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Folklife Resources for EducatorsMaterials Related to Inquiry-based learningThere are 32 titles in this list.
Barn Again ! Celebrating an American Icon - Teacher's Guide Teacher resource guide with four lesson plans for grades 4-12 on the topic of the American barn as symbol, architecture, community gathering place, and window to the past. Created to accompany an exhibition of the same name developed by SITES, the materials can also function in a stand-alone capacity. They include research and activity-oriented lessons through which students gather information about barn raising, barn dances, corn husking, and quilting bees by reading oral history transcripts, examine architectural designs and historical photos of barns, and do interviews to learn more about barns and to hear barn stories. Lessons focus on the subjects of American Culture, American History, Architecture/Design, Folklife, Language and Visual Arts and address National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies. (48 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Chasing El Niño Classroom activity called "Forecasting Folklore" created to evaluate the accuracy of weather folklore by formulating questions and designing experiments that put them to the test. Includes links to NOVA's online site that tracks El Niño, the NOAA's El Niño page, and other resources. The "Forecasting Folklore" activity aligns with National Science Education Standards for grades 5 through 12 for Science Standard A: Science as Inquiry.
Sponsoring Organization: Confino Primary Source Activity Lesson Plan - Elementary School Lesson plan with activities for elementary school grades to demonstrate how primary sources and documents can be used to piece together stories from the past. The primary source materials on the site include manuscripts and photographs pertaining to a young immigrant girl of Greek American heritage named Victoria Confino. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Victoria was a resident with her family at 97 Orchard Street, the current location of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The lesson plan guides students in examining the primary source materials to learn about Victoria and her family. Appropriate for use with history, social studies, and geography curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Confino Primary Source Activity Lesson Plan - Middle School Lesson plan with activities for middle school grades to show how primary sources and documents can be used to piece together stories from the past. The primary source materials for this lesson include manuscripts and photographs pertaining to a young girl of Greek American heritage named Victoria Confino who was a resident at 97 Orchard Street, the location of the current Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Students are guided in examining the primary source materials to learn about Victoria and her family. Appropriate for use with history, social studies, and geography curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Dane County Cultural Tour 2002 Description of a four-day field trip taken by a classroom of fourth and fifth graders from Randall Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin, to farming communities, small towns, and suburbs in south central Wisconsin. They visited ethnic communities and occupational sites, met and interviewed folk artists, musicians, and community historians, and documented their experiences through writing and photography. Many of the field reports included were written by students. This site gives an idea of the places they visited, and the traditions and folklore they discovered, and includes a "How We Did It" section for ideas on organizing similar cultural tours.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Discovering the 9th Street Market: A Treasure Hunt for Clues to the Past Curriculum unit on the interactive PhilaPlace web site, (http://www.philaplace.org/), designed to encourage students to explore Philadelphia’s 9th Street market as a means to understand its hundred-year history and the transformation of its businesses and neighborhood over time. Unit includes teacher resources and classroom activities aimed for the middle and high school grades, aligned with Pennsylvania State Standards. A Treasure Hunt activity worksheet and map provide guidance for students visiting the Philadelphia market. (16 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Everyone Has Interesting Stuff: Teaching with Objects in the Classroom - Middle School Lesson plan and activities for middle school grades to demonstrate how studying physical objects can help students learn about people, places, and the past. Appropriate for use with history and social studies curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Everyone Has Interesting Stuff: Teaching with Objects in the Classroom - Elementary School Lesson plan and activities for elementary grades to discover how studying physical objects can reveal stories about the people who used them. Appropriate for use with history and social studies curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Everyone Has Interesting Stuff: Teaching with Objects