Curated OER
Jazz in America
Young scholars participate in a class discussion about jazz music, compare improvisation with regular conversion, listen to various jazz musicians and compare and contrast their individual sounds.
Curated OER
Jazz in America
Eleventh graders explore Jazz in America. They examine greats in Jazz, such as Duke Ellington. They are also to discuss the cultural implications of the music itself.
Curated OER
Jazz In America
Learners explore the Jazz Era in America not only by answering questions but listening to music as well.
Curated OER
Jazz in America
Learners explore Bebop in America by listening to music and answering questions.
Curated OER
Jazz in America
Students learn the basic elements of music and gain an understanding of the elements found in Jazz.
Curated OER
Jazz in America
Students explore the Swing Era and its implications. They answer questions and listen to music from the era.
Curated OER
Jazz in America
Young scholars explore the Jazz of today and its future. They answer questions and listen to music.
Curated OER
Jazz In America
Students gain a fundamental understanding of the role of jazz in the Harlem Renaissance. They explain its historical significance and cultural implications.
Curated OER
Thomas Hart Benton: The Sources of Country Music
Students examine artwork by Thomas Hart Benton. In this interdisciplinary lesson, students analyze the painting The Sources of Country Music, listen to folk music, and examine how recording technology and the movies shaped the images of...
Curated OER
Folk
Young scholars read about Woody Guthrie and how folk music often tells of events of the time and can be effective protest music.
Curated OER
Jazz in America
Students explore Free Jazz and Fusion by answering questions and listening to music.
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Songs of America
Combine your lesson on patriotism with a lesson on comparing and contrasting. Focusing on The Star Spangled Banner, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and The Old Folks at Home, this lesson prompts learners to compare and contrast each song...
Curated OER
Demystifying Stereotypes and Understanding Contemporary Cultures
Fourth graders compare and contrast folk songs from different cultures. In this music lesson, 4th graders listen to and list the attributes of selected Japanese and American folk songs. Students discover the customs, foods, and culture...
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Immigrant Discrimination
For a class learning about Chinese and Irish immigration in America, here's a great starting lesson plan. It has your critical thinkers examining song lyrics, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and a political cartoon, and finally...
Curated OER
Understanding the Music of the Civil Rights Movement
Young scholars examine protest music and songs from the Civil Rights movement. In this music of the Civil Rights era instructional activity, students listen to selected music before working in groups to determine who the music was...
Curated OER
Rockin’ the World: Rock and Roll and Social Protest in 20th Century America
Students explore protest songs. In this interdisciplinary lesson, students examine issues-based music by summarizing lyrics and revealing inferences, generalizations, conclusions, and points of view found in the songs.
San Francisco Symphony
By the Great Horn Spoon!
By The Great Horn Spoon is a fantastic novel for introducing learners to life during the California Gold Rush. First, kids research and analyze American folk songs, then they connect to the text as they listen to symphonic pieces written...
Curated OER
Protest Songs
Students analyze and perform an American social protest song. They describe its historical setting, consider the effectiveness of the music and recognize that popular music is a reflection of American culture.
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Early Jazz
Students gain an understanding of early jazz. They study Dixieland and the Roaring Twenties. They examine the American historical significance and cultural implications of early jazz.
Curated OER
Lomax the Songhunter
Students write in their journals about the role of music in their lives. They discuss the media's use of music and watch a video clip about someone who prohibited the use of music. They create an illustration to show the folklife in...
Curated OER
Spooky Notes
Second graders move to, sing, compose, and interpret various musical techniques through the use of "America", Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers", and a song called "Skin and Bones". Emphasis is placed upon identifying names and values...
Curated OER
Gold Mountain: Real Gold or Fool's Gold
Students participate in a meeting of one of the Six Companies that serves the needs of Chineese immigrants to California in the 1840's. Jobs are researched, profiles filed, posters designed, Chinese immigrant life examined in this...
Curated OER
Oh My Darling
Students discuss human interaction with the environment and sing "Clementine" with historical fiction lyrics. They create a map or model of a mining camp in which Clementine may have lived. They discuss what might happen to their...
Curated OER
Just Lookin' For a Home
What is a boll weevil? Your class can find out that and more by following the activities included here. Pupils read an article, sing a boll weevil song, add to the song with their own original lyrics, illustrate the song, study the...