MUSIC INSPIRES WRITING

MUSIC INSPIRES WRITING

Learning Description

Using music as inspiration for creating original poetry and music, students will develop skills and understandings in language arts and music. Creative thinking, vocabulary development, and structural understanding are necessary to create poetry and music in a prescribed form. Musical skills addressed include improvising, composing, listening, and speaking.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: 4-5
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & ELA
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"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can write diamante using appropriate form and parts of speech.
  • I can create and perform effective musical rendering of my diamante.

Essential Questions

  • How can music inspire written and musical composition?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 4: 

ELAGSE4W4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade specific expectations for writing types are defined in Standards 1–3 above.)

 

ELAGSE4L1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

 

Grade 5: 

ELAGSE5W4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Gradespecific expectations for writing types are defined in Standards 1–3 above.)

 

ELAGSE5L1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Arts Standards

Grade 4:

ESGM4.CR.2 Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.

 

ESGM4.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

 

ESGM4.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

ESGM4.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

Grade 5:

ESGM5.CR.2 Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.

 

ESGM5.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

 

ESGM5.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

ESGM5.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 4: 

ELA.4.OE.1 Read and write for a variety of purposes, including academic and personal, for extended periods of time.

 

ELA.4.OE.4 Collaborate with others and use active listening skills.

 

ELA.4.C.4.1 Write grammatically correct single and multi-paragraph compositions using a variety of sentence types and phrasing.

 

Grade 5: 

ELA.5.OE.1 Read and write for a variety of purposes, including academic and personal, for extended periods of time.

 

ELA.5.OE.4 Collaborate with others and use active listening skills.

 

ELA.5.C.4.1 Write grammatically correct single and multi-paragraph compositions using a variety of sentence types and phrasing.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 1: I can arrange and compose music.

Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.

Anchor Standard 6: I can analyze music.

Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

  • Adjective - Describes a noun
  • Noun - Person, place, or thing
  • Verb - Action word
  • Gerund - Verb ending in –ing that acts as a noun
  • Diamante - Poem that looks like a diamond (derived from Italian word for diamond)

Arts Vocabulary

  • Body percussion - Sounds produced by striking or scraping parts of the body; typically includes snapping, clapping, patting, and stamping
  • Found sound - Sounds produced by non-traditional sound sources in the environment (e.g., scraping a ruler along a binder spine, tapping a pencil on a desk)
  • Timbre - Quality of sounds that causes different instruments and/or voices to sound different from each other
  • Rhythm - The pattern of sounds and silences over time, often created by the arrangement of beats, accents, and note durations
  • Melody - A sequence of musical notes that are perceived as a single, coherent entity; it is the part of the music that is most memorable and recognizable, often considered the "tune" of a piece
  • Form - The overall structure or organization of a piece
  • Timbre - The characteristic quality of a musical sound that distinguishes it from other sounds; the different sounds that different instruments make
  • Tempo - The speed at which a piece of music is played
  • Dynamics - The loudness or softness of sound
  • Program music - Compositions with extra-musical content intending to evoke a literary or pictorial association; particularly popular in the 19th century
  • Absolute music - Compositions with no intended literary, dramatic, or pictorial association

 

Materials

  • Paper and pencils
  • Tape
  • Sound source (computer and speakers)
  • Audio recording (e.g., Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”)
  • Whiteboard/flipchart and markers
  • Colored index cards/strips of paper (three different colors)
  • Visual of diamante form
  • Visual of diamante poem (“Seasons Change”)
  • Hand drum (or other sound source to make a drum beat)

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Classroom Tips: Arrange student groups in the room so that they can move far enough apart during the creating process to enable careful listening and minimize distraction from other groups.

