Beginning of unit:
Introduce the unit by encouraging students to predict what the music of this period will reveal:
| 1. |
What kinds of songs would you expect to find during and after this era?
|
| 2. |
What groups are likely to be most involved in composing and performing music during this era?
|
| 3. |
What message would you expect each of these groups of people to send through music? |
| 4. |
How do you think songs were published or distributed during this era? Where might they be performed? |
|
End of unit:
At the end of the unit, ask students to evaluate the legacy of this era's music:
| 1. |
Which of the songs from this era are still around today? |
| |
 |
Who sings them? When? Where? |
| |
|
Why do you think these songs are still around? Are they still associated with this period of history? |
| 2. |
How have people adapted these songs to modern attitudes, ideas, tastes, or technology? |
| 3. |
What ideas and feelings expressed in this era's music are still relevant today? |
| |
|
How are these ideas and feelings being expressed now? |
| |
|
Who is using music to communicate these ideas? What style? |
| 4. |
What modern songs would you compare to these songs? |
| 5. |
What other historic songs express similar ideas or feelings? |
|
Preparing to use the songs:
Use Voices Across Time to help you meet your own instructional objectives more effectively.
|
Use the themes to help you choose songs that meet your needs. |
|
Play songs through once first, letting students listen quietly. Make the lyrics available for students to follow. |
|
Choose some of the general questions from "The Story Behind the Song" to ask. Or use the exercise "I Can Hear it Now" as an alternate way to encourage careful listening.` |
|
After posing a few general questions of your own, ask students specific discussion questions from Voices Across Time, which can be found on the pages for individual songs. |
|
You may wish to play the song again before launching into the more specific questions. |
|
Feel free to adapt! |
|
Think about it:
| 1. |
Choose a similar song from another era to compare with one of the songs you've studied from this era. How are the two songs similar? How do they differ? What do the songs tell you about similarities and differences between the two eras and the people living during those eras? |
| 2. |
What is propaganda? Which songs that we studied in this unit would you classify as "propaganda"? Why? |
|
