By contextualizing the music, students will finish the unit having accomplished several things. The most obvious is the understanding of the content, their country's history, and the music that develops out of culture. This unit is a great time to discuss how music acts as a form of expression. Instead of merely comparing and contrasting audio examples, students are asked to seek and defend an explanation of what the artist was doing when he or she wrote the song, why, and if and how they used musical elements to further the message. If and when students choose to perform songs from this unit, they can start to build an emotional connection and use that to improve the overall quality and impact of their performance, in addition to refining musical technique.
These skills then transfer in a few different ways. A unit like this provides students a framework for analyzing songs in a particular context, in this case, 1965-1969. Students can use this framework to analyze music from a different time period, culture, country, etc. Students can also start building their own framework by looking back on this unit and asking questions, such as, what information did I study in the previous unit? What observations do I still need to make in order to have a better understanding? How do I build a world around the music, especially if the world is one I would otherwise have little or no contact with?