The sections of articles about the U.S. Virgin Islands and Senegal have statements from two sets of authors. One article in each section is a general, inclusive statement written by a member of our curatorial staff.
Employing a point of view generally defined by Smithsonian imperatives for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge," the author engages in the characteristic practices of the Festival. These include: identifying and valorizing traditional cultural practices; explaining them primarily in historical, economic, and social terms; replying to popular stereotypes and supplanting them with empirically derived characterizations; representing geographically and historically bounded cultural wholes.
The other statements are written by authors from the geographic areas featured- the U.S. Virgin Islands and Senegal. These articles are more richly detailed. They address a variety of audiences, reply to a variety of implicit and explicit assertions, and are couched in a variety of styles. They have, of course, been solicited, selected, and edited - processes which are ineluctably based in our Institutional practice. We hope that in spite of this practice, and also in some degree because of it, these short critical pieces do incorporate a variety of voices speaking on noteworthy aspects of folklife.
In this sense, the organization of this year's Program Book represents the practice of the Festival as a whole.
The dialogue of viewpoints, understandings and of cultural styles strengthens the discourse of our national cultural Institution.

The 7th grade poetry unit gives an in depth approach to poetry involving the four strands within the core. I've included worksheets, rubrics, and answers keys where applicable. I have also used literature examples from the core.

ABC Match is a game that has students practice letter-recognition fluency while honing their memories. Students match initial letters with pictures, playing either with a timer or without.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Students form literature circles, read "Esperanza Rising" or "Becoming Naomi Leon" by Pam MuĐoz Ryan, use a Critical Thinking Map to discuss social issues, and use a class wiki.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures. They will learn how both types of folktales employ various animals in different ways to portray human strengths and weaknesses and to pass down wisdom from one generation to the next. Use the following lessons to introduce students to world folklore and to explore how folktales convey the perspectives of different world cultures.

How can art, music, and literature combine to provide a multifaceted view of the African American experience? This portion of the Affirmation Today module explores the diverse experiences of and cultural connections among African Americans and how African Americans influenced and contributed to American Culture.

Studied students stupefy! Students learn about alliteration by listening to an alliterative read-aloud and apply the knowledge they gain to the creation of their own poem and illustration.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "All's Well That Ends Well" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

Examines in detail the works of several American authors. Through close readings of poetry, novels, or plays, subject addresses such issues as literary influence, cultural diversity, and the writer's career. Topic: American Women Authors. This subject, crosslisted in Literature and Women's Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present. It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women's history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Harlem Renaissance, World War II, the 60s civil rights movements. A primary focus will be themes studied and understood through the lens of gender: war, violence, and sexual exploitation (Keller, Rowlandson, Rowson); the relationship between women and religion (Rowlandson, Rowson, Stowe); labor, poverty, and working conditions for women (Fern, Davis, Wharton); captivity and slavery (Rowlandson, Jacobs); class struggle (Fern, Davis, Wharton, Larsen); race and identity (Keller, Jacobs, Larsen, Morrison); feminist revisions of history (Stowe, Morrison, Keller); and the myth of the fallen woman (take your pick). Essays and inclass reports will focus more particularly on specific writers and themes and will stress the skills of close reading, annotation, research, and uses of multimedia where appropriate. A classroom electronic archive has been developed for this course and will be available as a resource for images and other media materials.

This lesson extends over several class periods. Students analyze the claim, grounds, warrants, qualifiers and counterclaims in three articles about the American Dream. Students conduct research and find two additional articles about the American Dream. Students then analyze the argument in those articles. Finally, students write their own argument essay about the current state of the American Dream.

Students read three short stories about women; discuss the development of female characters, gender differences, and society' s expectations; and write scripts in which the characters discuss their similarities and differences.

Students apply the analytical skills that they use when reading literature to an exploration of the underlying meaning and symbolism in Hieronymous Bosch's early Renaissance painting "Death and the Miser".

Students explore the ballads genre by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and composing their own ballads.

Allegories are similar to metaphors: in both the author uses one subject to represent another, seemingly unrelated, subject. However, unlike metaphors, which are generally short and contained within a few lines, an allegory extends its representation over the course of an entire story, novel, or poem. This lesson plan will introduce students to the concept of allegory by using George Orwell’s widely read novella, Animal Farm, which is available on Project Gutenberg.

This lesson concentrates on Anne Frank as a writer. After a look at Anne Frank the adolescent, and a consideration of how the experiences of growing up shaped her composition of the Diary, students explore some of the writing techniques Anne invented for herself and practice those techniques with material drawn from their own lives.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "As You Like It" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

The Bedouins of ancient Arabia and Persia made poetry a conversational art form. Several poetic forms developed from the participatory nature of tribal poetry. Today in most Arabic cultures, you may still experience public storytelling and spontaneous poetry challenges in the streets. The art of turning a rhyme into sly verbal sparring is considered a mark of intelligence and a badge of honor. Students will learn about the origins and structure of Arabic Poetry.

In this 28 day unit, students will gain background information on historic wars, compare different genres presentations of events, recognize different points of view, research an essential question, compile evidence, create warrants that lead to a claim which answers the essential question, and write an argumentative essay.