Aligned with the IBO's History Guide of 2020, this bundle set includes detailed lesson plans and activities, note-taking activities/review activities, and answer keys.

The topics/lessons include the following:

1. Renaissance Humanism and the Role of the Individual in Society Source Analysis Activity: In this lesson, students will examine excerpts and/or passages from the famous works written by Petrarch, Boccaccio, Bruni, Castiglione, Mirandola, and Alighieri. As they read these famous works, students will highlight/underline key themes and topics that these humanists discuss in their respective pieces: their views on society; their thoughts on the classical past (i.e., the Greeks and the Romans); and the role of the individual in society. To assist them in their analysis, graphic organizers were implemented. A Teacher Answer Key is located at the end of the lesson.

2. Niccolò Machiavelli versus Desiderius Erasmus on War: This lesson begins with an activity in which students will work together to list the benefits and drawbacks of living in a society governed by elected officials and a society ruled by an absolute ruler. Students will share their thoughts and ideas with the rest of the class. This activity will then lead to the main focus of the lesson: the ideas and arguments of Machiavelli and Erasmus on the topic of war. From these excerpts, students will write down the main points/ideas that both humanists discuss (argue) in their respective works. A graphic organizer was created to aid the students in their analysis. A teacher’s answer key is attached to this lesson.

3. Comparative study of medieval and Italian Renaissance Art Activity: In this lesson, students, working in pairs, will examine a series of paintings that were produced in the medieval and Renaissance eras. (Note: these are just sample art pieces. There are numerous paintings and sculptures that were produced during the Italian Renaissance.) Each art piece contains questions that the students need to answer. When students are examining the pieces, they should consider these questions: Are the themes presented or depicted in the artwork similar, or are they different? What does this say about society, and for that matter, the artist’s views on religion and on society? They will then use the knowledge that they gained through this analysis as well as their background knowledge to complete the comparative graphic organizers at the end of the lesson. By the end of this activity, students will have a greater understanding of the comparable differences between the art produced in medieval Europe and in Italy during the Renaissance. There are two Teacher Answer Keys. The first Teacher Answer Key focuses on the different art pieces that were produced in the medieval and Renaissance periods. The second Teacher Answer Key focuses on a comparison of medieval and Renaissance art that examined the following themes/topics: 1. The Biblical story of Creation: Adam and Eve; 2. The Last Judgement; 3. The depiction of Madonna and child; 4. The depiction of Jesus and his Apostles in The Last Supper; and 5. The depiction of the death of Jesus in the Pietà.

4. Renaissance Italy - An Overview of the famous Italian Renaissance Cities and Artwork Activity: In this lesson, students, working on their own or with another classmate, will read about life in the various Italian cities during the Renaissance era. The brief summary readings examine life and the art produced in the following cities: Rome, Florence, Milan, Bologna, and Venice. (Note: I inserted only samples of the many famous pieces of art that were produced during the Renaissance era in each of these famous cities.) Each summary reading includes questions that students will need to answer. A Teacher Answer Key is located at the end of the lesson.

There are study guides. Each study guide contains a Teacher Answer Key. The following topics are examined in the study guides:

1. Politics, Political Power, and Patronage in Renaissance Italy and in northern Europe: This note-taking activity, which contains specific guided instructions and reading sections from various sources, enables students to learn about political power and patronage in Rome, Florence, Milan, and Venice, France, England, Spain, and the Valois Dukes of Burgundy. In this activity, students will have a greater understanding concerning the role of patronage in the arts to establishing the long-lasting legacy of Renaissance mercantile families, female patrons of the arts, dukes, European monarchs, and the papacy and the artists, sculptors, and architects that they commissioned along the way (Note: A detailed Teacher Answer Key/Study Guide is provided.);

2. Literature and Humanism in Renaissance Italy and in northern Europe: This note-taking activity, which contains specific guided instructions and reading sections from various sources, enables students to learn about the key differences in secular humanism and the literature that emerged in Renaissance Italy to the Christian humanism and the literature that emerged in northern Europe. Within this activity, students will analyze the writings of Petrarch, Boccaccio, Bruni, Valla, Mirandola, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Erasmus, More, Rabelais, Cervantes, and Shakespeare and how their ideas and writings differed from the writings and ideas of Greco-Roman antiquity and the medieval world (Note: A detailed Teacher Answer Key/Study Guide is provided.); and

3. Art in Renaissance Italy and in the Northern Renaissance: This note-taking activity, which contains specific guided instructions and reading sections from various sources, enables students to learn about the following topics/themes: the main features/characteristics within the art produced; the major artistic accomplishments (either to briefly discuss the techniques used by the following Renaissance artists) or to list the important works completed by the various Renaissance artists. In this activity, students will identify the major Renaissance artists, sculptors, and architects of the era: Giotto, Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Masaccio, Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Alessandro Botticelli, Donato Bramante, Dominico Ghirlandaio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Raphael, Titian, Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari, Jacopo Tintoretto, Veronese, El Greco, Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Albert Dürer, Hans Holbein, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Note: A detailed Teacher Answer Key/Study Guide is provided.)