Picture Book Lessons

All of my articles that I read dealt with read alouds so, I chose read aloud picture books for each of my lessons. The books that I used were: When Marian Sang by: Pam Munoz Ryan; Moses - When Harriet Tubman Led her People to Freedom by: Carole Boston Weatherford; Martin's Big Words by: Doreen Rappaport; and Ella Fitzgerald -The Tale of a Vocal Virtuoso by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney. I used different strategies with each lesson and had a good deal of success with each lesson.  I think the students really enjoyed looking at music from a different persepctive than performance.  The following lesson was my favorite. We actually got to discuss a lot of social studies in this lesson.  It's great for students to see what battles have been won so, that they can enjoy the liberties and freedom that they have.

Lesson #1

Read Aloud

Performance Standard: MMSIC.7 – Evaluating music and music performances

MMSIC.8 – Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

MMSIC.9 – Understanding music in relation to history and culture

Essential Question: What is the relationship between music, history, and visual arts?

Objectives: Identify and describe relationships between music, history, and visual arts.

Identify and comprehend new vocabulary used in the text.

Demonstrate literacy skills through reading and discussing musical settings of varied literature.

Supplies: When Marian Sang

By: Pam Munoz Ryan

Alpha Boxes worksheet

1. Read the story aloud, showing the pictures after reading each page.
2. During the read aloud, the teacher references many songs in the text by singing the lyrics. The students joined in singing “My Country ‘tis of Thee” during the reading of the text.
3. Students discussed the new vocabulary notated in the alpha boxes and developed a definition of their own with a partner.
4. The class discussed all of the new vocabulary words that they encountered in the reading of the text. Student-created definitions were shared and discussed and the book was summarized through student-led discussion.
5. Vocabulary: opulent; trepidation; metropolitan; momentous; and contralto

Lesson Two

When Marian Sang

Performance Standard: MMSIC.7 – Evaluating music and music performances

MMSIC.8 – Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

MMSIC.9 – Understanding music in relation to history and culture

Essential Question: What are the stylist techniques in Marian's vocal performance?

Objectives: Identify and describe relationships between music, dance arts, theatre arts, and visual arts.

Demonstrate literacy skills through reading and discussing musical settings of varied literature.

The students will study the correlation of reading phonemes and singing phonemes.

Discuss stylistic characteristics of a varied repertoire, including world music and analyze vocal performance.

Discuss the relationship between music, world events, history, and culture.

Supplies: When Marian Sang

Comprehension Worksheet
Recording of "Deep River"

1. The students will independently answer the questions on the worksheet.
2. The class will discuss the answers to the questions.

Extension activity: Students will listen to a recording of Marian Anderson's "Deep River" to analyze the techniques used and observe the opulent range that is displayed in the song. The Students practiced the techniques using “My Country ‘tis of Thee” from the book. The vowels of singing were discussed and the syllables were broken down into phonemes. The students practiced these to develop correct singing diction.  This method works very well for ESOL students as well as English speaking students. We use hand signals for the vowels and extended the vowels sounds into syllabic formation. This made it very easy for all my students to accomplish.

The next time I teach this lesson I will focus on the comprehension of the text and use a different worksheet for vocabulary. I feel that the KWL chart might be more helpful with the content that I want them to focus the most on. The alpha boxes were not as functional for the higher level vocabulary. Having some vocabulary in the beginning would have served as a great hook for the story (even though the students were enthralled in the story)!

Reflection: I loved seeing how the different methods of teaching vocabulary had an impact on how the students learned the material and responded to the material. Talking about prior knowledge and terms that students might encounter in the text, gives them a "heads-up" on what to look for when listening. Sometimes students have a hard time listening if they don't have something to listen for; listening should always have purpose (spoken like a true musician)!

Discussion of the content from this book led to many ideas about how history has a direct correlation with art and music. Students that did not have a American cultural background were able to grasp what it was like in the early nineteen hundreds and how things have changed over the course of a century. Students with different historical and cultural backgrounds were able to share about the similarities and differences between American history/culture and their own history/culture. This helped to encourage respect for other cultures. People who respect others and have the courage to stand up for their beliefs are the people who knock down barriers!