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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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"Disco Sucks!"
Students examine why disco and other forms of music were not widely accepted.
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Storytellers: Bruce Springsteen
Students use the correct music terminology to evaluate a performance, composition, and arrangement of the song "Blinded by the Light" by Bruce Springsteen and compare it to another version recorded by Manfred Man.
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VH1 All Access Spotlight: Josh Groban
Students discuss the lyrics to You Raise Me Up, sung by Josh Groban, and identify the structure and markings in the song that show expressive qualities. They explore how composers use musical concepts to show meaning and mood in a piece...
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Storytellers: Coldplay
Young scholars listen to the music of Coldplay to explore the band.
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Listening Logs
Students hone their listening skills. They develop tools for approaching research into their own musical traditions and those of community and state and examine different ways of recording data. They design different types of research...
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Animal Movement
Students participate in a movement to music activity. In this awareness of movement lesson, students hear music and move like animals they hear described in the music. Students make disciplined movements and make sounds...
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Songwriting
Students watch the "The Greatest TV Moments: Sesame Street Music A to Z" video and brainstorm what the songs may be about. They choose a theme for a song, write a short topic-related poem, and compose music for it.
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Creating a Commercial
Students investigate the world of advertising and video production by creating their own commercial. In this advertising lesson, students discuss a fictitious product which they create an advertising campaign for. Students...
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Rhythmic Expression
Students discover movement and expression to music/sound through a series of teacher-led exercises and role plays. This lesson is ideal for the middle school drama class with possibilities for adaptation to any level of drama or general...
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Sense of Place: No River Too Wide-Bridges
Fifth graders discover the history of their hometown Des Moines River. In this U.S. Geography lesson plan students speak with Iowans that tell stories of the settlers and early villages near the Des Moines River. Students...
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International Jazz Day
In this International Jazz Day worksheet, students complete activities such as reading a passage, phrase matching, fill in the blanks, correct words, multiple choice, spelling, sequencing, scrambled sentences, writing questions, survey,...
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Playing With Your Food
Students discover about the form and function of traditional musical instruments, then use this knowledge to create non-traditional instruments that replicate the sounds of traditional instruments. They use vegetables to create their...
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Following Muddy's Trail
High schoolers view the AMERICAN MASTERS film "Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied" and research him using the Guided Reading strategy. They examine the influential musician's childhood and trace his journey from the Mississippi Delta to...
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International Festival: Mexico
Young scholars explore the culture of Mexico through music and food. In this multicultural lesson, students read the book Mexico and listen to samples of Mexican music. Young scholars use ingredients to make tacos.
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The Nutcracker
First graders define a ballet as a story told through dance. They listen to melodies and demonstrate beat and accent through body movement. They watch the ballet.
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Singing The Blues with Garage Band
Students demonstrate writing lyrics for a twelve-bar blues pattern by writing two verses of a blues song and then recording themselves singing over a stock blues pattern using Apple's Garage Band. Requires a networked keyboard lab.
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Overture to 'William Tell' by Gioacchino Rossini
Students create an awareness of how music creates a setting in a story or legend. They identify the instrumentation, dynamics and tempo used to create various settings for a musical story. They perform rhythmic patterns from listening...
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The Element of Color
Eighth graders study and analyze the elements of color by creating an personalized color wheel. Emphasis is placed on constructive criticism of student work by others for assessment. Students create short poems for their color wheel...
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What I Did On My Summer Vacation
Students improvise then compose and notate melodies with appropriate accompaniments that are inspired by events that transpired during their summer vacations. Requires a networked keyboard lab.
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The First Fire : A Cherokee Animal Tale
Fourth graders discover movement through the telling of "The First Fire", a Cherokee tale. Small groups are given sections of the story to tell by creating dances. Music (live and recorded) adds to the final performance and assessment.
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Passing Down Family History Through Oral Tradition: Corridos
Students create and perform Corridos which are oral tradition ballads. In this Passing Down Family History Through Oral Tradition lesson, students interview family members using a predetermined list of questions. In addition, students...
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The Westward Movement
Students study the westward movement through examining stamps. In this westward movement lesson plan, students draw conclusions, determine cause and effect relationships and examine the westward movement of the United States by...
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Hands On: Plot Points on a Coordinate Grid
In this solving coordinate grid word problem worksheet, learners plot points, order pairs, identify horizontal and vertical lines, and find distances to solve problems. Students solve six problems.