in the Classroom - High School Lesson plan and activities for high school students to demonstrate how studying physical objects can reveal stories about people's lives. Appropriate for use with history and social studies curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Explore Your Community: A Community Heritage Poster for the Classroom Poster designed for the middle and high school classroom to encourage students to learn more about their own communities by engaging in documentation and field projects. Includes suggestions for heritage studies and community projects, such as interviewing friends and classmates about school-related traditions and developing a walking tour of a local historical neighborhood. The poster is also available free of charge from the American Folklife Center.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Family Ties and Fabric Tales Lesson with activities for students in elementary, middle, and high school on researching family history by conducting interviews. Included is a Family Data Sheet for use in collecting oral histories and activities on mapping the historical settlement patterns of families. Intended for use in Reading and Language Arts and Social Studies curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Folk Arts in Education - A Resource Handbook II Resource handbook examining folklife, folklore, and folk arts in education throughout the United States with sample curricula from over fifty programs for youth in K-12 educational settings, museums, arts and humanities councils, and other non-profit cultural and arts organizations. The 262-page handbook includes many web-based educational resources, plus a webography and bibliography, for the study of folk arts that encourage students to become involved in hands-on, experiential learning, fieldwork, and place-based research in local community settings. It is available on the site in downloadable form or for sale in hardcopy or on CD through the Michigan State University Museum's Michigan Traditional Arts Program Store.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: The Grand Generation: Interviewing Guide & Questionnaire Educational website designed as a guide for collecting folklore and oral history from older tradition-bearers. It features a general guide to conducting interviews and a sample list of questions which may be adapted to specific needs and circumstances. The site also includes some examples of ways to preserve and present your findings and a selection of further readings. The site was produced to accompany the exhibition, "The Grand Generation: Memory, Mastery, Legacy," organized by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and SITES, but can easily serve in a stand-alone capacity to instruct students in grades 3 through college in the documentation of family folklore and oral history collected from elders.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Harvesting the River Lesson Plan: Taking an Oral History Lesson plan for students in grades 5-12 to introduce them to recording and writing up an oral history from a family or community member after hearing and/or reading oral histories. Materials include a link to "Harvesting the River," an online audio, video, and image archive of the Illinois State Museum, based on research done on communities and activities found along the Illinois River. Lesson includes interviewing guidelines and procedures, as well as information on how to use the materials documented by the students. Addresses the Illinois State Board of Education Standards and Goals for History and Social Studies. (3 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Hmong Cultural Tour Teacher's guide for organizing cultural tours for students in the upper elementary grades, developed as an educational resource for a Madison Children's Museum exhibit, Hmong at Heart, created in 2004. This site documents a class trip of 4th and 5th graders to seven cities in Wisconsin to introduce them to Hmong culture and communities firsthand. Includes a "How We Did It" section, to help teachers plan their own cultural field trips, and students' essays about the trip. Hmong traditions and history, including music, foodways, crafts, games, healing practices, and textile arts are described in the "Field Guide to Hmong Culture," (91 p. PDF). Links to the "Teachers' Guide to Local Culture" (69 p. PDF), which includes a generic lesson plan for grades 3-5, with adaptations for K-2, plus teaching strategies. Also links to the "Kids' Guide to Local Culture," (139 p. PDF), which includes student activities.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: In the Wake of the Hurricanes - Helping Students Document Hurricanes: Interviewing and Fieldwork in the Classroom Classroom resource for teachers working with 5th through 12th grade students to help them understand and cope with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The unit involves teaching students to interview each other, community members, and family about hurricane experiences. Includes lesson plans, activities, and handouts correlated to Louisiana Content Standards. (64 p. PDF) In addition, three art lesson plans provide guidance on working with students and hurricane recovery.
Sponsoring Organization: Iowa Folklife: Our People, Communities, and Traditions Learning guide for middle and high school students plus elders in senior centers based on field documentation of Iowa traditional culture, communities, and groups done in preparation for the Festival of American Folklife and the Festival of Iowa Folklife, both held in 1996. The guide includes lesson plans with objectives, background, conceptual and hands-on activities, and handouts, arranged by subject matter: Social Studies, Language Arts, Music, and Art. Accompanying the lesson plans are activities with guidance on developing a community research archive, collecting field recordings, and creating exhibitions, festivals, and publications based on fieldwork done by students. On the site are two streamed videos for classroom viewing, streamed audio of a CD exemplifying a variety of Iowa traditional musical styles, and "Inherit Iowa," a senior citizen activity guide.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Keeping Us in Stitches Activity: Interviewing a Quilter Activity for students to help them understand the process of quilting by interviewing a quilter in a classroom setting. Guidelines offer suggestions for preparing interview questions, taking notes during the interview, and documenting what is learned from the experience. Site includes links to Illinois State Museum quilt collections. Activity addresses Illinois State Board of Education Goals and Standards for how the arts function in history, society, and everyday life. (2 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Key Ingredients: America by Food - Teacher's Guide Teacher resource guide with five lesson plans plus handouts for grades 4-12 on the topic of family and local food traditions. Created to accompany an exhibition of the same name developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the materials can also function in a stand-alone capacity. They include research and activity-oriented lessons during which students gather recipes, interview family members, create an exhibition on their state's agricultural history, and examine the effects of the media on their food choices. Lessons focus on the subjects of American Culture, American History, Multiculturalism, and Technology, and address National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies and Health Education. (32 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Lewis & Clark - The National Bicentennial Exhibition Teaching Units and Lesson Plans Curriculum materials for grades 4-12 with a virtual exhibit of the "Lewis & Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition" that explores the cultural landscape the explorers encountered in the early 19th century. The teaching units with lesson plans and suggested activities cover the topics of: Preparing for the Trip; Politics & Diplomacy; Women; Mapping; Animals; Language; Warriors/Soldiers; Trade & Property; and Plants, each comparing and contrasting Lewis and Clark's experiences with what those of the Native Americans they met might have been. The lessons are geared to upper elementary, middle school, and high school levels, are inquiry-based, and use primary source materials, artifacts, and Indian interviews featured in the online exhibition. Also includes video clips, maps, and a variety of documents. Units are linked to Missouri State Standards and National Council for the Social Studies and National Science Teachers Association standards.
Sponsoring Organization: Louisiana Foodways Unit Activity Classroom resource for teachers working with elementary and high school students to introduce the wide variety of food customs found in the state of Louisiana. The unit includes teacher background on Louisiana's food traditions, plus lesson plans and activities for engaging students in interviewing and documenting local and family foodways, correlated to Louisiana Content Standards. (39 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Louisiana Voices : An Educator's Guide to Exploring our Communities and Traditions Comprehensive resource guide for K-12 educators on the folklife of Louisiana. Although written for Louisiana, lessons and activities are adaptable to any region. The guide contains forty two lessons and many activities in nine units, correlated to Louisiana Content Standards, particularly those in English Language Arts and Social Studies. Units include: 1) Defining Terms; 2) Classroom Applications of Fieldwork; 3) Discovering the Obvious; 4) The State of Our Lives; 5) Oral Traditions; 6) Louisiana's Musical Landscape; 7) Material Culture; 8) The Worlds of Work and Play; and 9) The Seasonal Round and the Cycle of Life. It includes over 1000 pages, some in PDF-format, and links to many essays, slide shows, video and audio clips, and other web resources.
