Sequella H. Coleman
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Goal:
Relate the blues migration to the next musical phase, jazz and use the migration principal to examine a jazz non-fiction piece.
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Objectives: The student will be able to:
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1. recognize non-fiction as a literary form
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2. recognize mood changes
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3. recognize the similarities between the blues era migration and the evolution of jazz and its migratory occurrences.
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4. listen to and express feeling about music.
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5. draw their
own
image of Romare Bearden’s
Uptown Sunday Night Session
the picture is shown in the student book.
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Vocabulary:
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blues//literary
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migration//similarities
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evolution//mood
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Materials
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Vistas in Reading Literature Gold Level
McDougal, Littell & Company
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(New Haven’s present sixth grade reading book)
Joe Oliver The King
by Studs Terkel with Milly Hawk Daniel
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Vocabulary list provided plus others.
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Jazz tape of your choosing ... I have put one together that reflects the different moods of music mentioned in the story.
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12”x18” white paper
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crayons and markers
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Activities
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1. Teacher will introduce vocabulary. Students will define the words using the glossary. Students will then be directed to replace a given word in dictated sentences with one of the vocabulary words.
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2. The teacher will read the story to the students as a jazz tape plays in the background.
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3. Students will be asked in small groups or pairs to make migration route for Joe Oliver and then transfer the route onto a map. A story location map.
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4. Students will be given parts of the Check and Selection Tests provided with the story.
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5. Students will asked to write an answer to the following question—Did the music playing create or suggest any feelings within you as the story was being read ? Explain in detail.
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6. Students will draw their own version of the jam session painting.
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Evaluation/Assessment
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Discussion/Vocabulary and test papers
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Group migration map
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Jam session drawing
Timeline Two to three class periods
This entire unit includes the possibilities of photography exhibits, video and musical recordings being made by the students to enhance their projects. Perhaps something in the vain of Van der Zee’s “
Harlem Book of the Dead”
where instead of images of bodies laying in state, the student can do photos expressing middle school student “blues”. The students will be encouraged to stretch their imaginations in the expression of their feelings (blues) through words, dance, music, drama and especially art. A collaboration with the art teacher, will allow for the lesson development of the student art panels that can accompany their literary pieces about family migration. You can also coordinate the integration of the visual arts portion of the curriculum with the language arts and social studies portions.
Music and lyric writing can help a student understand their past, present and possibly their future. The introduction of the blues format style is perhaps the awakening of many future learning experiences for your adolescent student as they affirm their place in the world and assert their own “blues impulse”.
