Lesson Plans

The following films in our catalog include lesson plans to assist teachers in presenting the material to students or for organizations to use as guides to facilitate discussion during a public presentation. Each lesson plan is accessible via this web page as a downloadable PDF file. (You may download the free Adobe® Reader® if you have not already done so.) The lesson plans are free to access, and the films are available free of charge to Tennessee nonprofits via our Program Bureau Video Library.

Request the Video: All Day & All Night, 1989. 29 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "Beale Street: A Bounded Escape" (PDF, 41 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Examining the relationship between blues musicians and Beale Street, students will explore the relationships between their own creative freedom and their environment.
Request the Video: Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life, 1994. 48 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "A Critical Eye" (PDF, 716 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Students discuss and analyze images by Dorothea Lange, identifying key themes in, and understanding the historical contexts of, her photography.
Request the Video: Tell about the South, Part I, 1993. 90 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "The Blues Poets" (PDF, 36 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Students learn about the origins of the Blues, trace connections between the Blues and modern Hip Hop, and create their own blues poems.
Download the Lesson Plan: "The Fugitive Poets" (PDF, 48 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Understanding the efforts of the Fugitive Poets to debunk erroneous assertions that the South was an anti-intellectual region, students will create their own poems to expand their definitions of what is "Southern."
Download the Lesson Plan: "Jean Toomer" (PDF, 58 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Using the life and work of Jean Toomer as a touchstone, students will examine the similarities and differences in the white southern experience and the black southern experience.
Request the Video: Tell about the South, Part II – Poets and Prophets, 1999. 90 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "Eudora Welty" (PDF, 49 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: After an examination of Welty's work as a photojournalist, students create their own photographic essays.
Download the Lesson Plan: "Lillian Smith" (PDF, 60 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Students discuss the effects racism, classism, and sexism within the context of the life and work of Lilly Smith and as it pertains to their own lives.
Download the Lesson Plan: "Richard Wright" (PDF, 79 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Using PowerPoint, students illustrate the journey of Richard Wright to better understand the causes and effects of the Great Migration.
Request the Video: To Render a Life, 1992. 90 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "The Wealth in Poverty" (PDF, 61 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Students are asked to think of poverty not only in terms of money and/or possessions but also in terms of wealth through family, pride, and honor, and to compare poverty during the Great Depression with modern-day examples from the film.
Request the Video: Dawn's Early Light: Ralph McGill and the Segregated South, 1988. 90 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "Ralph McGill: The 'Conscience of the South'" (PDF, 34 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Through the creation of timelines, biographical sketches, and analysis, students will understand the political, social, and economic events of southern integration covered in the film.
Request the Video: The Electric Valley, 1984. 90 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "Private Property vs. The Public Good: The Problem with Eminent Domain" (PDF, 33 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: This lesson engages students in a process that results in an understanding of the multiple perspectives surrounding controversial topics. Students will debate the merits and problems of Eminent Domain by examining historical records, current laws, and modern case studies.
Request the Video: Freedom on my Mind, 1994. 90 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "A Marginalized Voice in the Segregated South" (PDF, 32 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Students use modern resources to create a strategic plan to desegregate a fictional segregated southern state based on the characteristics of those in the film.
Request the Video: Long Shadows, 1987. 88 min.
Download the Lesson Plan: "Reconstruction: The Long Shadow of the Civil War" (PDF, 36 kB), Grades 9–12
Overview: Students explore the opportunities presented by the defeat of the Confederacy and investigate what was at stake for the South and the nation during the post war years.

- back to top -