Audio Lesson Plan

Teacher Name: Brooke Kistner

Lesson Title: Analyzing the American Dream
Target Grade/Subject: This is targeted for Honors 11th grade English class
studying American Literature at in a county where students are issued
IBooks. The typical class size in the school is 19. This school is a specialty
center for technology, so most students will have sufficient experience with
technology. Most of these students have access to technology such as
computers, video cameras and internet at home. The students attend each
class on Monday (45 mins)and have a 90 minute block schedule the rest of
the week. This lesson is intended to take place towards the end of the
poetry unitto ensure students’ familiarity with material and terms. Although
the students are strong test takers, they prefer not to be assessed through
tests on their knowledge and abilities.
Length: 90 minutes

VA SOL:
11.5 The student will read and critique a variety of poetry.
a) Analyze the poetic elements of contemporary and traditional
poems.
b) Identify the poetic elements and techniques that are most appealing
and that make poetry enjoyable.
c) Compare and contrast the works of contemporary and past
American poets.

Essential Questions:
1. Can songs be interpreted as poetry?
2. How do these songs/poems portray Americans?
3. How do these songs contrast/support the idea of the “American
Dream”?
4. How do these songs compare with the poems representing the idea of
the “American Dream”?

Objectives:
• Identify at least four poetic elements within each song/poem presented
• Make connections between the songs/poems and the “American
Dream”
• Compare/contrast the structure of poems and songs
• Determine each author’s point of view on the American Dream
• Compile a “new” song with the selected elements using Garageband

Tools and Resources

• Handouts of lyrics to the following songs: Bruce Springsteen “Born in
the U.S.A.”, Ben Folds “Jesusland”, Neil Diamond “America”, and
Alabama “Song of the South”
• Audio Cds of the above songs
 • Headphones for each student
• Handouts of the following poems: “The American Dream” Gary R. Hess,
“The American Dream” Sgt. Aaron M. Gilbert, “Democracy” Leonard
Cohen, and “Shrinking Away” Jim Northup
• Textbooks/notes for reference of poetic elements/terms
• School issued laptops with Garageband and internet access (class
website)
• Teacher’s USB
• Classroom Computer
• LCD Projector

Preparation
Technology/Classroom Arrangement and Management Strategies:
• Students will be allowed time in class to examine the audio files on
their laptops. The students will need internet access to upload their
blogs. If internet isn’t accessible, they will save their Word document
to a USB and will have a quick class discussion on the findings.

Prerequisite technology skills needed by students:

• Basic working knowledge of internet and word processing skills.
• Basic knowledge of Garageband

Lesson Development
Focus and Review of previous work/knowledge:
Students will first need to identify poetic elements and structure of the
song/poem they are given. They can use their textbooks, notes and internet
to help determine the elements.

Anticipatory set:
Students will be asked the following questions in an open discussion:
1. What makes a poem effective?
2. What elements are common in the poems we’ve read so far?
3. Have any of you ever written a song?
a. Does is seem possible the song could be interpreted as a
poem?
How, why, etc.?
4. What differentiates a poem from a song? Or is there any
differentiation between the two?

Instructional Activity:
Students will be placed in groups of 5 and be assigned the following
poem/song:
Group 1: “Born in the U.S.A.” Bruce Springsteen, “Shrinking Away” Jim
Northup
Group 2: “Jesusland” Ben Folds, “The American Dream” Sgt. Aaron M. Gilbert
Group 3: “Song of the South” Alabama, “Democracy” Leonard Cohen
Group 4: “Political Science” Randy Newman, “The American Dream” Gary R.
Hess

Each group is responsible for the following:

1. Uploading the song to their computer and listening to their assigned
song (with headphones)
2. Reading the poem they were given
Using Garageband
1. Upload the song and pull out the 4 poetic elements you chose to
identify, making them their own special file
2. Save this as a file to the Teacher’s USB
In Word Document:
1. State the poem’s and the song’s theme
2. State the author’s intended or possible audiences
3. State whether the author is effective in conveying his message
4. State whether society would agree with author. Why? Why not?
5. Working through each song and poem to pull out at least 4 poetic
elements in each work- you will need to be able to defend your findings
6. Submit this to the class website
7. Each group member must comment on another group’s findings via
blogging on the class website.
Once all the songs are collected, the teacher will upload the clips to the class
computer’s Garageband, which is connected to a LCD projector. The class
will then choose how they want to compile the clips into a “new” song. The
teacher will then play the song at the end of class so the students can hear
each groups findings.

Guided practice and checking for understanding (student activities):

Students will work together in finding poetic elements in the songs and in the
poems. The students will work together in compiling a “new” song
containing all the poetic elements from each group.

Independent practice (student activities):

• Students will comment on another group’s findings via the class blog.
Through this, they will show their understanding of the poetic elements
and interpretations of poems.

Closure:
• The students can listen to the “new” song. The students will then
discuss the following questions:
• Can songs be interpreted as poetry?
• How do these songs/poems portray Americans?
• How do these songs contrast/support the idea of the “American
Dream”?
• How do these songs compare with the poems representing the
idea of the “American Dream”?
 • How do you better understand the poetic elements through this
exercise?

Evaluation Procedure
Assessment of objectives:
• Each group will have contributed their own clips to the “new” song and
will have uploaded their Word document to the class website. Each
student will have commented on another group’s findings. The
students will be graded on the group’s blog and their contribution to
the “new” song.

Rubric:
4 – Group provided strong examples of poetic elements, successfully linked
the songs/poems to the American Dream, effectively contributed to the
“new” song, to the class blog and class discussion
3 – Group provided some strong examples of poetic elements, somewhat
linked the songs/poems to the American Dream, somewhat contributed to
the “new” song, class blog and class discussion
2 – Group provided weak examples of poetic elements, weakly linked the
songs/poems to the American Dream, weakly contributed to the “new” song,
class blog and class discussion
1 – Group did not provide examples of poetic elements, did not link the
songs/poems to the American Dream, did not contribute to the “new” song,
class blog and class discussion