Curated OER
Swing Your Partner! It's A Virtual Square Dance
Students explore the Wessels Living History Farm website and research how to do a square dance. They read a story, listen to an explanation of barn dances, and participate in various square dances.
Curated OER
African Americans Seen Through the Eyes of the Newsreel Cameraman
Fifth graders learn about this history of jazz music. In this musical influences lesson, 5th graders read God Bless the Childand listen to a recording of it. Students create a KWL chart on jazz and early 1900s music and dance. Students...
Library of Congress
The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance brought forth many American art forms including jazz, and the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. Using a carefully curated set of documents from the Library of Congress, pupils see the cultural...
Curated OER
Changes of Musical Elements in Popular Music Through the Decades
Learners probe samples of European classical, American jazz, and rock and roll to analyze the similarities and differences. The styles and form of these three types of music are examined for tempo, timbre, and rhythm.
Curated OER
The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance inspired a group of writers, musicians, and artists whose influence is still seen today.
Curated OER
Observational Drawing
Learners create drawings using oil pastels that convey cultural, social and historical meaning. Drawings are evaluated on use of color planning, contour drawing, color blending, line and pattern.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: Jazz and the African American Literary Tradition
Article explores the influence of jazz on African American literature from the early history of jazz, noted jazz artists, the black-white tensions within jazz, to its literary influence after World War II.
OpenStax
Open Stax: The Jazz Age: Redefining the Nation 1919 1929: A New Generation
Looks at the new morality that emerged in the 1920s. It changed the role of women and the perception of African Americans, the latter facilitated by the Harlem Renaissance and its impact on the music and dance of the Jazz Age. Also...
Digital History
Digital History: Low Brow and Middle Brow Culture
A good overview of the popular culture in the Jazz Age. Read about the kinds of entertainment and literature enjoyed by the middle class in the 1920s.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Fads and Heroes
A time of fads and hero worship, the 1920s' entertainment didn't always make sense, but it was interesting. Find out about some of the fads of the time, and who became the heroes of popular culture. Take a brief quiz about the 1920s.