Directions: Use the themes, questions and video clips below to teach and learn with portions of C-SPAN's American Writers program featuring Ayn Rand, and The Fountainhead. Link to the complete video clip list to identify clip descriptions and create your own lessons. Each theme contains questions and video clips appropriate for varying grade levels. Lesson Credit:
Curriculum Advisory Team Member, Michael Yell.

1. Explain what objectivism is, particularly the concepts of individualism and reason.
2. What role should reason play in society? In government?
3. Explain Rand's view of religion.
4. How does capitalism line up with objectivism?
5. Discuss how Ayn Rand might approach some of the debates on modern issues (e.g. welfare, government regulation, terrorism, etc.).

1. In Ayn Rand's ideal society, what role or responsibility does the individual citizen play? From where does the U.S. government get its power? What role should reason play when our leaders are acting?
2. How might her early years in Russia have affected her beliefs about government?
3. How did Ayn Rand act in response to her views about the U.S. government? Did she seek to reform or change the government?
4. According to Rand and her followers, what should the American government be doing, which it is not doing?
5. To what degree are her theories about government and economics intertwined?

1. How might have the policies of the American Government in the 30's (especially the New Deal) have affected Ayn Rand's beliefs?
2. How was American society and culture evolving during these decades? What is mean by the conflict (as seen in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925) of "traditionalism" versus "modernism"?
3. What changes in political thinking were taking place in the 30's and 40's?
4. What events internationally were having an impact on the American people?
5. In what ways was Ayn Rand a woman of her time? In what ways was she not a woman of her time?