Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• Plastic cups in various colors and sizes
• Sound source (e.g., computer and speakers) 
• Musical recordings 
• Paper and writing utensils (pencils)

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Classroom Tips: Depending on your students, you may find it important to discuss proper use of, and care for, instruments prior to use. Discuss “resting” position, meaning no sound at all from instruments. 

• Play a musical selection for students, such as, “Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium” or “Carnival of the Animals: Fossils”. 
• As students listen, review/discuss elements of music: Pitch, harmony, timbre, dynamics, texture, and tempo. 
• Ask students to make observations about the sounds that they hear and the images that they evoke.

Work Session

Responding to Music

• Have students discuss elements of a story: Setting, plot, character(s), conflict, and theme.
• Listen again the the piece of music from the warm-up, such as “Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium” or “Carnival of the Animals: Fossils” by Camille Saint-Saёns.  
• Students will draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper to create two columns on their page.
  • In the first column, students write descriptive words about the musical selection specific to the elements of a story answering questions such as:
    • Where do you think this piece of music takes place? 
    • What characters do you hear/see in the music?  
  • After a couple of times listening and free writing, have the students use the second column to articulate WHAT in the music makes them hear and/or see these things, such as the loud dynamics or the disjointed sounds.  
• Students will continue this activity by next writing a narrative inspired by the music.
  • Students should establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally, use descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations, use temporal words and phrases to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Composing with Cups  

• Without saying anything, play a pattern on cups for students. 
• Teacher should lead this activity in silence, changing cups (number of sounds) and even length of phrase prior to any discussion.  
• Have students use creative and critical thinking to figure out the values (number of sounds for each cup) independently first. For example, blue – quarter note, yellow – eighth notes, clear – quarter rest). 
• Pause and discuss what students observed about the values of each cup.  
• Perform a rhythmic pattern using cups.
• Next, demonstrate how to read a short poem to the rhythm of the pattern created with cups. Have students practice reading the poem with you.
• Divide students into small groups. Assign each a short poem or nursery rhyme. 
• Have students create rhythmic patterns using cups to accompany their poem.

Closing Reflection

• Students will perform their compositions for the class. Discuss appropriate audience participation and etiquette prior to performances.
• Discuss how students spoke the poems to the rhythm of their compositions and how different compositions created a different performance.

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, ability to discuss music using musical vocabulary, conferencing with students during the writing process, and collaboration with groups to create a rhythmic pattern to accompany a short poem.

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can respond to music by writing a narrative that has a beginning, middle, end, setting, and characters and meets grade level criteria.
• Students can compose a rhythmic pattern using cups.
• Students can create and perform an original poem to accompany their rhythmic pattern.

DIFFERENTIATION 

*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

Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• Plastic cups in various colors and sizes
• Sound source (e.g., computer and speakers)
• Musical recordings
• Paper and writing utensils (pencils)

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Classroom Tips: Depending on your students, you may find it important to discuss proper use of, and care for, instruments prior to use. Discuss “resting” position, meaning no sound at all from instruments. 

• Play a musical selection for students, such as, “Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium” or “Carnival of the Animals: Fossils”.
• As students listen, review/discuss elements of music: Pitch, harmony, timbre, dynamics, texture, and tempo.
• Ask students to make observations about the sounds that they hear and the images that they evoke. Ask students to justify their answers with evidence from the music. For example, “I see two people arguing because the instruments were loud and clashed”.

Work Session

Responding to Music

• Have students discuss elements of a story: Setting, plot, character(s), conflict, and theme.
• Listen again the the piece of music from the warm-up, such as “Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium” or “Carnival of the Animals: Fossils” by Camille Saint-Saёns.
• Students will draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper to create two columns on their page.
  • In the first column, students write descriptive words about the musical selection specific to the elements of a story answering questions such as:
    • Where do you think this piece of music takes place?
    • What characters do you hear/see in the music?
  • After a couple of times listening and free writing, have the students use the second column to articulate WHAT in the music makes them hear and/or see these things, such as the loud dynamics or the disjointed sounds.
• Students will continue this activity by writing a narrative inspired by the music.
  • Students should include a situation and introduce the characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally, include dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations, use a variety of transitional words and phrases, use concrete words and phrases and sensory details, and provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.

Composing with Cups  

• Without saying anything, play a pattern on cups for students.
• Teacher should lead this activity in silence, changing cups (number of sounds) and even length of phrase prior to any discussion.
• Have students use creative and critical thinking to figure out the values (number of sounds for each cup) independently first. For example, blue – quarter note, yellow – eighth notes, clear – quarter rest).
• Pause and discuss what students observed about the values of each cup.
• Perform a rhythmic pattern using cups.
• Next, demonstrate how to read a short poem to the rhythm of the pattern created with cups. Have students practice reading the poem with you.
• Divide students into small groups. Have each group write their own short poem, such as an acrostic or haiku, and create rhythmic patterns using cups to accompany their poem.
• Students should be sure to write their poems in appropriate form based on the type of poem.

Closing Reflection

• Students will perform their compositions for the class. Discuss appropriate audience participation and etiquette prior to performances.
• Discuss how students spoke the poems to the rhythm of their compositions and how different compositions created a different performances.

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, ability to discuss music using musical vocabulary, conferencing with students during the writing process, and collaboration with groups to create a rhythmic pattern to accompany their short poem.

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can respond to music by writing a narrative that has a beginning, middle, end, setting, and characters and meets grade level criteria.
• Students can compose a rhythmic pattern using cups.
• Students can create and perform an original poem to accompany their rhythmic pattern.

DIFFERENTIATION 

*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

Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

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 

*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