Learn about the art of Kenneth Ragsdale. After watching a short video, students will experiment with making folded paper structures that they will photograph, using lighting and camera angles to create different effects. Completing all activities will take 2-3 class periods.

More About This Resource
For more studio tours and other arts content from WMHT, visit AHA! A House For Arts. AHA! A House for Arts features the stories of artists, makers, and creative institutions right here in our backyard and across the country. A celebration of all things creative, AHA! features everything from the traditional to the innovative.

Read words with the long "e" sound with NYCDOE Universal Literacy Reading Coach Anna Stretching-Cole. Students will blend words and read words with a specific focus on the long "e" sound (ee, ea).

Use this demonstration video and the supporting written lesson plan to engage students in the printmaking process like artist Jan Heath.

This five-minute video introduces students to the findings of the Kerner commission, a panel of experts President Lyndon Johnson convened to make policy recommendations following the protests, violence and disorder that occurred in over 150 cities in 1967. The commission recommended a series of sweeping changes, including reforms in policing tactics and efforts to reduce urban poverty. But Johnson largely ignored the findings of the study. Useful in helping students make connections between the 1960s and today, the video sets up an engaging class discussion on race, poverty and policing.

Content Advisory: This video includes footage of police violence. This resource contains additional material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.

Witness the unstoppable joy of dancing bomba, Puerto Rico’s Afro-Puerto Rican dance of resistance. Meet sisters Mar and María Cruz who are dedicated to the dance and its legacy of survival, and trace some of the communities where bomba is at its most vibrant, from the Santurce area of San Juan, to Loíza, the bastion of Afro-Puerto Rican culture across the Rio Grande.

Queen Lili‘uokalani was the first sovereign queen, and the last monarch, of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. At the time of her reign, a new Hawaiian constitution imposed by white Americans had reduced the voting rights of Hawaiian citizens and much of the monarchy’s powers, transferring power to American business owners and missionaries. Learn how Lili‘uokalani fought to restore native Hawaiian rights in this video from Unladylike2020. Support materials include discussion questions, vocabulary, and primary source analysis activity.

Explore why the 2012 shooting of a black student became a pivotal tension point around race and justice during Barack Obama’s presidency, in these videos excerpted from FRONTLINE: Divided States of America. Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of a neighborhood watch volunteer ignited passions across the nation. America’s first black president grappled with his response. Obama’s initial silence, followed by carefully guarded words, prompted a backlash—and not just from conservative pundits. Many in the black community were traumatized by the incident and by others like it. Following the shooter’s court acquittal the next year, Obama acknowledged his own experiences as a black American. For many, this was the first time in his administration that he openly spoke for black people.

Learn how Jim Crow laws impacted home ownership and the pursuit of the American Dream in this series of videos from the American Masters film, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart. Lorraine Hansberry’s family was at the forefront of fighting segregation in Chicago in the 1940s, even taking the fight all the way to the Supreme Court. Hansberry’s famous play, A Raisin in the Sun, continues the legacy of her parents by using literature to take a stand against racial inequality and injustice.

Support materials include discussion questions, teaching tips, and a student handout comparing the experience of Lorraine Hansberry’s family and the Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun.

In this video from the American Masters film Ralph Ellison: An American Journey, scholars discuss conflicts between Ralph Ellison and the leaders of the Black Arts Movement. Ellison was often criticized for prioritizing aesthetics over politics, putting him at odds with a younger generation of Black artists who had lost faith in the integrationist ideals of an earlier era.

Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.

Be an author! Write and illustrate your very own story by mixing up a simple recipe of WHO, WHERE, WHAT, and ENDING.

A study of the resettlement of Japanese Americans after WWII and the ongoing hardships and discrimination they experienced in the postwar years. This project was made possible through generous support from the National Parks Service Japanese American Confinement Sites program.

Segment sounds, and review long "a" and contractions with NYCDOE Universal Literacy Reading Coach Trinette Carruthers.

Learn about the different combinations of beats that produce endless varieties of rhythms.

Roger Abrahamson demonstrates his craft to youth. Abrahamson is a traditional bowl turner who uses the medieval technology of a spring pole lathe and hand-forged tools to create Norwegian ale vessels.

A lesson plan for grades 5-12 is included as a gallery asset and in the support materials.

More About This Resource
Postcards is an award-winning series showcasing the arts, history, and cultural heritage of western Minnesota and beyond. Funding for Postcards comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. To watch more Postcards, visit the show page or video portal.

Watch cast members from the National Theater's production of Romeo and Juliet attempt to summarize the play in 60-seconds! Use this video as a challenge to students to create their own version that covers the plot of the play in one minute.

Karen Jenson reflects on her life and lengthy career as a renowned Norwegian and Swedish rosemåler. Take a tour of her awe-inspiring house full of her work.

A lesson plan for grades 8-12 is included as a gallery asset and in the support materials.

More About This Resource
Postcards is an award-winning series showcasing the arts, history, and cultural heritage of western Minnesota and beyond. Funding for Postcards comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. To watch more Postcards, visit the show page or video portal.

Award-winning filmmaker Leya Hale explores the traditional dress-making culture of Lakota and Dakota communities. Tanner Peterson, a member of the Upper Sioux Community, is the videographer and production assistant. Interviews with Gaby Strong, Pejuta Haka Red Eagle, Gabrielle Tateyuskanskan, Leah Thomas, Marcy Fiddler and Lonna Stevens discuss the materials, hand craft, adornments and cultural heritage of traditional Dakota and Lakota women's dresses.

This program was made possible by the voters of Minnesota through legislative appropriation from The Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

More About This Resource:
Postcards is an award-winning series showcasing the arts, history, and cultural heritage of western Minnesota and beyond. Funding for Postcards comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. To watch more Postcards, visit the show page or video portal.

Review words with long "o" and long "i" sounds with NYCDOE Universal Literacy Reading Coach Vida Nazemian. Students will segment words, break words into their individual sounds, review vowel teams for long "o" and long "i", and build, blend, and read words and sentences.

Test your ability to identify if a line is from Shakespeare or Taylor Swift in this video from the National Theater. Cast members from Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet are presented with quotes and have to decide whether they are from the bard of today or the past! Support materials ask students to extend the game by coming up with their own version using a different songwriter.

Since 1885 the Shoshone people have been without buffalo on their land. After decades of effort beginning in the 1990’s a coalition of individuals and organizations have taken the first step in returning the North American Bison to their native lands. In the accompanying lesson plan (found in the Support Materials) students will understand that nowhere is this action more culturally and ecologically significant than on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Students will explore the significance of the buffalo to the Shoshone people living on the Wind River Reservation.
Students will learn that through traditional concepts of understanding, the Shoshone people, as well as many other Plains tribes, were able to survive using the buffalo.
Students will research the controversial issue surrounding the return of the buffalo to the Wind River Reservation and understand how arguments against returning them almost derailed efforts by the Shoshone tribe.