Interested in the presidents and the role of the presidency in the United States? Want to learn more about the lives of remarkable Americans, past and present, who have contributed to the nation’s history and culture? The Portrait Gallery has a variety of resources for the classroom that have been developed to complement our exhibitions.
Expanding Roles of Women Curriculum Guide
In this interdisciplinary curriculum guide, portraits from the exhibition Out of Many: Portraits from 1600 to 1900 are used as entry points to teach about the history of women in the United States from the colonial period to the dawn of the twentieth century.
Students will not only learn about the portraits’ subjects and artists but will also gain insight into the larger historical period. By studying these works of art, students will come to understand how the women portrayed located agency. Furthermore, students will reflect on the present by considering how women today continue to bring about societal change.
>> Expanding Roles of Women Curriculum Guide (pdf)
>> Expanding Roles of Women Learning Lab Collection
Learn with Google Arts & Culture: Portraiture and Identity
In partnership with Google Arts and Culture, the Portrait Gallery has developed new online curricula that explores identity through portraiture and the ways in which artist and sitters use portraiture as a means to convey individual, community/cultural, national and global identity. Students will explore the Portrait Gallery’s Google Arts and Culture exhibitions and images related to the lesson topic.
Learning Lab Collections
The National Portrait Gallery is meeting teachers and students where they are! Check out more than 125 Learning Lab collections created by Portrait Gallery educators and classroom teachers. The Learning Lab is a free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources, creating content with online tools, and sharing in the Smithsonian's expansive community of knowledge and learning.
Teacher Playlist on YouTube
Integrating portraiture into the classroom can provide exciting opportunities to connect students with history, biography, visual art, and many other subjects. Check out the Teacher Playlist on the National Portrait Gallery’s YouTube channel for videos highlighting strategies on how to "read" artworks and ways of bringing portraiture into the classroom.
View and print our online materials or download them as PDF files. Visit our online collections to search, browse, and augment your lesson plans.
