Lesson Plan Search Elective

Discovery Channel. Discovery Channel School.

http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans9-12.html. visited 29 February 2004.

What an absolute gold mine here at the Discovery Channel’s lesson plan website. The number of plans offered at this location run to five pages. Major categories include (but are not confined to) Ancient History, Astronomy/Space, The Microscopic World, U.S. History/Government, Human Body and Literature. As an English teacher, I am impressed by the number of titles covered by this site. These include (but, again, are not confined to) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, (Monologues from) The Grapes of Wrath, Catch-22, Frankenstein and The Scarlet Letter. The Discovery Channel School offers lesson plans covering approximately 200 topics.

DiscoverySchool.com. Frankenstein.

http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans9-12/Frankenstein.html.

visited 29 February 2004.

This, of course, is a site specific to the study of Frankenstein included in the big Discovery Channel package. There is wonderful stuff here including objectives, a list of necessary materials to carry out the lesson, procedures, discussion questions, adaptations of the lesson to specific needs, extension activities for advanced study, vocabulary, related readings and useful websites. All in all, a very complete lesson plan.

The Folger Shakespeare Library. Lesson Plans: The Good and the Badde: Are

Stereotypes a Perfect Fit?

http://www.folger.edu/education/lesson.cfm?lessonid=16. visited 29 February

2004

Are you teaching Shakespeare as I am currently? Washington, D.C.’s own Folger Shakespeare Library is one of the premiere sites for the study of Shakespeare anywhere. Their website offers links to activities based on almost all of Shakespeare’s plays . . . the major ones anyway. The specific address above is that of an activity concerned with the expected behaviors of men and women in Elizabethan England and is perfect for inclusion in any study of plays such as The Taming of the Shrew or Much Ado About Nothing (both of which I do teach) or any other Shakespearean comedy which twirls around the battle of the sexes . . . and, frankly, that’s exactly the battle at the heart of most of Shakespeare’s comedies.

Thomason, Scott. Homer’s Odyssey: A Guide to Understanding the Voyage of Odysseus

Through a Study of Greek Mythology.

http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/morse/homer_odyssey/. Visited 29 February

2004.

This is a very inclusive lesson plan with links to other lesson plans and resources dealing with, you guessed it, The Odyssey by Homer. The lesson is set up as a webquest which gives the students the option of investigating Homer’s epic from the point of view of a genealogist, an anthropologist, and cartographer or a mythologist. The activity is linked to twenty other sites including sites dealing with Ancient Greece, The Trojan War and (shield your eyes) “Nudity in Ancient Greece”. The process of the lesson plan is spelled out completely including suggestions for evaluation.

Teachit.co.uk.: English Teaching Online. Much Ado About Nothing.

www.teachit.co.uk. Visited 29 February 2004.

Who better to guide us through the study of Shakespeare than the British, and this is a website based in the United Kingdom. These particular pages offer fun activities for the study of that classic wrangling between those two estranged lovers Beatrice and Benedict. Worksheet no. 1 begins with a delightful examination of Shakespearean insults (since Beatrice and Benedict have become experts in the art). Other creative activities include producing a talk show with the play’s characters as guests and having the students plan out the play’s disastrous wedding scene (the first wedding scene) and the romantic wedding finale. It all looks like fun.

Western Michigan University. Grapes of Wrath Lesson.

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~t6johnso/grapeslesson.htm. Visited 29 February

2004.

Perhaps the least impressive of the sites listed here (graphically dull and less extensive in its offerings), the site still offers some creative ideas for approaching Steinbeck’s classic Dust Bowl novel. I like the inclusion of Woody Guthrie’s music as a part of the lesson plan. The multi-dimensional approach of text, music, film would cover the many interests of a diverse classroom.

Bowman, Dr. Cindy. The Catcher in the Rye.

http://ps044.k12.sd.us/Forms%20of%20Fiction/catcher_in_the_rye.htm.

Visited 29 February 2004.

From Florida State University comes this collection of lesson plans for classic literature. This particular link devoted to J. D. Salinger’s once controversial novel of Holden Caulfield, the quintessential alienated teen. Dr. Bowman describes the creation of a Catcher in the Rye portfolio, writing fiction based upon minor characters in the book and creating a poetry collection centered around various characters. She also offers links to other sites useful in the study of this oft banned novel.