<p>This activity will be completed at the end of a transcendentalism unit in American literature.  Students will be tasked with studying a landscape, drawing the landscape, and filling it in with words.  After the initial activity students will be given a template where they can choose how to show their transcendentalist pastiche through words, colors, quotations, etc.</p> <p>#NPGteach<br /></p>

<p>This lesson would be completed at the end of our revolutionary literature unit.  This will ask the students to physically pose as the founding fathers, view the descendants' commercial, study the descendants' portrait, view an interview about the commercial, and then finally draft a letter to the founding fathers updating them on their work.</p><p>#NPGteach<br /></p>

<p>This collection features both artworks and archival documents to introduce the chronological eras of the American literary canon.  At the start of this collection, you will find a note taking infographic.  This infographic is generic and flexible in nature and can be changed and updated to match your specific curricular needs.  The artwork and archival documents selected per era are meant to be used on the art frame section and question mark section of the infographic.  Between the primary sources in this collection, you will find Harvard Project Zero Thinking Routines to aid in conversations in your classroom.  This is an evolving collection that will be updated as the year progresses.</p>

<p>This lesson, integrated halfway through F. Scott Fitzgerald's <em>The Great Gatsby</em>, will address both character analysis and the ever present theme of appearance vs. reality in the text.  By using Thomas Hart Benton's "Self Portrait with Rita" as a starting point students will study the specifics of a self portrait from the 1920s which highlights American dream centered ideals.  As a second step, students will make connections between the painting and the characters from our text.  As a final extension activity, students will further explore the inspiration, the biography, or another work by Benton.<br /></p> <p>#NPGteach</p>

<p>This activity will be completed at the end of <em>The Crucible</em> before watching the documentary <em>Central Park Five</em> about a modern day witch hunt.  By completing the puzzle activity with an image from the Salem Witch Trials, the McCarthy Hearings, and the Central Park Five Court Case, students will find the common characters and motivations for which to focus in on the film.  Their culminating task will be to jump into the portrait and write a letter home to their parents, sibling, or best friend.  They will then be tasked with doing the same task each of the three days of the documentary.</p><p>#NPGteach<br /></p>