<p>Whether you're participating in the Stories: YES program in conjunction with a Museum on Main Street exhibition or creating digital stories on your own, the six modules in the Storytelling Training Series will help you think through everything to help get started. In this course, you'll  learn about the parts that make stories compelling, especially non-fiction narratives which are unique stories grounded in real-life perspectives and history. Explore how your story can be both personal and research-based at the same time. Even documentaries start with a script!</p> <p>This training module was created by the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program, a part of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, in conjunction with the MuseWeb Foundation. </p>

<p>In this collection, students will:<br /></p> <ul><li>Differentiate between the characteristics of rural settings and urban settings in artwork.</li><li>Discuss how a rural community’s needs and values differ from an urban community’s needs and values and how this can be observed in art.</li><li>Identify examples of urban communities and rural communities by recognizing visual clues in various artworks.</li><li>Compare and contrast how their community is similar to and different from other communities. </li><li>Describe the characteristics of each type of community.  </li></ul><p>Students successfully complete this Learning Lab by:</p> <ol><li>Choosing 4 pieces of artwork and answering the companion questions. All questions are open-ended and are intended to stimulate subjective analysis, conversation, and/or critical-problem solving. The main purpose of these questions is to allow students to analyze their own community.</li><li>Once students have finished answering questions, it would be best for an educator to start a conversation about what they have learned, using the guidelines included below. </li><li>Several worksheets are included at the end of this collection. Educators may decide which worksheets are the best fit for their class, and use as many or as few as they need. These worksheets should be adapted to highlight or promote the features of the local community. Having a list of upcoming events, community organizations or charities, and/or community landmarks is advised.</li></ol><p></p> <p></p> <p><br /></p>

<p><strong>Description: </strong></p> <p>This learning lab introduces students to individuals who have shaped and participated in American democracy over time. Using a variety of resources, take in the stories and impact of Thomas Jefferson, Molly Pitcher, Thomas Paine, Richard Allen, William Apess, Wong Chin Foo, Alice Paul, Ella Baker, and Dolores Huerta.</p> <p><em>Voices and Votes: Democracy in America </em>is an exhibition from Museum on Main Street traveling to rural American from 2020-2025. <em>Voices and Votes</em> is based on the exhibition <em>American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith </em>at the National Museum of American History. This learning lab can be used in conjunction with the exhibition or as a stand alone resource on the history of democracy.<br /></p> <p>Visit <a href="https://www.historyexplorer.si.edu/" target="_blank">Smithsonian History Explorer</a> to learn more!  </p> <p>#historicalthinking</p> <p><strong>Guiding Questions:</strong></p> <p>Who has influenced American democracy? Why did they participate in American democracy and what did they achieve? Have these people changed over time?</p> <p>How have social movements changed American democracy throughout history?</p> <p>How can individuals or groups take action to participate in American democracy?</p> <p>What issues at a local, state, or national level affect your life? Can your participation in American democracy resolve those issues?</p> <p>Who is participating in and influencing national, state, or local conversations about  American democracy today? Who would you add to this list?</p>

<p>In this lesson, students will learn about the lives and innovations of the following people:</p> <ul><li>Dolores Huerta </li><li>Cyrus Hall McCormick</li><li>George Washington Carver</li><li>Rachel Louise Carson</li><li>Robert Fraley</li><li>Eli Whitney</li><li>Norman Borlaug</li></ul><p>This resource provides informative text on each slide, as well as videos and articles from outside educational resources. This resource is created for students to navigate independently, and includes optional biography and compare/contrast worksheet activities. </p> <p></p>

<p>This lesson explores three different New Deal programs, with a specific eye towards their impact on rural America. As well, it focuses on student engagement with a variety of types of primary sources.  This lesson is designed as a self-contained class activity, which requires no supplementary teaching beyond the MoMS exhibition <em>Crossroads. </em>It is designed to be done in class following a visit to that exhibition, or within an after-school setting following a similar visit.</p> <p>Age Levels Intermediate (9 to 12 years old), Middle School (12 to 15 years old)<br /></p> <hr /><p>Why are primary sources important?</p> <ol><li>Direct engagement with artifacts and records of the past encourages deeper content exploration, active analysis, and thoughtful response.</li><li>Analysis of primary sources helps develop critical thinking skills by examining meaning, context, bias, purpose, point of view, etc.</li><li> Primary source analysis fosters learner-led inquiry as students construct knowledge by interacting with a variety of sources that represent different accounts of the past.</li><li>Students realize that history exists through interpretation that reflects the view points and biases of those doing the interpreting. </li></ol><p><strong>This lesson aims to:</strong> </p> <ul><li>Introduce students to New Deal programs that affected rural life and agriculture during the Great Depression.</li><li>Encourage discussion of the experience of those programs in the context of the Museum on Main Street (MoMS) exhibition <em>Crossroads</em>. </li><li>Help students practice using different types of sources as research material.</li></ul><p><strong>Students should be able to:</strong> </p> <ul><li>Identify different types of sources as primary and secondary sources, as well as differentiate between objective and subjective sources. </li><li>Interrogate textual, video, and visual sources to build a picture of how different programs affected ordinary people.</li><li>Be able to translate their research into a presentation, and teach it to other students.</li></ul><p>See notes for lesson plan instructions.</p>

<p>“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.” <br />― Wendell Berry, <em>The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture</em></p><p>In this lesson, students will:</p> <ul><li>Read about our nation’s historic connection to agriculture from early colonization to present day</li><li>Analyze the evolution of agricultural practices in America over time</li><li>Understand how our present understanding of agriculture is a product of our time, and it will continue to evolve</li></ul><p>A multimedia mix of videos, student handouts, interactive websites, historical artifacts and artwork provide an in-depth look at this complex topic. Each slide has information and/or quizzes attached for testing student comprehension. Open-ended questions are provided to stimulate further thought on the topic.<br /></p>

<p>This collection explores different water scenes painted by nineteenth and twentieth century American impressionists. It looks at both technical vocabulary for art, and Impressionism as a movement. It uses multiple mediums and explores different artists over the period.</p> <p><strong>This lesson aims to:</strong><br /></p> <ul><li>Introduce students to Impressionist techniques in art, we well as specifically introduce American Impressionist painting. </li><li>Encourage discussion of the representation of water in the context of the Museum on Main Street (MoMS) exhibition <em>Water/Ways</em>. </li><li>Teach some foundational artistic concepts and vocabulary at the intermediate level to students, including: basic color theory, brushwork, expression, and mood.</li></ul><p><strong>Students should be able to:</strong> </p> <ul><li>Describe visual elements of painting with specific vocabulary. </li><li>Compare multiple paintings and artists, in terms of specific visual elements. </li><li>Compare artwork based on the representation of a specific subject: water. </li><li>[Optional Activity] Reproduce at least one technique from the following categories: color and brushwork.  <strong><br /></strong></li></ul>