The Kennedy Center: ARTSEDGE — the National Arts and Education Network

Grades 3-4 Lesson: You’re Invited to a Ceili: Exploring Irish Dance
Listen to Irish music, learn about ceilis, which are festive dance celebrations, view the intricate costumes worn by Irish dancers, and listen to an Irish poem.

Grades 3-4 Lesson: You Too Can Haiku
This lesson will introduce students to the Japanese poetic form called haiku

Grades 6-8 Lesson: Writing an Original Fable
In this lesson, students will use the steps of the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing) to write and perform original fables as skits.

Grades 6-8 Lesson: Writing Myths
Students will explore how myths provide explanations for nature and science. They will read and analyze the Native American myth "Giants and Mosquitoes."

Grades 6-8 Lesson: Writing Folktales
Students identify and analyze folktales. They learn the characteristics of folktales and use them to evaluate existing tales and to create original tales of their own.

Grades 6-8 Lesson: A World of Myths
In this lesson, students will explore how myths help to explain nature and science.

Grades 3-4 Lesson: Woodwind Instruments and Pitch
This lesson introduces students to the instruments of the woodwind family

Grades 3-4 Lesson: Who Has Seen the Wind?
In this lesson students are introduced to and encouraged to explore characteristics of the wind through poetry and van Gogh’s paintings

Grade 5 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.

Grades 3-4 Lesson: What Does This Song Really Say?
Students listen to, sing, and read the lyrics to various African American spirituals. They discuss the coded messages in the songs, and the purpose of these codes.

Grades 3-4 Lesson: What a Character
In this lesson, students analyze how a character's personality traits, actions and motives influence the plot of a story

Grades 3-4 Lesson: The Whale Trail
In this lesson students will explore the world of gray whales

Grade 5 Lesson: Weather and Wind
This lesson introduces the expanding and condensing properties of air masses and the unequal heating of Earth as the force behind the wind

Grades 6-8 Lesson: We Are The Freedom Riders
Students will learn about the courageous efforts of the Freedom Riders while embracing the bold theme, "We Will Overcome!" as a theme surrounding the civil rights movement.

Grades 6-8 Lesson: A Way With Words or Say What?
Many words and phrases that we use every day were coined by Shakespeare. He is credited with inventing over 2,000 words and expressive phrases.

Grades 3-4 Lesson: Visual Arts Careers
Expose students to three careers in the visual arts. Students will move through three different "art stations", where they can explore Fashion Design, Architecture, and Graphic Design

Grades 9-12 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.

Grade 5 Lesson: US Presidential Election Process and the Campaign Trail
Students will create an original political campaign song for a fictional presidential candidate.

Grades 9-12 Lesson: Unearthing Ancient Greece
Students will discover that what we know of ancient Greece has come to us mainly through the analysis of artifacts recovered in archeological digs

Grades 3-4 Lesson: Understanding Tenement Life
Through online stories and photographs, students will explore what daily life was like for the millions of poor Irish, German, Jewish, and Italian immigrants

Grades 9-12 Lesson: Uncivil Civilization in The Hairy Ape
Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape presents a disheartening assessment of the impact of living in the industrialized society of the early 20th century.

Grades 6-8 Lesson: Twelve-Bar Blues
Learn about the history, key players and musical qualities of the blues

Grades 9-12 Lesson: Twain: Tom Sawyer—Mythic Adventurer
Learn about the source for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Read, and analyze the novel, with attention to character and style.

Grades 9-12 Lesson: Twain: Steamboat's a-Comin'
Examining the mystique of rivers as inspiration for creative expression it shows us the powerful influence the Mississippi River had on Mark Twain’s writings

Grades 9-12 Lesson: Twain: Icon and Iconoclast
This lesson asks students to examine samples of Twain’s work in the context of pre- and post-Civil War America