Connect the ideas of jazz improvisation and art to writing poetry. Learners collaborate and write different lines of poetry, imitating the jazz styles of improvisation and freewriting. Take a close look at the poems "Tenebrae" by Yusef...

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.

Students work together to research a historical event. They create their own poems based on their research. They share their poems with the class and discuss the historical event further.

Nikki Wallschlaeger's Violin is the featured poem in a lesson that uses music and multiple readings to delve deep into its analysis. After a writing warm-up, learners watch and listen to a video that showcases Regina Carter Quintet's...

Publish. Publish. Publish. Have your poets polish and publish their poems in a personal poetry volume. Precise procedures for the project, including a preface and cover, are part of the assignment sheet. Perfect!

Rhyme, rhythm, free verse, imagery: Do these words describe poetry, or jazz music? The answer is both! A resource explores these similarities as scholars watch a video, engage in discussion, read author biographies, write poetry and...

Poetry or prose? That is the question facing middle schoolers as they begin a month-long poetry unit by examining the characteristics that differentiate poetry and prose writing. Pupils learn about poetic devices and different types of...

Students explore jazz's primary elements. They identify the basic definitions of terms associated with jazz. In addition, they listen to Song for My Father.

Students survey bebop, cool jazz, and hard bop. They explore how bebop, cool jazz, and hard bop reflected American culture and society in the 1940s and 1950s.

Students survey free jazz and fusion. They explore how free jazz and fusion reflected American culture and society in the 1960s and 1970s.

Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...

Fifth graders explore the current jazz scene and how it reflects American culture. They listen to jazz recordings of current artists and speculate on which direction jazz is likely heading.

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.

Students learn the basic elements of music and gain an understanding of the elements found in Jazz.

Students explore jazz and its origins by focusing on the people in which Jazz came from.

Students learn where Jazz came from and why it is an important part of America's history.

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.

Students explore the Jazz of today and its future. They answer questions and listen to music.

Analyze poetry in a group setting. Middle and high schoolers read lyrics to a Tom Petty song and free write about the song's tone, setting, and speaker. They then complete the same activity in a group setting using seven poems. The...

Your pupils are poets, and now they'll be able to show it with the exercises in this packet. The lessons, designed for beginner, intermediate, and experienced poets, not only feature a variety of poetic forms, but take learners through...

Students analyze the elements of poetry and jazz. In this critical thinking skills lesson plan, students take a closer look at the rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, form, free verse, lyricism, and imagery that exist is jazz as well as poetry. 

Jazz music and musicians are the focus of this language arts lesson. Young readers independently read the book Jazz Baby. To build fluency and independence they read silently, but are guided by directive comments from the teacher. They...

Young scholars analyze the impact of jazz on the novel, "Invisible Man," by Ralph Ellison. They read and discuss excerpts of the novel, write an essay on the influence of jazz on Ralph Ellison as a writer, and view video excerpts on...

Middle schoolers analyze the origins of jazz music by examining work songs, spirituals, blues, and gospel songs as well as works of poetry from African American artists. They create their own poems from either the narrative, dramatic,...