LESSON PLAN

Teacher: Elizabeth Anderson Date: March 31, 2015

Grade: H.S. General Music/Music Appreciation
1. Learning Outcome/Behavioral Objectives:
a. Students will perform polyrhythms using body percussion and create
polyrhythmic patterns using an online sequencer.
b. Students will trace the movement of African rhythm through slaves in
America to old-time banjo and fiddle.
c. Students will use guided listening sheets to analyze musical and cultural
elements of recorded music.
d. Students will create thesis statements to answer one of the three Essential
Questions posited on the guided listening form.
2. Required Prior Knowledge and Skills: Students must have familiarity with
basic musical terms that appear on the guided listening sheet and familiarity with
what is expected when filling out the worksheet. Students must also have
sufficient musical knowledge to write and perform eighth-note rhythms with
varying accent patterns. Must have experience in writing thesis statements about
music.
Anticipated needs: Students work on the listening sheets will be collected for
P/F classwork grade to ensure that adequate attention and understanding is
exhibited. Class discussion about the answers will help clear up questions that
students may have about musical terms and their application in recorded
examples. Individual attention will be provided during the writing of thesis
statements to ensure each students success, and statements will be collected for
P/F classwork grade to verify understanding.
3. Standards and Frameworks:
National Standards
Creating: AS1 Imagine AS2 Plan, Make AS3 Evaluate, Refine, Present
Performing: AS4 Select, Analyze, Interpret AS5 Rehearse, Evaluate, Refine
AS6 Present
Responding: AS7 Select, Analyze AS8 Interpret AS9 Evaluate
Connecting: AS10 Synthesize, Relate AS11 Relate for deeper understanding
State Frameworks Singing Reading and notation Playing Instruments
Improvisation and composition Critical response
Purposes and meaning in the arts Role of artists in communities
Concepts of style, stylistic influence and stylistic change
Inventions technologies and the arts Interdisciplinary connections
4. Assessment: P/F classwork grade will be assigned to each of two listening
examples and a thesis statement about the music.

5. Materials, Repertoire, Equipment needed:

Computer, Powerpoint presentation, speakers, Internet access, whiteboard,
metronome
6. Accommodations:
a. Special needs
Movement and fast-paced creation of music at the beginning of the
lesson should help my ADD student to settle in to the music zone.
Recordings will not be played for more than three minutes and will
never be presented without an activity active listening encourages a
longer attention span in these students.
b. ELL
This lesson will introduce more music-related vocabulary to my ELL
student, who has been learning the vocabulary needed to fill out the
guided listening sheet since the beginning of the year. Our first unit
was defining and finding examples of music that highlights the terms
that the sheet requires. The thesis statement may prove a challenge,
but for my ELL student I will focus more on the idea than on the
writing itself, meanwhile guiding this student towards effective
wordings of theses.
7. Lesson Sequence:
Introduce new American roots music unit todays focus is the rhythmic
influence of African music in early American fiddle music.
a. Activity: Creation of polyrhythms
- Begin with putting metronome on around 230 BPM and inviting students
to move to the beat. After sufficient time, stop and point out students
movement, making special note of students who are moving in a feel other
than duple. Repeat the activity and invite students to move in a non-duple
feel.
- Draw string of eighth notes on the board, and allow students to draw
accents on notes of their choosing. As a class, find body percussion
sounds for accented vs. non-accented notes, and perform the sequence.
Repeat with other students accent patterns.
- Divide the class in half, and assign one half to accent every second
eighth note and one group to accent every third.
- Using online pentatonic sequencer, invite students up to write two lines
of music with conflicting accent patterns.
Estimated Time: 12 min
b. Activity: Listening to West African Mbira music
Brief background
Play recording of mbira music and students fill out guided listening sheet,
then discuss answers as a class.
Estimated Time: 6 min
c. Activity: Listening to old-time American fiddle recording
Brief background

Play recording and students fill out guided listening sheet, then discuss
answers as a class.
Estimated Time: 6 min
d. Activity: Writing thesis statements (practice for unit final essay)
Begin with student-generated Venn diagram comparing and contrasting
both musical and cultural differences
2 minutes to write a thesis statement that speaks to one of the Essential
Questions of guided listening.
Estimated Time: 6 min
8. Assignments: Pick another recording of any African American artist prior to 1900
and write a second thesis comparing this artists music to the mbira recording
heard on class. Recordings heard in class will be posted on the class website for
reference.
9. Contingency plan: Most of this class, except for the digital sequencer, can be
presented old-fashioned lecture style. I will make sure to have recordings loaded
on to multiple devices in the case of the failure of one. I will never trust the
Berklee Public wifi network. An ounce of prevention!
10. Evaluation/Diagnosis/Remediation: