American Music in History

 

TASK:  Students will be assigned:

bullet To develop an appreciation of music as it relates to history
bullet To find out the meaning of the lyrics as it relates to the time in history
bullet To conduct a survey about "The Star-Spangled Banner" and graph results
bullet To express the meaning of other American songs through an essay

1. Listen to the "Star Spangled Banner" and follow along with the lyrics

Group Discussion Questions

bullet How does the song make you feel?
bullet Do certain sounds within the song lead you to visualize anything?
bullet Tell the story the lyrics describe
bullet Where and when do you tend to hear this song?

2. Explore "Star Spangled Banner" website of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History

    Complete the Interactive Quiz found at the website — "Do you know the national anthem?"

3. Group Discussion : Explore other songs of America

4. Choose one American song

bullet America the Beautiful
bullet Dixie
bullet When Johnny Comes Marching Home
bullet Take Me Out to the Ballgame
bullet John Brown's Body
bullet This Land is Your Land
bullet Over There

Resources:  Books in Library: Music of the Civil War, Folk Songs of North America, I Hear America Singing

        Popular Songs in American History; Take Me Out to the Ballgame; Over There

Using the song you chose, record the following information:

bullet Who was the composer
bullet In what historical time period (or event) was it written
bullet What type (genre) of song is it
bullet Does the song describe people and places - cultural information

5. Conduct a School Survey of the National Anthem

bullet Create 3-5 questions about the national anthem
bullet Type a survey form to distribute to students/staff
bullet Tally the survey results and display them on a bar graph
bullet Give the results along with an introductory paragraph explaining the graph to the Busy Beaver for publication

Resource - Create a Graph

 

 

MLR’s

ELA: A. Process of Reading

PI 5: Understand stories (songs) and expository text from the perspective of

social and cultural context in which they were created.

ELA: E. Process of Writing and Speaking:

PI 2: Use planning, drafting and revising to produce on demand a well-developed piece that demonstrates effective language use voice and command of mechanics

ELA; F. Standard English Conventions

PI 1: Edits written work for standard spelling and usage evidenced by pieces that

show and contain…

ELA: H. Research Related Writing and Speaking

PI 7: Use search engines and other internet resources to collect information for

research projects.

Math: G. Patterns, relations and Functions

PI 1: Describe and represent relationships with graphs, …