Students explore how art reflects life by making a collage about what is important to them in their lives.
Grades: 4-8

Resource:
Painting: Dionisio Ceballos video Segment

Teaching Concepts:

• Artists use their own interests as subject matter for their art.
• The design principle of balance refers to the visual equalization of the elements in a work of art and can be achieved through asymmetry, symmetry, or radial balance.
• A collage is a work of art made by attaching pieces of paper or other materials to a flat surface.

Academic Content

• Visual Art: principles of design (balance), art processes (two-dimensional)

Lesson Idea
Discuss: In the video segment, painter Dionisio Ceballos talks about the way his art reflects the phases of his life and what was important to him at various times. He mentions how getting married changed the topics in his painting. Ask students to think about important aspects of their lives. What people, books, theater, sports, and activities are most important to them right now?

Create: Provide students with magazines, catalogs, and newspapers. Ask them to cut out pictures and words representing this current stage in their lives. They should cut out items of importance reflecting family, hobbies, school, sports, etc. Invite them to add photos or drawings of important people in their lives. Discuss the design principle of balance and the three forms of balance (symmetrical, asymmetrical, and radial). Then have students arrange a balanced composition on a heavy sheet of paper.

Expand: Have students share their collages with an older family member—a parent, aunt, uncle, or grandparent. Students should share why different items were included in the collage and invite the adults to tell about their childhood. What items might have been included in the adult’s collage at the same age? Would the adult’s collage look different today? In what ways?

Author: Adapted from a lesson by Cindy Merk

Students explore isolations, a technique characteristic of jazz dance, through observation and experience.

Grades: 6-12

Resource:
Heat/Ode to Sabrina in video segment

Suggested Uses:
Dance: elements (time and space)
Dance: dance styles (jazz dance)

Teaching Concepts:
Jazz dance technique works a great deal with isolations and coordination.
Jazz dance communicates the rhythmic complexity and emotional dynamics inherent in jazz music.

Lesson Idea

Open: Tell students they will watch two different examples of jazz dance. As they watch, tell them to note characteristics of jazz technique.

View: “Heat/Ode to Sabrina” from Dance Performances DVD or in PBS LearningMedia, including David Thurmond’s introduction. Optional: Watch Program 9, “Jazz Dance,” from DanceSense.

Discuss: The characteristics of jazz dance and the connection between jazz dance and jazz movement. Did the dances and music seem interconnected? Focus in on isolations: Did students see examples of isolations in the dance performances?

Move: Have students practice isolating specific body parts; e.g., head side to side or down and up, shoulder up and down, ribcage forward and back, hips side to side. Use jazz music and do this to the beat of the music. This exercise lets students work with the element of time while defining space by the shapes their bodies make. Try moving two parts independently, but at the same time; e.g., shoulders and hips. Try walking in time to the music while isolating and moving one body part to the beat.

Author: Adapted from the DanceSense guide

Students compare and contrast the basic vocabulary of ballet, modern, and jazz dance through observation and experience.

Grades: 6-12

Resource:
Dance Vocabulary/Basic Positions video segment

Suggested Uses:
Dance: identifying, describing, comparing, and contrasting three dance styles: ballet, modern, and jazz

Teaching Concepts:
Ballet style and technique are rooted in five basic positions.
Modern and jazz dance adapt these positions to reflect the different qualities of these styles.
Viewing and experiencing the basic dance vocabulary helps students better understand the qualities of the three styles.

Lesson Idea

Open: Tell students they will watch dancers demonstrate the basic positions of ballet, modern, and jazz dance. As they watch, they should note the similarities and differences among the three styles.

View: The “Dance Vocabulary/Basic Positions” video on the DanceSense Enhanced DVD or in PBS LearningMedia. You may need to show this segment more than once or stop and start between each of the styles.

Discuss: The similarities and differences students observed among the three dance styles—from shoes to positions of the feet and arms to body movements and alignment.

Perform: Select movements from each of the three styles for students to try (watch each segment again). For example, have students try the five basic ballet positions:

• First: heels touching, feet forming a straight line.
• Second: heels wide apart, feet forming a straight line.
• Third: one foot in front of the other with heel against the instep.
• Fourth: feet apart, one in front of the other, heels in line.
• Fifth: one foot in front of the other with the heel against the joint of the big toe.

