Rationale
Why is
this unit worth teaching?
The connections
between the arts and identity are important notions for students
to explore if they are to understand the human impulse to create
art and the personal values of the artistic process. The arts
are not separate from the artist. They offer an opportunity
to discover and transform who we are. Jazz, America's contribution
to music, is a particularly rich vehicle for teaching students
about the relationship between artists and identity. A player's
art even under the guidance of a composer, this music of spontaneous
melodic embellishment is an art form which has developed in
the recent past out of African American culture and reflects
a sense of group identity. Its distinctive rhythms, scales and
modes, harmonic progressions and riffs, and its improvisational
elements celebrate the communal need for self-expression and
allow the individual performer an opportunity to unmask and
explore in order to develop his unique voice.
* Thanks
to mentor Dr. Paul Traver for naming our unit
Unit Plan--Overview
(6-8 lessons)
Big Idea:
Identity and the Arts
Essential
Understandings:
Topic:
Jazz
Essential
Understandings:
Big
Idea: Artists and Identity
Essential
Questions:
1. How can art help us to discover and express
our identity in relation to others?
2. What is the role of structure in helping
us to find our own voice?
Lesson Objective:
Students will explore artistic ideas through simple improvisation,
a key element of jazz, in a variety of art forms.
Lesson
Activities:
Students will become familiar with a musical theme and related
topic; e.g.. "Yankee Doodle." The class will divide
into small teams selecting an art form in which they would
like to work. The music team will improvise the theme
by embellishing on the melody and altering its rhythm to make
it in a swing style. The art team will create a visual
work that will include all the visual elements (line, shape,
color, rhythm, form, texture and value) using a medium selected
by the teacher and centered around the selected topic.
The theater team will create an improvised scene with a beginning,
middle, and end, presenting a problem or conflict centered
around the selected topic. The dance team will create
an improvised dance centered around the selected topic.
Each team, with the exception of art will perform or present
their accompanied improvisation to the entire class.
Art will create their work while listening to the jazz accompaniment.
Assessment:
What should students understand and be able to do as
a result of this lesson?
Criteria:
Students will be able to work within the parameters of the
instructions to improvise in an art form. They will
work with other students to achieve this.
Evidence:
Students will note that all the arts allow expression through
improvisation and that there is a very close relationship
between the arts. Collaborative work will help to bring
out individual expression.
~
A later lesson will use a different music theme/topic and
the students will perform in a different art form.