Theme: Presidents
Learn about America’s most famous leaders and their appreciations and influences over the arts; from Lincoln’s connection to music, to Kennedy’s advocacy for the arts, to the importance placed in having White House photographers capture the president’s everyday achievements.
America, Presidents

Lesson: Who Can Vote for President?
In this lesson, students will learn general facts about the voting process and its importance in a democratic form of government.
America, History

Lesson: Exploring American Tall Tales
Students will explore the common elements of folktales and tall tales while learning how these tales built the spirit of the American people.
America, Folklore

Lesson: Utopian Visions
Students are introduced to the idea of a "utopia"—an idealized society. Students read Sir Thomas More's Utopia and examine the concepts behind his vision of an ideal society.
America, Literature

Lesson: Three Newport Mansions of the Gilded Age
Research the history, architect, architecture, and patron of each mansion gaining understanding of the arts and culture of the Gilded Age.
America, Architecture

Lesson: Broken Worlds
This lesson provides a variety of options for conducting comparative analysis between Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
Literature, America

Lesson: Pioneer America: Pioneer Living
In this lesson, students will learn about what life was like for early American pioneers.
America, History

Arts Quotes: Thomas Merton
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
America, Literature

Arts Quotes: Georgia O'Keeffe
"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Robert Motherwell
"In the brush doing what it's doing, it will stumble on what one couldn't do by oneself."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Robert Motherwell
"Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Louise Nevelson
"Art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Robert Hughes
"The camera, if it’s lucky, may tell a different truth to drawing - but not a truer one."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Edward Hopper
"If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Elbert Hubbard
"Art is not a thing; it is a way."
America, Literature

Arts Quotes: Edward Hopper
"Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Jacob Lawrence
"When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Anne Tucker
"All art requires courage."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Susan Sontag
"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art."
America, Literature

Arts Quotes: James McNeill Whistler
"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Jackson Pollock
"It’s all a big game of construction, some with a brush, some with a shovel, some choose a pen."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Jackson Pollock
"The painting has a life of its own."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Robert Rauschenberg
"The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history."
America, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: Roger Sessions
"Music goes deeper than emotion into the energies that animate our psychic life."
America, Music

Arts Quotes: James Rosenquist
"I was probably born with the ability to draw, but that does not make you an artist."
America, Visual Arts