Curated OER
Once Upon a Time: Writing Stories about Reading
Students read a New York Times article to examine strong first person voice in essays about reading. They write their own first person essays about some aspect of reading, participate in peer review, and re-writing.
Curated OER
Writing Task
Eighth graders consider parallel relationships in Much Ado About Nothing and the structure of the play within an extended piece of writing. In this point of view instructional activity, 8th graders examine relationships and write a...
K20 LEARN
Watch Your Tone: Tone Analysis Through Music And Nonfiction
Identifying the tone of a piece of writing or the author's attitude toward the subject matter can be difficult for learners. Simplify the process with a lesson that begins with skits, moves to songs and their lyrics, and then to passages...
Curated OER
American Idol Presents: Solar System Night
Students explore facts about the solar system. They conduct research, and compose lyrics to well-known songs about one of the planets or various members of the solar system.
Curated OER
Sharing Beauty Through Song
Students perform a song for their school community. In this music instructional activity, students sing the philanthropic song See Me Beautiful by Red Grammar and reflect upon the lyrics. Students perform the song for their school...
ESL Kid Stuff
Describing Things (Adjectives)
Describing things using adjectives is the focus of this lesson designed for language learners. Class members play games, draw pictures, and sing songs, adding adjectives to describe animals.
Curated OER
The Twelve Days of Christmas
Students explore the origins of a traditional Christmas song. They adapt historic lyrics to have meaning in their lives today and fabricate, write, and illustrate an accordion book or card. They compare this song to the words of other...
Curated OER
Philanthropy in Song
Learners discover the concept of philanthropy. In this service learning lesson, students define the word philanthropist through song.
Curated OER
The Quatrain
Learners analyze the quatrain structure and rhyming in the song, "Puddles". They use this format to create their own quatrain lyrics for a song then they share their song ang revise it.
Curated OER
Civil Rights Violations In America, A Historical Review
Students analyze an event where a person or groups of people were singled out because of their race, religion, nationality or sexuality. They interpret the song "Scarecrow" by Melissa Etheridge and apply the lyrics to the events they...
Curated OER
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.
Curated OER
DIGITAL WATERWORKS
Students add digitally-produced, water sound effects to a song, using electronic keyboards.
Curated OER
Poetry through Jazz, Rap, and Hip Hop
Students explore poetry through jazz, rap, and hip hop music. They discover the common threads that run through the poetry and music. Students design their own lyrics to a jazz, rap, or hip hop selection and share their songs with the...
Curated OER
Early Industrialization
Eighth graders analyze primary source documents emphasizing young people in factory labor (mill workers during 1840-1860). They study hours of labor, ages of laborers, reasons for working, and working conditions. They write a poem or song.
Curated OER
Kodaly Beat Lesson
Introduce rhythmic beat and melodic beat with a upbeat activity that asks young musicians to clap the beat to their favorite nursery rhyme. To introduce the rest beat, class members use small drums or other percussion instruments to play...
Curated OER
How Poets Evoke Social and Historical Representations
High schoolers explore how poems represent the social, historical, and cultural times that they were written in. In this poetry lesson plan, students compare and contrast poems with music of the time and explore implications of writing...
Curated OER
Science Hits Activity
Students listen to a song that teaches the elements of the periodic table and write their own song to be used as an aid in remembering scientific information.
Curated OER
I Watch Babies Grow
Students explore the changes of life in different generations. In this change of life instructional activity, students help out families with new babies and learn about their needs. Students participate in interviews, creating timelines...
Curated OER
Civil War
Historical poetry is lyrical in form and rich with content. After examining the differences between the Northern and Southern states before and during the U.S. Civil War, learners complete a Venn diagram and create an illustration of the...
Curated OER
Introducing Poetry
Students explore poetry. In this language arts lesson, students discuss the elements of poetry and students rewrite a lyric or poem.
Curated OER
Be An Incredible Songwriter
Students write songs about something incredible they have experienced or know about. They consider topics of events, dreams, ideas, feelings, or animals. They accompany themselves with small musical instruments while performing the songs...
Curated OER
Screening Coleridge’s Fantasies: Using Popular Music as a Bridge to Literacy
Twelfth graders use music to aid them in interpreting poetry. In this poetry lesson, 12th graders analyze the lyrics, figurative language, and literary devices of selected music. Students compare the music to the poetry of Samuel...
Curated OER
North Carolina State Flag/Song
Fourth graders describe and identify the North Carolina state song and flag by listening to the song and drawing the flag. They use oral and written presentations with an awareness of purpose and audience by creating their own song...
Curated OER
Musical Moments
Students listen to a song in popular culture. Using the lyrics, they identify the theme and share their conclusions with the class. While listening to the song again, they complete a worksheet along with defining new vocabulary words. ...