Sponsoring Organization: Mapping Our Neighborhood History Curriculum unit on the interactive PhilaPlace web site, (http://www.philaplace.org/), that offers a guide to developing local history projects so that students can explore the history and culture of their own neighborhoods. It includes teacher resources and classroom activities aimed for the middle and high school grades, aligned with Pennsylvania State Standards. The unit provides information on incorporating mapping technology into the classroom through the use of Google Maps and also gives guidance on conducting oral histories to gather additional background information through the voices of neighborhood residents. (20 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: People and Fish: Angling, Fisheries Management, and Folkways Curriculum and activities for 4-H youth and leaders involved in conservation, sportfishing, and outdoor education. A multidisciplinary teaching resource focusing on “People and Fish,” with units on angling ethics, fisheries management, and the folkways of fishing. The folkways unit includes guidance on collecting fishing stories and interviews, information on regional fish foodways, and an exploration of the material culture of fishing. Resource includes activities emphasizing self-documentation, such as “Keeping a Fishing Field Journal.” This resource is available as part of a National 4-H Sportfishing Curriculum. (77 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Preserving the Past with Oral History Lesson plan to use with students in grades 4-12 that introduces them to the basics of collecting oral history. Includes suggested questions to ask, tips to remember while interviewing, sample release forms, guidelines for transcribing interviews, and considerations to take into account in choosing appropriate technology for recording. Included are also examples of oral history projects that classes can use with their completed interviews. The lesson is correlated to Arkansas Curriculum Standards for History and Social Studies.(12 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Rogarshevsky Primary Source Activity Lesson Plan Lesson plan with activities for students in high school to demonstrate how primary source documents can be used to piece together stories from the past. The primary source materials for this lesson include manuscripts pertaining to Abraham Rogarshevsky, a Russian immigrant, and his wife Fannie, who lived on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side of New York where the Tenement Museum is currently located. The lesson plan guides students in examining the documents to learn about the lives and occupations of the Rogarshevsky family. Appropriate for use with history, social studies, and geography curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide Interviewing guide for collecting folklife field research and oral history from tradition-bearers, and family and community members. Created in 2003, it provides guidelines on conducting interviews, with sample questions that may be adapted to specific needs and circumstances. Also includes ideas on preserving and presenting field research findings, a selection of further readings, a glossary of key terms, and sample forms, such as release forms, tape and photo logs, and interview information forms. (35 p. PDF) Can be used for classroom projects.
Sponsoring Organization: Teacher's Guide to the Teen Reporter Handbook Teacher's guide accompanying the "Teen Reporter Handbook: How to Make Your Own Radio Diary," a publication created by NPR's Radio Diaries project to train young people in interviewing and making sound recordings about their own lives, their communities, and their families. (14 p. PDF) Includes link to the "Teen Reporter Handbook" (22 p. PDF). Also includes an oral history unit for classroom teaching and other resources related to doing oral history, such as oral history websites, lesson plans, instructions for developing oral history questions, and guidelines on recording an interview.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Tell Me Your Stories: An Oral History Curriculum Oral history curriculum for high school and middle school grade levels that links students with their families and communities. The site includes lessons for ten class periods, beginning with a description of what oral history is, and subsequently outlining the steps involved in planning, researching, and carrying out an oral interview. Included on the site are ideas for sample projects applicable to a variety of classroom subjects.
Sponsoring Organization: Telling My Story Oral History Lesson - Lower Elementary School A lesson with activities for students in grades K-3 to introduce them to oral history as a way to gather information about a person, time period, place, or event. The materials included guide the students in developing a list of questions to ask during an oral history interview and explain the basics of interviewing. Appropriate for use with history, social studies, and language arts curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Tradition: Tennessee Lives and Legacies Teacher's Guide Teacher’s guide designed for grades 3-12 which enhances the understanding of Tennessee’s folklife heritage. Originally developed to prepare students for visiting an exhibition of the same name, the guide can stand on its own as an educational resource. The materials include profiles of Tennessee folk artists from a variety of regional and ethnic backgrounds, representing Cumberland Plateau old-time fiddling, Middle Tennessee buck dancing, African American blues, Choctaw beadwork, the making of Mennonite sorghum, and Mexican needlework. The guide also introduces students to the basic concepts of folklife, tradition, folk group, family folklife, tradition bearer, folk artist, and fieldwork. Accompanying forms and guidelines on interviewing family members and presenting findings in the classroom are included. The materials conform to Tennessee State Curriculum Standards for Art, Social Studies, Modern History, and Science. (24 pp. PDF) For a DVD of photographs of Tennessee traditional artists, including those in the teacher's guide, contact: dana.everts-boehm@tn.gov
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Walking on Solid Ground: Understanding the Chinese-American Experience in Philadelphia Educational module for 7th grade on the traditional arts, culture, and history of the Chinese American community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Includes lesson plans and activities for creating neighborhood maps, studying what makes a community, learning how to read and understand census reports and immigration patterns, and working with the concept of "ghetto," using Philadelphia's Chinatown as a model. (19 p. PDF)
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