Beginning Jazz Appreciation

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...

Designed as a teacher resource, a packet identifies resources and approaches instructors can use to incorporate jazz into their history classes. Materials are identified by historical era, from the roots of jazz prior to World War I to...

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...

Students explore development of jazz music in the 1930s by forming imaginary jazz bands which tour several cities in Depression-era America. Jazz band members create imaginary identities for themselves, develop publicity for their tour,...

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...

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.

Students research the history and contributions of Jazz in their local environments. They then design and create a wide variety of presentations to share with the class using as many mediums as possible.

Students examine female artists who perform in the genres of rhythm & blues, jazz, soul, and hip-hop/rap. They compose lyrics and melody in one of these genres.

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 examine the effect of music on society. While listening to music, they identify the beat, rhythm and write down their reaction to it. Listening to longer selections, they assign a color to the music and share it with the...