From each of these positions, have students try executing a plié, a bend of the knees. Remind students that their knees should point directly over the toes when they bend and that the upper body should stay upright, with shoulders over hips. Now try these positions in the modern style and in the jazz style. If you have a dancer in the class, have him or her demonstrate and help students perform the positions correctly. When professional dancers dance, it may look effortless. Now that students have tried the basic positions, do they have a better sense of what it takes to dance? Is it as effortless as it looks? How does doing the movements help students “feel” the differences among the three styles?

Expand: Watch an example of each of the three dance styles from the Dance Performances DVD/PBS LearningMedia collection. Have students identify positions and movements they’ve learned.

Author: Adapted from the DanceSense guide

Students research the history of the blues, characteristics of a blues song, and specific types of blues. Then they present their findings to the class in creative and imaginative ways.
Grades: 6-12

Resource:
“Light Rain Blues” performed by Taj Mahal

Teaching Concepts:

• The blues evolved out of African-American spirituals, work songs, and field chants.
• A set of basic chords, formats, and instruments typifies the blues.
• Nearly every form of 20th-century American music—including jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ’n’ roll—traces its roots back to the blues.

Academic Content

• Music: purposes of music, periods and styles (blues)
• Music and Social Studies: African-American culture
• Elements of music: rhythm, melody, tempo

Lesson Idea
Open: Ask what it means to get “the blues.” Have students give examples of songs they know that could be categorized as blues music.

View: The Taj Mahal performance of “Light Rain Blues.”

Research: Have students research the beginnings of the blues and the instruments, chords, rhythms, melodies, and tempos involved in a traditional blues song.

Activity: In small groups, students research different types of blues—for example, African blues, Chicago blues, New Orleans blues, Memphis blues, swamp blues, etc. Have each group pick a specific type of blues music to research and present to the class. The presentations should be creative and imaginative, using visuals as well as music. Instruct the students to include information about what is distinctive about the type of blues they’re researching as well as its origins, practitioners, and representative songs.

Perform: Is there someone in the class who plays an instrument and can demonstrate blues chords and the basic 12-bar blues? Or seek out a blues musician in the community who would be willing to come in to demonstrate and perform.

Extend: Explore how jazz, rhythm and blues, rock ’n’ roll, and other forms of 20th-century music can trace their roots back to the blues. Ask students to identify popular songs that have their roots in the blues.

Author: Sara O’Keefe

Students identify and research the origins of traditional folk instruments and present their research to the class in a creative way.
Grades: 4-8

Teaching Concepts:

• Traditional musicians perform using a variety of instruments that help give traditional music a distinctive sound.
• Researching the origins of traditional folk instruments can help students better understand and appreciate various cultures.

Academic Content

• Music: elements/structures of music (timbre, instrument families)
• Music: purposes of music (ceremonial, recreational, artistic expression)
• Music and Social Studies: Appalachian and African-American cultures

Lesson Idea
Additional Resources: “Shady Grove” by Jean Ritchie, “Bushy Tail” by Malcolm Dalglish, “Gospel Train” by Rhonda and Sparky Rucker, “Foo Boo Woo Boo John” by Mike Seeger, “Spoons” by Malcolm Dalglish, and “The Hound Dog Song” by the Gray Eagle Band

View: Performances of any of the songs listed above. While they watch, have students list the traditional instruments used by the musicians.

Research: Have the class research the history of each instrument. Where did it originate? Who where the first people to play it? Has the instrument changed? What were the purposes of the songs in which it was featured? Which instrument family does it belong to?

Create: Have students come up with a creative way to present their research (examples: posters, PowerPoint® presentations, instrument demonstrations, performances, etc.).

Expand: In some of the programs, the artists talk about the instruments they play and how to play them. Ask whether any students in your class have instruments they could bring in and demonstrate. Invite local traditional musicians to come into your class to introduce the instruments they play and how they play them.

Author: Sara O’Keefe