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: 2-3
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & ELA
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

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"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can write diamante using the 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 2: 

ELAGSE2SL2 Recount or describe key ideas or details from written texts read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

 

ELAGSE2L1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

 

Grade 3:

ELAGSE3W10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

 

ELAGSE3SL2 Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

 

ELAGSE3L1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

 

Arts Standards

Grade 2:

ESGM2.CR.2 Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.

 

ESGM2.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

 

ESGM2.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

ESGM2.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

Grade 3:

ESGM3.CR.2 Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.

 

ESGM3.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

 

ESGM3.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

ESGM3.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 2: 

ELA.2.OE.1 Read and write for a variety of purposes, including academic and personal, for extended periods of time. 

 

ELA.2.OE.4 Collaborate with others and use active listening skills. 

 

ELA.2.AOR.2.1 Identify and explain an explicit theme in a literary text. 

 

ELA.2.C.4.1 Write and expand grammatically correct sentences (e.g., simple, compound, declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory). 

 

Grade 3: 

ELA.3.OE.1 Read and write for a variety of purposes, including academic and personal, for extended periods of time. 

 

ELA.3.OE.4 Collaborate with others and use active listening skills. 

 

ELA.3.AOR.2.1 Identify and explain an explicit theme in a literary text and how it is developed by key details. 

 

ELA.3.C.4.1 Write and expand grammatically correct sentences (e.g., simple, compound, and complex) and paragraphs.

 

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)
  • Synonym - A word that means the same thing as another word
  • Antonym - A word that means the opposite as another word

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 
  • Visual of diamante form 
  • Visual of diamante poem (“Seasons Change”) 
  • Optional: Template of Diamante Poem for students to use to write their own
  • 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, if appropriate to what students are learning in class, 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

    • Play a selected piece of music (recommended - Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”). 
  • Teacher tip: Showing a YouTube video of an orchestral performance may be helpful so that students can see the instruments being played.
    • As students listen, ask them to describe the:
      • Melody (what happens to the melody throughout the performance?)
      • Timbre of the instruments (how do musical instruments sound different?),
      • Tempo (when does the music speed up? Slow down?)
      • Dynamics (when does the music get loud? Soft?) 
    • Throughout the listening exercise, ask students what season they think the music is communicating. Ask them what sounds made them think that.
  • Distribute paper and pencils to students. Play the selected piece of music again and have students write down words associated with the music. 
  • Ask students to work with a partner to see if they can circle the adjectives, put a box around the nouns, and underline the verbs. 
  • Next, using anchor chart paper (one for each part of speech), create a class list of adjectives, nouns, and verbs.
    • As students share, challenge them to use musical terminology when discussing why they chose certain words to describe what they heard. 
  • Pass out a sample diamante poem to partner groups. Have students circle the adjectives, put a box around the nouns, and underline the verbs. If students have learned about gerunds, have them put a squiggly line under the gerunds.
  • Then, project the diamante on the board and have students share responses.
  • Ask students to discuss with their partners what the topic/main idea of the poem is.
  • Discuss how (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) lines 1 and 7 are nouns that are either synonyms or antonyms. 
  • Have students work with their partners to create a diamante using the words they generated while listening to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”. Optional: Pass out Template of Diamante Poem to guide students in their writing.
    • Teacher tip: Depending on your students, it may be helpful to decide as a class what the nouns in lines 1 and 7 will be. Students can work with their partners to write lines 2-6.
  • After students have written their poems, have students experiment with various ways of performing student-created diamantes musically (individually or in small groups).
    • Some options include:
      • 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 the similarities and differences in the diamantes and the musical components.

 

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, and adjectives; ability to analyze music in terms of melody, timbre, tempo, and 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) adding musical components. 
  • Write diamantes about other topics (e.g., shapes for visual art and math; habitats for science). 
  • Have students add a visual art component to illustrate their poem. Encourage them to think about their use of color in their artwork.
  • Compare and contrast student writing and musical renderings. 

Remediation: 

  • 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.
  • Rather than having students write their own diamante, pass out different diamantes to the class. Have partners identify the parts of speech and the topic/main idea and then perform their assigned poem with musical accompaniment.

 

 

*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. Updated by: Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright: September 2024 @ ArtsNOW

 

 

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