Thematic Lesson Plan Subject: Music Grade: High School Class Composition: ELL students Aim/Goal: 1.

Literacy goal- After completing this lesson, the students will have read and understood the history of work songs, and be able to place them into a more modern setting. 2. Academic goal- After completing this lesson, the students will be more comfortable with the entire idea of work songs and ultimately be able to compose and perform their own versions, based on what they have learned. Anticipated difficulty: This lesson may be difficult during the reading about the history of work songs used in the past because the reading can get a little complex. To help the ELL students through this process, I will prove a glossary of important terms for reference. Also, I will have group work activities so they can collaborate and bounce ideas off of each other. Response to Anticipated difficulty: In response to these difficulties, I plan on doing a jigsaw reading activity(Dong Ch. 6). This will allow each of the students to have a chance to speak in their group meeting and really grasp one part of the reading, which is less overwhelming. I feel it will be effective having the students explain their portion of the reading to one another. After they complete this group work, we will have a full class discussion, which will clarify any remaining questions. Materials: Instruments (percussion instruments, rhythm sticks, etc.), worksheets, articles for reading groups (Concentration Camp Music by Neville Cohn, Slave Work Songs by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation) Time: 5 minutes Do Now: As students walk in, there will be a video clip playing of people singing a work song. Students will complete a worksheet that asks basic questions such as Do you know what a work song is? along with some vocabulary and important terms that will be in the readings/discussions. This will give them time to note what they know prior to this lesson, and what they need to focus on throughout. (Dong Ch.4) Blooms Taxonomy level: Knowledge Time: 25 minutes Procedure/Activity: Jigsaw (Dong Ch. 6) The students will be placed in groups of five(each group having at least one ELL student) and each read a specified section of the readings that I will give out. They will then each explain their section to the rest of the class. Each group will be reading about a specific aspect of work songs and how they were created/used for a specific form of labor or due to a certain situation they were stuck in. They will then answer a few questions as a group about the

readings. Once they have read and discussed the reading, they will put together different aspects of each song they read about and create their own based on something personal to them that they can agree on. Blooms Taxonomy level: Comprehension, Application Some of my questions: -Can you explain what a work song is in your own words? -What are a few of the situations in which people used work songs? -Were instruments used or were these songs mostly sung? -How did people use these songs to communicate to one another? -How important do you think these work songs were for each group of people? -What other situations can you think of that could depend on work songs, aside from what you read about? -Do you think people could/would unite over a single song in todays working society? Anticipated student questions: -How did work songs actually help people in these bad situations? -Did everyone learn the same songs? -Did they play any other kind of music besides this? During this activity, I will be walking around from group to group to check in on their progress and listen in on their discussions. I also will be throwing in some of these questions to each group to keep them thinking differently. Blooms Taxonomy level: Analysis Time: 10 minutes (in class) Follow up Activity: Each group will explain a bit about what they read in their group and then play their rhythmic piece for the rest of the class. This activity will reinforce what they have learned because they will have to discuss what they learned without reading off of a paper, and then ultimately play for everyone else which will help them grasp the culture on a different level. (At home) The students will trade their rationale with another group and they will each respond to the other groups composition and reasoning. They will do this in the form of a journal entry, making useful comments but in a low-key, easy-to-grasp manner. They will trade back tomorrow in class. Blooms Taxonomy level: Synthesis Assessment: I will evaluate the students understanding of my literacy and academic goals by their group performance of their work song composition. Also, I will pay a lot of attention to their participation in their group and the analysis questions they completed. Finally, I will look at their individual journal entry response to another groups composition and rationale, which will really reiterate if they grasped something from this lesson. I will evaluate my own success in creating student understanding based on how the students perform together and especially on their rationales along with their student compositions. That will really show me if they grasped something from this lesson because they need to take it out of context and put it in their own culture. If this lesson doesnt work out as planned, I may do a little more large group discussion before allowing the students to do this much work on their own, to clarify as much as possible before they are in small groups.

Tomorrows Lesson: In my next lesson, I will allow the students to work on individual pieces, talk about what inspired them, and why they wrote it the way they did. If the students dont feel comfortable creating a song alone, they can write a poem, draw a picture or express themselves through any medium as long as they can explain their reasoning. In this lesson, we will get deeper into what is behind the music, emotionally and spiritually. The students will hopefully be able to get around the specific facts that they were discussing yesterday, and be able to attach an emotional and more real connection to the music. We will also step into the concept of how these work songs influence popular music of today. We will step more into the synthesis and evaluation steps of Blooms Taxonomy, allowing the students to create their own voices and opinions towards this whole process. Explain: This lesson is helping prepare the students for tomorrows lessons and goals because they will become comfortable with what was historically going on during the time that these work songs were created. They will realize that these songs were used in several different ways and were helpful for many different people. Once they gain this understanding, they will be able to become more creative in the process and step towards their own ideas and opinions on this culture. Denote: This activity is meaningful in that it informs the students on an important cultural aspect of our history that has helped shape a lot of todays music that we use to this day. It is important for the students to understand how music can be such a huge part of getting through hard times and bringing people together. Also, this activity will begin to allow the students become comfortable playing in a group setting, performing for others, and ultimately composing their own works. All of that is great for character building and confidence amongst the students. Also, this may inform many students which particular aspect of music they are more drawn to or most comfortable with for future reference.