For a final project, students will create a musical family tree, tracing their families' migration as far back as they can, noting what regions (of the U.S. or the world) their relatives came from. A key component will be for students to discover and document or deduce what music their relatives listened to, based on time and location.
Lesson Plans
Lesson Plan #1
Objective: Students will be able to create a "musical family tree" that traces their family back at least three generations and includes information on their geographical area and what music they may have listened to.
Lesson Plan #2
Objective: Students will take the role of a recent African-American migrant to Chicago and write a letter to their family at home detailing their experiences.
Lesson Plan #3
Objective: Students will be able to explain how clothing choices signify affiliation with certain subculture (musical or otherwise), and sketch and label an outfit that shows identification with a certain genre. Other students will see if they can identify the subculture based on the clothing choices.
Lesson Plan #4
Students will examine a Mexican
corrido
and compare it to other songs and poetry that pay tribute to the deceased. Students will compose their own (from their own viewpoint, from that of a fictional character, or by taking an existing song in a genre they are already familiar with and turning it into a
corrido
.)
Lesson Plan #5
Students will analyze a
corrido
and compare it to the lyrics of a popular swing piece from the era. Who are the songs' respective audiences? What purpose does each song serve?
Lesson Plan #6
Students will analyze the lyrics of the Cherry-Poppin' Daddies' "Zoot Suit Riot" and look at the ways in which modern-day pop culture reinvents or romanticizes the historic past. How does this modern version represent the riot? What is left out in the Cherry Poppin' Daddies' rendition? How does this offer a different narrative about the past?
Lesson Plan #7
Students read Eleanor Roosevelt's editorial on the Zoot Suit Riots and note her rhetorical devices – was she correct? More importantly, has anything changed today? Students will then ask the same questions regarding the Los Angeles Times' response to Roosevelt.
Lesson Plan #8
My unit will have students reflect on what determines a region's characteristic "sound" and determine if their region (New Haven) has a specific "sound" like other urban centers do.
Lesson Plan #9
As a final project, students will forecast future migration patterns and speculate as to how these trends could change or create future genres of music.
