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Jazz in America
Students 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.
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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.
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Jazz in America Lesson Plan 6
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.
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Jazz in America Lesson Plan 7
Students survey free jazz and fusion. They explore how free jazz and fusion reflected American culture and society in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Thomas Hart Benton: The Sources of Country Music
Students examine artwork by Thomas Hart Benton. In this interdisciplinary instructional activity, students analyze the painting The Sources of Country Music, listen to folk music, and examine how recording technology and the movies...
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American Music Styles - Lesson 1
Students describe some of the distinguishing characteristics of rock, folk, blues, and country music. They identify two main musical roots of today's American popular music.
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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.
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Protest Songs
Learners 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.
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Lomax the Songhunter
High schoolers 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...
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
High schoolers identify what Tchaikovsky's personality was like and what kind of school he attended first. Then they identify and research what was happening in Russian politics during his lifetime. Students also identify who the...
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Gold Mountain: Real Gold or Fool's Gold
High schoolers 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...
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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...
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India: Where Remarkable Differences Are Ordinary
Students research India and Indian culture. In this Indian research lesson plan, students research and report on the lives of Indian children. The report will be in the form of a mock interview between a journalist and an Indian child....
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Meet Antonin Dvorak
Students engage in a activity that is related to the history of Antonin Dvorak. They conduct research using a variety of resources. Students listen and identify some of the basic elements of music. The activity includes background...
National First Ladies' Library
Science: The Purloined Letter
Learners examine Edgar Allan Poe's "the Purloined Letter" from the perspective of a profiler. To sharpen search procedures, they examine the text and make lists of items and places in the house that were searched. Then students discuss...
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Citizenship
Learners reflect on characteristics of good citizens, examine democratic symbolism, create an award and choose an individual to receive the award as part of this lesson on citizenship. Lesson ties together social studies, language arts,...
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The Rhythm of Life - Episode 2 - Melody
Students complete a unit on melodies from various cultures. They watch an online program, analyze various melodies, write a short original melody, complete a worksheet, and compare/contrast three versions of "Amazing Grace."