ALEX Resources

Title: Analyzing Visual Text
Description: Students will analyze visual text, reflect, and generate effective focus statements. This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan. 
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (12) 16: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem. [RI.11-12.7]

Title: Of Mice and Men
Description: This is a technology-based group project. It requires students to use the Internet as well as various types of software to creatively display their knowledge of the novel, Of Mice and Men.
Standard(s):

Title: Families in Bondage
Description: This two-part lesson from EDSITEment draws on letters written by African Americans in slavery and by free blacks to loved ones still in bondage, singling out a few among the many slave experiences to offer students a glimpse into slavery and its effects on African American family life. In Part I, students examine the letters of Hannah Valentine, an enslaved woman who lived on a Virginia plantation. In Part II, students read letters from a fugitive slave to his still-enslaved wife and from a black Union soldier to his still-enslaved daughters, confronting directly the anguish of separation that was a constant factor in African American family life during slave times, when children and parents, husbands and wives, were routinely sold away from one another. Students explore the emotional terrain revealed in these letters by comparing the response to separation voiced by Valentine with that voiced by the Union soldier and the fugitive slave.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] US10 (10) 9: Explain dynamics of economic nationalism during the Era of Good Feelings, including transportation systems, Henry Clay's American System, slavery and the emergence of the plantation system, and the beginning of industrialism in the Northeast. [A.1.a., A.1.c., A.1.e., A.1.f., A.1.g., A.1.i., A.1.j.]

Title: Geography and History in Songs
Description: This Xpeditions lesson has students look at some historical paintings on the Internet and describe the things the paintings reveal about the places depicted. They then write paragraphs explaining what they have seen and learned from one of the paintings.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] US10 (10) 1: Compare effects of economic, geographic, social, and political conditions before and after European explorations of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries on Europeans, American colonists, Africans, and indigenous Americans. [A.1.a., A.1.b., A. 1.d., A.1.g., A.1.i.]

Title: African Americans After World War I: Had Race Relations Changed?
Description: This lesson, from EDSITEment, explores the state of race relations in the U.S. before, during, and after World War I. Students consider the discrimination African-American volunteers faced at home and in the military and, after conducting research using an online database, they take a stand on the state of race relations at this time.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] US11 (11) 5: Evaluate the impact of social changes and the influence of key figures in the United States from World War I through the 1920s, including Prohibition, the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Scopes Trial, limits on immigration, Ku Klux Klan activities, the Red Scare, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Jazz Age, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, W. C. Handy, and Zelda Fitzgerald. (Alabama) [A.1.a., A.1.b., A.1.d., A.1.f., A.1.i., A.1.j., A.1.k.]

Title: Discovering Tone in Art
Digital Tool: Wordle
Web Address URL: http://www.wordle.net/create
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (11) 25: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. [W.11-12.7]
Digital Tool Description: Wordle is a word cloud generator that will be used to capture the adjectives students produce to describe the tone of the piece of art selected for the model activity. This allows for  teacher scaffolding before students attempt this on their own with a piece of art chosen from an online art museum (http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/on-view).

Title: Today is the International Day of Peace.
Description: Students brainstorm a list of current conflicts and why people fight. Groups discuss and present possible solutions and create posters that promote their particular solution.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (12) 25: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question, including a self-generated question, or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. [W.11-12.7]

Title: Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was integrated in 1957.
Description: After viewing some footage from the actual event, students jot down thoughts and feelings of the Little Rock Nine. Students then write a bio-poem that might have been written by one of these students on this historic day.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (12) 22: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 19-21 above.) [W.11-12.4]

Title: Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus.
Description: Students make believe that the year is 1955 and they just heard about Parks' arrest. Students write newspaper editorials with their points of view on segregation.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (12) 22: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 19-21 above.) [W.11-12.4]

Title: Amelia Earhart completed her solo flight from Honolulu to Oakland in 1935.
Description: Students explore the definition of a hero and use the interactive Venn diagram to identify the most common characteristics of a hero.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (12) 25: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question, including a self-generated question, or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. [W.11-12.7]

Title: Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967.
Description: After discussing a statement made by Thurgood Marshall, students consider each piece of the comment and create a K-W-L chart to begin an investigation with other resources.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (11) 29: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on Grade 11 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. [SL.11-12.1]

Title: Diarist Samuel Pepys was born.
Description: Students write diary entries and revisit the entries as if it were a hundred years from now. Students then brainstorm and write paragraphs about life in the 21st century.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (12) 21: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. [W.11-12.3]

Title: Start Smart: Infant Development 101
Standard(s):
[HUM] ED05 (9-12) 6: Describe physical, emotional, social, and intellectual developmental needs of the infant.


Unit Plan Overview: In this unit, students will identify appropriate developmental stages for infants and suggest ways that parents and caregivers can aid in the development of infants in their care.