 

  • Review definitions of nouns, verbs, adjectives and gerunds.
    • Use a hand drum (or other sound source) to set a steady beat. Speaking rhythmically to the beat of the drum, ask students what each part of speech is and have them answer, speaking to the beat of the drum.
  • Ask students what kind of instrument you are using. Ask them if a drum is a noun, adjective or verb.
  • Have students describe the sound and/or visual appearance of the hand drum; classify these words as adjectives.
  • Have students describe how one might play the drum (strike, hit, thump); classify these words as verbs.
  • Next, transform the verbs to gerunds (striking, hitting, thumping).
  • Challenge students to think of an instrument that produces a much different sound from a hand drum (such as a cowbell) and repeat the process of identifying the noun, adjectives, verbs, and gerunds associated with that instrument. Students can do this independently or with a partner.

 

Work Session

  • Review a few of the musical elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, form, timbre, tempo, dynamics as needed to guide listening to a selected piece of music (recommended - Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”).
  • Distribute paper and pencils to students. Play the selected piece of music and have students generate nouns, verbs, adjectives and gerunds associated with what they have heard.
  • Distribute three colored index cards to students and have them write their name on the bottom of each card.
  • Challenge students to transfer three selected words to the appropriate card, using one color card for nouns, a different color card for adjectives, and a different color for gerunds. Students can work with a partner if needed.
  • Post student responses on a wall in columns and discuss different responses.
  • Challenge students to use musical terminology when discussing why they chose certain words to describe what they heard.
  • Display a sample diamante poem and challenge students to discover the form.

 

  • Lead students to understanding that (1) the poem is shaped like a diamond (hence the name diamante); (2) diamante poems can be about one topic or about opposites; (3) the number of words and parts of speech vary by line to create the diamond shape; (4) line four transitions from the first part of the poem to the second; and (5) all words relate to the first and last lines of the poem.
  • Group students into small groups of three to four students.
  • Play selected audio recording, having students write words associated with what they hear. Challenge students to work together to use these words to create their own diamante about the music.
  • Have students experiment with various ways of performing student-created diamantes musically (individually or in small groups).
    • Create soundscape by using body percussion, found sound, unpitched percussion, etc. to accompany reading of diamante.
    • Transfer the text of the diamante to body percussion.
    • Transfer the text of the diamante to unpitched percussion instruments.
    • Use different combinations of voices and/or instruments to perform the diamante (e.g., line 1 = solo; line 2 = duet; line 3 = trio; line 4 = quartet; line 5 = trio; line 6 = duet; line 7 = solo).
    • Alter the tempo (fast/slow) and dynamics (loud/soft/crescendo/decrescendo) while reading the diamante.

 

Closing Reflection

  • Perform student-created diamantes with musical renderings. Discuss appropriate audience participation and etiquette prior to performances.
  • Discuss each performance discussing the parts of speech and the elements of music present.
  • Compare and contrast the diamantes and musical components. Discuss how all students listened to the same musical piece but the diamantes and musical accompaniments were different.

 

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator; ability to identify and generate nouns, verbs, adjectives and gerunds; ability to analyze music in terms of rhythm, melody, harmony, form, timbre, tempo, and/or dynamics as discussed in class; and collaboration with group to create a diamante with musical accompaniment.

 

Summative

CHECKLIST

  • Students can write diamante using appropriate form and parts of speech.
  • Students can create and perform effective musical rendering of their diamante.

 

DIFFERENTIATION 

Acceleration: 

  • Have students experiment with other forms of poetry (e.g., acrostic poems, shape poems, cinquain poems).
  • Write diamantes about other topics (e.g., shapes for visual art and math; habitats for science).
  • If using program music, share the composer’s intent and title. Then have students write a different diamante using the composer’s intent as inspiration.
  • Compare and contrast student writing and musical renderings.

Remediation: 

  • Allow students to work with a partner when analyzing music and diamante.
  • Scaffold the lesson by leading the class to create a collaborative diamante and perform it with body percussion. Then, have students work in groups to create their own.

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Maribeth Yoder-White.

Revised and copyright: September 2024 @ ArtsNOW

 

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