Students examine the impact of WWII on the development of jazz music and consider how jazz music helped to boost morale of both soldiers and those left at home. They identify the function of jazz as a cultural export and discuss its...

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...

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.

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.

High schoolers will learn to appreciate the civil rights movement with a focus on Little Rock, Arkansas. They will also acknowledge Louis Armstrong's unparalleled contributions to American music.

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...

Over the history of the world, music has been at the heart of some of the greatest social and political movements. Scholars discover their musical roots as they dive into the sounds and emotions of renowned jazz players. They see how...

Bring jazz music and the Harlem Renaissance to light with a lesson that challenges scholars to research and create. Pupils delve deep into information materials to identify jazz terminology, compare types of jazz and jazz musicians,...

Pupils examine jazz's roots and their hybridization in New Orleans in the early 20th century. They listen to ragtime and jazz recordings, then complete worksheets imbedded in this plan.

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.

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.

As Nick wanders the grounds of Gatsby's mansion, he observes the behaviors of the rowdy guests and listens to the music pouring over the lawn. Bring the music of the jazz age into the classroom with Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues,"...

Students 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 jazz...

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

When considering the possible hot spots of jazz in the United States, Oklahoma isn't the state that first comes to mind. However, it is the birthplace of several jazz musicians that influenced the evolution of the genre and Oklahoma City...

Students 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, or lyric...

Jazz, Blue Grass, Hip Hop, Swing. Gospel, R&B, Ragtime, Disco. So many music genres born in the USA. After reading an article about the fate of New Orlean's Jazz after Hurricane Katrina, class members investigate the life cycles of...

Students identify and connect themes of selected nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and art to Harlem Renaissance jazz. They compare and contrast historical and fictionalized versions of the jazz scenes of the Harlem Renaissance. They...

Students evaluate jazz music and a jazz music performance. They collaborate and create an improvised group short story. They improvise a musical piece on found objects.

Working in small teams, learners analyze a variety of primary source materials related to lynching (news articles, letters written to or written by prominent Americans, pamphlets, broadsides, etc.) in order to assess the effectiveness of...

Middle schoolers explore the musical style of jazz and identify its elements while listening to hip-hop recordings. They select two styles of music and fuse them together in this lesson.

Students gain an appreciation for various types of music. Using the music of the past, they compare it with the music of today. In groups, they research periods in which blues and jazz were most popular and write their own piece of music...

Students consider how Duke Ellington impacted the rise of jazz music. In this jazz music lesson, students listen to a lecture regarding the life and work of Ellington. Students also watch a video regarding Ellington and discuss music of...