Ancient languages are the deepest root of the humanities, drawing life from that distant time when the study of history, philosophy, literature, and of language itself began. On the Internet, students can return to those times, re-enter that age of discovery, and gain the linguistic skills to help keep the many branches of the humanities rooted…

The borders that separate and connect different cultures often come into sharpest relief when the focus is on themes and motifs found in the literature or the visual arts of several lands. With the Internet, students can discover such points of intercultural contact for themselves, crossing borders that can lead them to a broader perspective on…

This lesson plan highlights one episode in the "Divine Comedy" to provide students with an introduction to Dante's poem. After a brief introduction to the opening of the "Divine Comedy," which portrays Dante as a pilgrim guided by the poet Virgil on a journey through the Christian afterlife toward God, students read Canto 5 of…

Anthologists and editors prepare the way for poetry readers, selecting works that reward close reading and assisting interpretation through annotation. But on the Internet people can return to poetry in its native state--one set of words among many others competing for appreciation--and read with fresh eyes. The learning objectives of this lesson…

This lesson plan introduces students to one of the most widely-read genres of 19th-century American literature and an important influence within the African American literary tradition today. The lesson focuses on the "Narrative of William W. Brown, An American Slave" (1847), which, along with the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick…

While a single lesson plan cannot fully explore the variety and complexity of African life, in this lesson students can gain insight into the lives of some black women in Sub-Saharan Africa by adopting a perspective that is in part traditional, based on the arts of African village life, and in part postcolonial, based on the work of African women…

In this lesson plan, students in grades 3-5 compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers on the Oregon Trail. After the 4 lessons students will have: (1) learned about the pioneer experience on the Oregon Trail; (2) compared and contrasted modern-day travel experiences with those of the 19th…

In this four-part lesson, students examine the concept of geographic region by exploring the history of the United States Great Plains. In Part I, students gather information about the location and environment of the Great Plains in order to produce a map outlining the region in formal terms. In Part II, students examine how the region has been…

In this lesson, students work with primary documents and latter-day photographs to recapture the experience of traveling on the Oregon Trail. The learning objectives of the lesson are: (1) to learn about the pioneer experience on the Oregon Trail; (2) to evaluate a historical re-enactment in light of documentary evidence; and (3) to synthesize…

This lesson offers students experience in making historical meaning from eyewitness accounts that present a range of different perspectives. Students begin with a case study in working with alternative reports of a single event: the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. First, they compare two newspaper reports on the fire, then two memoirs of the fire…