Voice-Leading for Roots

Five segements from Ken Burns' documentary series Prohibition, easily accessed on the PBS website, are at the center of a terrific short unit on the roots of America's ambivalent relationship with alcohol. Engage your secondary class...

Do words change or add meaning or interest to a work of art? The final lesson in a four-part series on the beautiful brain as a work of art focuses on art analysis. Scholars write a story about exploring art from the inside. Reflections...

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...

How does a singer keep an open, relaxed throat, a rich tone, and pure, matched vowels while articulating the words of a song? Oh, it's easy if you follow the directions and practice the exercises in this, the third in a series of...

How did the geography of Harlem help create the Harlem Renaissance? Class members learn about the origins of the movement as they study this 1920s-1930s movement. Groups rotate through four stations examining art, music, a satirical...

Young scholars demonstrate and describe the roots of the blues in the music and text of the spirituals, the church music of early African-American slaves. They improvise the pentatonic scale, used in the spirituals, on small xylophones.

“Humanscape No.65” by Melesia Casas and Ester Hernandez’s “Sun Maid Raisins” launch a study of how works of art can advocate for social change. After examining these two works and discussing the human rights issues raised, class members...

Students discuss the historical roots of Hip-Hop to the present as an example of an art form that arose from the street into popular culture. Emphasis is placed on in-class discussion and written reflections in this introductory...

Help your class identify figures in post-war gospel music. They will compare and contrast different styles of the musicians. They also will discuss how music can have different meanings in different situations.

Play a vocabulary game with words from an article about Savion Glover's contribution to the film "Happy Feet." Then, small groups of students design and create original movie advertisements using vivid vocabulary to give Glover the...