Day Lesson
After analyzing newspaper articles portraying different perspectives of the explosion of the Battleship USS Maine, your young historians will take a stand on which position is the most believable in both discussion and writing.
Curated OER
WWI Through the Film, Foot Soldiers
If your historians are watching the History Channel documentary, Foot Soldiers during their WWI unit, this plan has some simple recall questions and one referential/debate question ("What was the worst part of the war?") to ask after...
Curated OER
Latin American Film
Students explore the Latin American film industry. In this Latin American film lesson, students compare Latin American films to American films as they watch segments of "Que Viva Mexico!" Students research the painters on the film and...
Curated OER
Western-Genre Films
Students watch westerns and analyze them. They identify the plot, characters and the sounds in the film. They research icons of the American west and prepare a presentation. They share their presentation with the class.
Film English
Everyday
What would you do if you got an extra day every week? Partners share some information about their routines and lives and write compositions about one another based on the information. Each partner tries to guess what the other person...
Film English
Gratitude
Encourage your class to experience gratitude. In order to do so, discuss what your pupils are grateful for and show them a short film about gratitude. The class watches the video a couple of times before responding to a quotation taken...
American Documentary
Religion in Culture & Politics: Women’s empowerment in Syria
What defines a woman as empowered, and how does this definition compare to the ideas and actions of a group of Muslim women in Syria? After watching a series of video clips from a documentary film about a school for girls in Damascus,...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Hamlet and the Elizabethan Revenge Ethic in Text and Film
Young scholars research the social context of Elizabethan England for Shakespeare's "Hamlet". They identify cultural influences on the play focusing on the theme of revenge and then analyze and compare film interpretations of the play.
Curated OER
What About Films?
Students watch and analyze a film of an Appalachian folktale. They define trickster and anti-hero, view and discuss the film, complete a handout, compose an original film review, and debate each character's behavior.
US Holocaust Museum
Defying Genocide
Defying death. Defying those who want to do harm. Defying genocide. Pupils research the events in Rwanda to gain an understanding of what it takes to survive a horrific event like a holocaust. They use video, time lines, and Holocaust...
Curated OER
Lesson: After Nature: Dystopia and Detournement
Werner Herzog's film, Lessons of Darkness is the topic of this lesson on art, politics, and culture. Learners discuss the concepts of utopia, dystopia, detournment, and Scorched Earth then compose a paper which describes dystopian reality.
PBS
The Sixties: Notes from the Ho Chi Minh Trail
Young historians research the rationales for fighting the Vietnam War, and the controversies surrounding it. They watch film clips, examine photographs, and read Lyndon B. Johnson's message to Congress to gather information for a...
Teach With Movies
Title: "The Time Machine" - Topics: Science-Technology
Director George Pal’s film The Time Machine, based on H. G. Wells’ 1895 science fiction novella and starring Rod Taylor, Alan Young, and Yvette Mimieux, is the focus of a lesson that considers the consequences of time travel. Viewers...
Curated OER
Independent Studies Movies
History comes alive as groups work cooperatively to create short iMovies about a specific historical period of their choice. Ideal for late elementary grades, the instructional activity includes a video demonstration and a short...
Curated OER
Who Dirtied The Water/Clean Water: Is It Drinkable?
Young scholars enter the room, receive a film canister that contains materials that be added to the dirty water bell jar. They record on their data table who or what is doing the adding and the actual substance that has been added to the...
Curated OER
Language Dialects and the Film "Nell"
Students view the film "Nell" and analyze it for presentation of language pathologies and dialects. They consider the definition of dialect, research phonetic representation of dialects and observe their own communities for speech patterns.
Teach With Movies
Title: "The Yearling" - Topics: Literature/U.S.; U.S./1865-1913 & Florida
Life in the Florida swamps after the Civil War comes alive in the 1946 film adaptation of Majorie Kinnan Rawlings’s The Yearling. The film of this powerful coming-of-age story, filled with love and loss, can be used with or without a...
Channel Islands Film
The Legendary King
After viewing two documentaries about the history of the Channel islands, individuals craft an essay in which they compare the lives of Juana Maria, the Lone Woman San Nicolar Island, to Lester Holt and his family featured in the...
Global Oneness Project
Ancient and Modern Worlds
The old aphorism, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions," might well serve as the title for a resource that asks viewers to consider the plight of the people of the Gamo Highlands, an area in southwestern Ethiopia. These...
Curated OER
What Did it Look Like When Europe Met America?
Students view the film 'Black Robe,' which further develop students' abilities to see an event or era of history from multiple perspectives. After the movie, they utilize worksheets imbedded in this plan to write about what they've seen.
Channel Islands Film
Sa Hi Pa Ca (Once Upon a Time): Lesson Plan 2
What tools do archaeologists and anthropologist use to learned about what life was like in the past. After watching West of The West's documentary Once Upon a Time that details how scientists use artifacts to establish a...
Advocates for Human Rights
Undocumented Immigrants
Stay or go? As part of a study of immigration and human rights, class members listen to the stories of several immigrants and must decide if the story was their own if they would stay in the United States as an undocumented...