American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
This site presents 2,900 life histories from 300 writers from 24 states. These histories describe individuals' families, incomes, occupations, political views, religions, diets, and observations.
America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets
This site provides song sheets (lyrics without music) for 4000 songs that were popular before the advent of the phonograph and radio. During this time (1850 - 1870), song sheets were the way that many Americans learned the latest songs.
America Dreams
This site investigates what the American Dream has meant over the years to poets, politicians, comedians, musicians, photographers, lawyers, reporters, and others. Students may contribute to the Student Gallery and post their dreams on a Wall of Dreams.
Learning to look at art
Strategies for helping students develop visual literacy in looking at paintings and other forms of visual art.
Drawing a sea turtle
This lesson plan takes students step by step through drawing a sea turtle, using the process to discuss the animal's anatomy.
Bring history to life with a Living History Day!
A Living History Day turns students into teachers and challenges them to think historically.
Introduction to musical instruments
This module features extensive recordings of 18 musical instruments for first steps in musical education. Children (and adults) can use this quiz to learn to identify musical instruments from their sound. Two multiple choice quizzes with different kinds of question are included. Musical instruments have been chosen primarily from Europe, but also from non-European cultures such as the Middle East, India, Japan and Australia. Instruments are illustrated by full-length high-quality MP3 recordings.
History of Art: World Arts II
A short quiz on the history of art.
General Quiz in Greek
The quiz includes 5 levels of general questions (History, Arts, Athletics, Geography, Sciences, Music). The difficulty of the questions increases depending on the level. Each level includes 10 questions, that are marked proportionally (Level 1:1 point, Level 2:2 points, etc). The maximum points a player can gather is 150. In order to pass to the next level, 50% of correct answers is needed. The quiz is addressed to individuals who are preparing for examinations in general knowledge subjects.
Famous Composers I
Throughout the centuries there have been hundreds of composers that excelled during their style periods. This is an introduction to 11 of them starting in the Baroque style period and ending in the 20th Century. In the presentations there are many facts about each composer. Please feel free to surf between the different composer and styles. As students participating in class, please note which composers we are studying at the present and only go to their slides. Some of the objectives of this mo
Lunch Poems: Will Alexander
Will Alexander has created a contemporary alchemy of surrealist vision in his own electric incandescent language. Coined the Césaire of America, his poetry is full of imagistic and intelligent unraveling. Charles Bernstein calls his latest collection, Exobiology as Goddess, "an exuberant excursion into the hyperreality of the cosmos." A poet, novelist, essayist, and educator, Alexander lives in Los Angeles.
Lunch Poems: Robert Thomas
Robert Thomas is a Bay Area native whose first book, Door to Door, won the Poets Out Loud Prize and has created a sensation. Eleanor Wilner has praised the book's "unashamedly extravagant imagination." Yusef Komunyakaa has written, "Door to Door beckons the reader to enter worlds of surprising poignancy... Many small doors can spring open in a single poem..." And Meridian magazine: "What is remarkable about Door to Door is its intensely intimate lyricism. Thomas is at his best in his accounts of
Lunch Poems: Robert Hass
After hosting Lunch Poems for eight years, Robert Hass has finally been prevailed upon to read his own poems in the series. Former Poet Laureate of the U.S., Hass is a UC Berkeley professor who has made important contributions in poetry, criticism, and translation. His books of poetry are Sun Under Wood, Human Wishes, Praise, and Field Guide, the latter winner of the Yale Younger Poets Award. His critical essays are assembled in Twentieth Century Pleasures, and the poets he has translated includ
Lunch Poems: Myung Mi Kim
Born in Seoul, Korea, Myung Mi Kim travels to the root of language, connecting speech and culture in a rich web of immaculate phrases. Kim strips words to the bone, using fragments and white space to enhance her themes of dislocation and first language loss. She is the author of four books of poetry, including Under Flag, winner of the 1991 Multicultural Publishers Book Award, and Commons (2002).
Lunch Poems: Michael S. Harper
This is a rare West Coast appearance for Michael Harper, who teaches at Brown University. He has published over ten books of poetry, including Songlines in Michaeltree: New and Collected Poems from University of Illinois Press. His book Dear John, Dear Coltrane was nominated for the National Book Award, and was based partly on his friendship with the musician. Virginia Quarterly Review has written, "...he creates a language humming with emotion and ennobled by a deeply felt human dignity."
This
Lunch Poems: Michael Palmer
The recent recipient of the prestigious Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens award for "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry," Michael Palmer is regarded as "one of America's most important poets" by Harvard Review. The voice in his poems shifts between one of passive observation and active resistance, graceful and startling in its lyricism and quiet protest. A crucial figure in international poetic dialogue, Palmer has translated into English from Portuguese, Russian, and Fr
Lunch Poems: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Born in Beijing, China, but raised in Massachusetts, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge molds language with seemingly effortless beauty and grace that invites the reader on a journey between worlds. Among many other awards and distinctions, Berssenbrugge has received two NEA Fellowships and two American Book Awards. She has published three books of poetry, and Hiddenness, a collaboration with Richard Tuttle. Her selected poems, I Love Artists, is forthcoming from UC Press (April, 2006). She lives in New Mexi
Lunch Poems: Maxine Hong Kingston
Maxine Hong Kingston burst on the literary scene in 1976 with her book, The Woman Warrior. A UC Berkeley graduate and professor who retired at the end of 2003 after a distinguished teaching career, she has delighted audiences with books such as China Menand Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book. In recent years she has started to write more poetry, including To Be the Poet from Harvard University Press.
This event took place on February 5, 2004 in the Morrison Room of the Doe Library.
Lunch Poems: Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian is the author or co-author of 14 books of poetry, including most recently My Life in the Nineties and The Fatalist, as well as the award-winning My Life. Poetry Flash has described My Life as a work that has "real, almost hypnotic power, obvious intelligence, and [is] astonishingly beautiful." Hejinian teaches in the UCB English Department. Her critical writings were published in The Language of Inquiry from UC Press. She has been the editor of Tuumba Press and co-editor of Poetics
