Students will imagine that they are an 18th-century "marchand-mercier", or salesman, and will write a persuasive letter to sell a French bed, the "Lit a la Polonaise", along with other bedroom furnishings for a client.

Students will study a French cabinet and research and discuss its symbols. Students will then create their own marquetry design based on an animal symbol from another country.

Research activities investigate social-science connections such as trade, societal impact, and style on the production and consumption of porcelain in the period leading up to the French Revolution. Extensions relate to chemistry connections.

Students will discuss the style and function of an 18th-century compound microscope and its case and then design their own modern scientific or technological instrument.

Students will identify the colors, animals, animals' actions, and natural and manmade items depicted on a decorative clock made in the 1700s. They will memorize a song, practice telling time, and create their own decorated clock.

Students will examine a medieval manuscript on astronomy and create their own books based on modern discoveries in astronomy.

The books that were created in the medieval period are the forerunners of modern printed books and have many of the same components. Use the image Initial A: Two Men before a King and a Man Speaking to a Family to learn about the different elements of a manuscript page and as a way of beginning to explore and create illuminated manuscripts with your class.

Students will examine a manuscript page from a Flemish bestiary and discuss how it was used to teach ideas about Christianity. Students will then compare the stories from the bestiary to the fables of Aesop, and culminate with the creation of their own manuscript based on a fable by Aesop.

Students will practice their speaking skills while describing a landscape scene for a partner to draw.

Students discover how visual artists represent a story by depicting a single moment from it.

Students will think about a dramatic moment in their lives and imagine how to translate it into a work of art.

Students will make connections between their personal experiences and a work of art and use visual analysis to describe a portrait.

Students will "read" a visual image very much like they would read words in a story.

Students will spend more time looking at details and write an imagined interview with a sitter.

Students will apply what they have learned about portraits in a formal writing exercise.