ELA

ELA (X) - Social Studies (X) - Middle (X) - English (X)

The Greek Gods (1998)

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Their exploits were recorded and passed down through countless generations. Their images inspired some of the most beautiful art ever created. Their names echo throughout history.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
00:50
The Greek Gods

Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers (2012)

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Twenty-five years ago, renowned scholar Joseph Campbell sat down with veteran journalist Bill Moyers for a series of interviews that became one of the most enduringly popular programs ever aired on PBS.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
05:44
Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

Mythos I: The Shaping of our Mythic Tradition (1996)

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"The material of myth is the material of our life, the material of our body, and the material of our environment. A living, vital mythology deals with these." - Joseph Campbell

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
04:40
 Mythos I: The Shaping of our Mythic Tradition

Mythos III: The Shaping of the Western Tradition (2011)

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"[Western myths] represented something that is typical to Europe and nowhere else, and that is respect for the individual and the individual path, the individual way." - Joseph Campbell

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
04:45
Mythos III: The Shaping of the Western Tradition

The Persuaders (2004)

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FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar "persuasion industries" of advertising and public relations. To cut through mass-media clutter and to overcome consumers' growing resistance to their pitches, marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
01:30
The Persuaders

Essential Art House Pygmalion

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George Bernard Shaw was once quoted as humorously saying, "Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed." Yet his Pygmalion has lived on. His play, indeed, is better known to contemporary readers than the Greek myth (about a sculptor who falls in love with one of his statues) from which it derives its title. Shaw's rag-to-riches comedy made the leap from stage to screen in 1938, but it wasn't a smooth transition.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
01:30
Essential Art House Pygmalion

Freedom Riders (2011)

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In 1961, segregation seemed to have an overwhelming grip on American society. Many states violently enforced the policy, while the federal government, under the Kennedy administration, remained indifferent, preoccupied with matters abroad.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
02:00
Freedom Riders

Nine From Little Rock (2005)

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The heroism of nine students in Little Rock, Arkansas
Pioneers of desegregation

Nine From Little Rock chronicles the Arkansas school integration crisis and the changes wrought in subsequent years.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
00:19
Nine From Little Rock

Mark Twain (2001)

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Samuel Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become Mark Twain, America's best-known and best-loved author. Considered in his time as the funniest man on earth, Twain was also an unflinching critic of human nature who used his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
04:00
Mark Twain

Dragonwings

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Moon Shadow is eight when he sails from China to join his father, Windrider, in America. Windrider lives in San Francisco’s Chinatown and works in a laundry. Moon Shadow has never seen him.

Moon Shadow soon loves and respects this father, a man of genius, a man with a fabulous dream. With Moon Shadows help, Windrider is willing to endure the mockery of the other Chinese, the poverty, and longing for his own country to make his dream come true.

Fahrenheit 451

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Ray Bradbury's best-selling science fiction masterpiece about a future without books takes on a chillingly realistic dimension in this film classic directed by one of the most important screen innovators of all time, the late Francois Truffaut. Julie Christie stars in the challenging dual role of Oskar Werner's pleasure-seeking conformist wife, Linda, and his rebellious, book-collecting mistress, Clarisse.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
01:53
Fahrenheit 451

Drawing from Memory

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Copies: 7

Caldecott Medalist Allen Say presents a stunning graphic novel chronicling his journey as an artist during WWII, when he apprenticed under Noro Shinpei, Japan’s premier cartoonist

Author: 
Lexile: 
HL560L
Drawing from Memory

The Breadwinner

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Copies: 5

Parvana felt the shadow before she saw it, as the man moved between her and the sun. Turning her head, she saw the dark turban that was the uniform of the Taliban. A rifle was slung across his chest as casually as her father's shoulder bag had been slung across hers...

The Talib kept looking down at her. Then he put his hand inside his vest. Keeping his eyes on Parvana, he drew something out of his vest pocket.

Parvana was about to squish her eyes shut and wait to be shot when she saw that the Talib had taken out a letter.

He sat down beside her on the blanket.

Author: 
Lexile: 
630L
The Breadwinner

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

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Copies: 1

It's 1793, and there's an invisible killer roaming the streets of Philadelphia. The city's residents are fleeing in fear. This killer has a name—yellow fever—but everything else about it is a mystery. Its cause is unknown, and there is no cure.

Author: 
Lexile: 
1130L

Freedom Summer: The 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi

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Copies: 7

In 1964, Mississippi civil rights groups banded together to fight Jim Crow laws in a state where only 6.4 percent of eligible black voters were registered. Testing a bold new strategy, they recruited students from across the United States. That summer these young volunteers defied segregation by living with local black hosts, opening Freedom Schools to educate disenfranchised adults and their children, and canvassing door-to-door to register voters.

Lexile: 
980L
Freedom Summer: The 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi

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