Where are We Going?

Sydney Walker The Ohio State University

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Challenge 1

How can this knowledge be translated into classroom practice in a meaningful manner?
 

Challenge 2

How can this knowledge be translated into classroom practice as inquiry rather than recall?
 

Challenge 3

How can this knowledge become the basis for interdisciplinary learning?
 

Challenge 4

How can this knowledge become relevant for students?
 

How can this knowledge be translated into classroom practice in a meaningful manner?

To design instruction in a meaningful manner, the knowledge which is learned in these two weeks about African arts, jazz, and postmodernism will need a conceptual framework or organizing structure. Without such a structure, the knowledge, while interesting and informative, may become either a rote list or disconnected hodge podge of facts. One possibility for such a framework might be to organize the knowledge around three primary components:

1. A big idea to give the knowledge focus.
2. Essential understandings to prioritize the knowledge.
3. Essential questions to direct inquiry about the knowledge.

A Conceptual framework for Unit Design

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2.

3.

4.

Example

A Conceptual Framework for Unit Design

Essential Questions

Step 1: Choose a big idea. Write a rationale.

Step 2: Develop essential understandings for the big idea.

Step 3: Choose a related topic for teaching the big idea.

Step 4: Develop essential understandings for the related topic.

Step 5: Choose appropriate discipline outcomes and expectations.

Step 6: Develop 1-4 essential questions which incorporate the big idea, topic idea, and discipline outcomes and expectations.

Step 7: Develop assessment criteria for the unit.

Step 8: Develop instructional activities, lesson objectives & assessment.
 
 
 

Rationale

Why is this unit worth teaching?

The connections between the arts and society are important notions for students to understand if they are to fully comprehend their meanings, purposes, and continuation. The arts are not separate from society, but are highly dependent upon society and society, in turn, is also impacted by the arts. If students learn about the arts in isolation from their social context, their understandings will be significantly limited. Jazz is a particularly rich vehicle for teaching students about the relationship between society and the arts. It is an artform which has developed in the recent past in their own culture. It clearly demonstrates the impact of tradition, the role of cultural factors such as racism, the consequence of key figures and the role of public opinion in creating a changed artform.
 

Unit Plan--Overview
(6-8 Lessons)

Big Idea: Society and the Arts

Essential Understandings:

Essential Understandings:

Learner Outcomes and Expectations:

• Students will identify the characteristics of musical sound.
• Students will demonstrate an understanding of music as an essential aspect of history and human experience.
• Students will analyze the development of jazz as a new artform.
   

What should students understand and be able to do as a result of this unit?

Big Idea: Society and the Arts

Essential Understandings:

Students will listen to jazz and traditional compositions for significant similarities and differences. In small groups students will create a visual representation of the similarities and differences between jazz and a more traditional musical form. Each group will present their representation to the class.
 

Assessment:

What should students understand and be able to do as a result of this lesson?

Criteria: Students will be able to identify significant similarities and differences in jazz and traditional compositions.
 

Evidence: Students will create a visual representation of the similarities and differences between jazz and traditional musical compositions.  Students will compare their visual representation with another group's.
 
 

Lesson 2:

Big Idea: Society and the Arts

Essential Understandings:

As a large group, students will generate a list of possibilities for why jazz developed as a new artform in America during the twenties, thirties, and forties. Based upon this list, students will generate questions to research for understanding why jazz developed as it did in American culture. In small groups, students will write and perform a 15 minute skit which involves a specific social conflict associated with the development of jazz in America, incorporates the use of jazz and traditional musical forms, and reveals the role of a key jazz figure.

Assessment:

What should students understand and be able to do as a result of this lesson?

Criteria: Students will be able to understand how specific cultural factors and key individuals enabled and limited the development of jazz in America.

Evidence: Students will compare their understandings of why jazz developed in America with their initial speculations.

Sponsored by The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, The Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, and the Maryland State Department of Education.