Students will compare the daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe by an unknown photographer with Poe's writings in an effort to discover the character of this mysterious author.

Students explore 19th-century photographer Edward Curtis's documentation of a ritual performed by Native Americans. They then consider how ceremony and ritual practice are depicted and understood by those outside of a religious culture. Students use photography to document their own religious or spiritual rituals, and then examine one another's images and interpret their peers' spiritual beliefs based on the photographs.

Referring to a Roman gravestone for inspiration, students use a foam carving medium and carving tools to create a bas-relief (low-relief) gravestone for a beloved pet. Students then write an epitaph for the pet using a standard form of poetry that is appropriate for the setting, such as an elegy, ode, or couplet.

Students will compare portrayals of individual soldiers to depictions of battle scenes, write two articles representing two different perspectives about a current war, and manipulate a photograph to alter its mood.

Students will discuss the effects of war on families as depicted in a drawing and relief sculpture and re-create an artwork by forming a tableau and making a sculpture for a brave person.

Students will examine a contemporary video installation and a 17th-century Flemish painting and consider how artists use a specific medium to communicate ideas. They will then create a storyboard plan for their own video.

Students are introduced to the mythological creatures featured in the myth of Hercules (Roman name for the Greek hero "Herakles"). They learn new vocabulary related to the creatures' body parts (e.g., talons, hooves, etc.), and plan and create a drawing of an original mythological creature. Students then name their creature and write a descriptive sentence about it.

Students will observe a holiday depicted in a picture from a 16th-century manuscript. They will interview family members and write a paragraph about a family tradition. After a class discussion on how an artist creates the illusion of depth, students will create a collage illustrating a family tradition with a distinct foreground, middle ground, and background.

Students will brainstorm a list of adjectives to describe two early photographs called "cyanotypes." Next they will create their own cyanotype photograph. Students will then write original poetry using the previous list of adjectives to describe their own nature-inspired cyanotype photograph.

Students study how artists of the Neoclassical period were influenced by major historical events during the Enlightenment. They will identify and analyze the Neoclassical style.

Students examine images made for newspapers and create their own photos to tell a story. They experiment with cropping to reframe their images and explore how photographic images can be manipulated.

Students will become familiar with the black-figure painting style of ancient Greece and its influence on Neoclassical artists during the 18th century, as seen in drawing, painting and silhouettes, or shadow portraits. They will create an original work of art using the silhouette technique.

Students explore a portrait of two historical princesses and consider the adornments the both wear. Each student compares these adornments to the decorative objects worn by a woman in their own lives and sketches a portrait of that woman, focusing on the objects of adornment she wears.

Students will examine the details and color in an 1821 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting two sisters who are exiled princesses. Students will read a tale about the Brothers Grimm, who were writing fairy tales during the same time period that these sisters were exiled. Students will then write and illustrate a fairy tale inspired by the painting.

Students analyze one of Dorothea Lange's photographs and make connections to its historical context by creating a one-page written and visual response.

Students practice writing letters of the alphabet and explore how decorated letters can be used to convey stories or symbolic ideas. They create an "illuminated" alphabet in which each letter conveys concepts of home and family.

This lesson focuses on a family depicted in a work of art. Students practice using vocabulary related to people and families. Activities emphasize oral and written descriptions of the people portrayed in the work of art, using possessive adjectives. Students are challenged to infer what the relationships are between figures depicted and what individuals are doing, based on such clues as their pose.

This lesson focuses on people at work depicted in a work of art. Students practice using vocabulary related to people and work. Activities emphasize oral and written descriptions of the people portrayed in the work of art, using job-related vocabulary and adjectives to describe feelings. Students are challenged to infer what job individuals are doing, based on such clues as their pose.