Lesson+Ideas


 * This is a growing list of ideas and ways visual media can be integrated into instruction across disciplines and grade levels.**


 * For ease of use, the lesson ideas are grouped by general content area, but many can be applied across the curriculum.**


 * Please share/add any other ideas of your own here, too.**
 * Feel free to upload lessons/handouts to the Attachments page also...**
 * Scroll down to browse/add links to the professional resources and additional lesson plans section.**

Also see Timothy Gangwer's Visual Impact, Visual Teaching for more ideas.

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**Infographics as Creative Assessment - Site**


Visual & Video Literacy: Helping Your Viewers Learn Best


 * English Language Arts & Reading**
 * Digital Storytelling
 * Writing & Sketching: Students write descriptive passages and create an accompanying illustration; then exchange passages and create visualizations of those passages and compare to the original text and illustration
 * Use an image as a writing prompt
 * Show short video clips to help create a visual background before reading
 * Use Glogster to create "posters" instead of traditional project posters for a novel, book report, etc.
 * Use images to illustrate vocabulary/have students find images to illustrate words
 * Use mind mapping software for brainstorming topics for writing/research
 * Use guided imagery to prompt nonlinear, creative writing related to a concept/topic/theme
 * Have students create videos of their own narratives or of stories/fiction read as a class
 * Create video book chapters of books that may be more difficult for students to visualize, due to lack of background knowledge
 * Replicate the Polaroid Education Program with digital cameras, Flip videos, or the new Polaroid Classic Instant or...the Classic, if you still have one!


 * Social Studies**
 * Use video clips to introduce concepts/events
 * Have students analyze primary sources that are visual in nature as "artifacts"
 * Use a photograph to introduce a theme, as the basis of a KWL, or a predictive/inference writing activity
 * Use nonfiction graphic novels--remove a frame and have students fill in the gaps
 * Blog about Courage using Photos
 * Have students create their own primary source artifacts from a time period, culture, event, etc.
 * Image Detective - Online Interactive to help students build skills in analyzing historical documents.
 * Teaching Historical Thinking Using Primary Sources
 * Use advertisements from specific cultures/time periods to do a visual analysis--connect back to the time period and their impact at that time
 * Use Voicethread as an online discussion/sharing platform for analyzing an historical image, cultural artifact
 * Show images of "then" versus "now" and have students analyze, compare/contrast
 * History Alive Curriculum: Includes Visual Discovery strategy
 * History Alive! Six Powerful Teaching Strategies: Manual for Engaging ALL Learners in the Diverse Classroom
 * History Alive! Six Powerful Constructivist Strategies


 * Science**
 * Use video clips to illustrate scientific topics
 * Videotape experiments and have students analyze the process; have them videotape their own experiments
 * Create online stations/centers that incorporate videos
 * Use photographs of scientific problems in the real world--have students then collect evidence on their own, through research and their own photographic documentation
 * Have students create a visualization of an experiment or of the scientific process--illustration, drawing, etc.
 * Have students create video commercials of a scientific element


 * Math**
 * Math and Art by Sharon Jeffus**:** An article on teaching Math and Science through Art, with some practical lesson ideas and dozens of great web links. This is a large PDF file so be patient as it opens.
 * Have students visualize a math problem by drawing it as a comic strip
 * Use images to introduce math in the real world
 * Have students illustrate a word problem to help discover the solution


 * Fine Arts**
 * Use the visual analysis technique on works of art; have students apply the process to critique student artwork
 * Have students visualize musical pieces by drawing them out
 * Use museums' virtual tours to explore their treasures as a class


 * Foreign Languages**
 * Use images to illustrate vocabulary
 * Use videos of simple events/tasks without audio; have students create a narration in the language for the video, using relevant vocabulary

**Professional Resources & Lesson Plans**
 * Connecting with the Arts: Teaching Practices Library, 6-8 {Annenberg Media}
 * Art Through Time: A Global View {Annenberg Media}
 * Connecting through the Arts: A Workshop for Middle Grades Teachers {Annenberg Media}
 * Picturing America {National Endowment for the Humanities}
 * Lesson Plans Using Picturing America {EDSITEment}
 * Methacton Picturing America Wiki
 * Picture This: Visual Literacy Activities {Oakland Museum of California}
 * Primary Source Analysis Tool {LOC.gov/teachers}
 * Teacher's Guide: Analyzing Photographs & Prints {LOC.gov/teachers}
 * Teacher's Guide: Analyzing Primary Sources {LOC.gov/teachers}
 * Thematic Resources for a Visual Literacy Activity (LOC American Memory - Learning Page}
 * Photographic Analysis Sheet {LOC.gov/teachers}
 * National Archives: Teaching with Documents - Lesson Plans
 * National Archives: Photo Analysis Worksheet
 * Picturing U.S. History: An Interactive Resource for Teaching with Visual Evidence - Lesson in Looking
 * Periodic Table of Visualization Methods {Visual Literacy.org}
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"> 10 Lessons the Arts Teach pdf {National Art Education Association }
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">Visual Literacy Lessons {21st Century Literacies - AT&T Knowledge Network Explorer}
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">Visual Literacy K-8
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">[|Media Literacy Workshop (PBS Teachers)]
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">[|Media Literacy: Getting Started Ideas (PBS Teachers)]
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">[|Media Literacy Quiz (PBS Teachers)]
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">[|Media Literacy Overview (Discovery Education Web 20.10)]
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">[|Get Graphic! Visuals for Deep Thinking, Inquiry, & Learning]
 * <span style="color: #0f17b1; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">[|Thinkfinity]
 * Kodak Education: Lesson Plans - Photography
 * Snapshots in Time: //On the Water: Stories from Maritime America//
 * Tell & Show: Writing with Words and Video (RWT Lesson)