The following grid offers a process for generating integration ideas using music, particularly in making connections across the disciplines. The first row of the grid contains an example of how to generate ideas from a musical concept.
Concept(s)/Grade
Begin by selecting one music concept to work with. In the first column of the grid below, the word “staff” is written. The lesson is to teach the musical staff to 2nd grade students.
Objectives
What are your main objectives for the lesson? What should children be able to do by the end of the lesson that they couldn’t do at the beginning? Note: “SWBAT” stands for “Students Will Be Able To.”
Activities
What activities could you use to teach the staff? Where would you begin? You might begin by teaching the line and space notes for the treble staff (EGBDF and FACE), and teaching the mnemonics that accompany those note names (i.e. E-Every; G-Good; B-Boy; D-Deserves; F-Fudge). Even at this point, writing the lines on the board, on a smart board, PPT, or even making lines on the floor with tape can be a visual accompaniment to the lesson, and help students learn through body movement as well as visual learning.
Integration Ideas
How might you integrate this concept using different core subject areas? What higher order thinking skills, or vocabulary? Look at the second grade Vocabulary grid above from Education Closet concerning math and the arts and Music and Literacy and select the most appropriate terms to apply to the lesson:
- (Math and the Arts) Form, Sequence, Pattern, Group
- (Arts Literacy) Analyze, Compare, Contrast
Common Core Learning Standards
Now refer to the earlier chapter in the book to find the appropriate common core learning standards for the lesson.
Idea Generator: Concept, Objectives, Activities, Integration, Standards
Music ConceptGrade | Objectives | Activities | Integration (connections, constructivism, creative process, understanding) | Learner/Common Core Standard |
Ex. Concept: Reading the Music Staff Grade: 2nd | SWBAT identify pitches on lines of the treble staff SWBAT analyze the correlation of skipping and sequential regarding the pitches on the treble staff. SWBAT understand correlations across disciplines of math, literacy and music between sequential movement and skipping movement | Review (or teach) the pitches of the treble staff, first using sequential alphabet letters, then using the acronyms EGBDF, and FACE. Create huge lines of treble staff on the floor using masking tape. Mark each line or space with large letters for each note. Movement: Have students physically move across the floor staff, first sequentially and then skipping line to line and space to space, reciting the letters as they go. | Literacy: Analyze the letters EGBDF as a mnemonic for “Every Good Boy Deserve Fudge.” Brainstorm, having students create their own acronyms for EGBDF and FACE. Compare and contrast the pitch names on the staff with the letters of the alphabet. Which direction do they go? What are the differences between letters of the alphabet and music pitch names? Math: Discuss the form of the staff. Is there a pattern? What is it? Does it alternate (skip)? Is it sequential (all in a row)? Math, Music and Literacy: (EGBDF) . Have students count sequentially. Sequence the letter names by saying them in a row (EFGABC). Then create a pattern by skipping every other letter of the alphabet (B – D – F or A – C – E). Then correlate with math by switching to numbers. Practice grouping by 2s. | Bodily-Kinesthetic, Visual-spatial/Creating, Performing, Participating |
1. Concept: Rhythm: Eighth and Quarter notes Grade: Kindergarten | ||||
2. Melody: Pitch Grade: 4th | ||||
3. Timbre: Voice Grade: 1st |
Idea Generator (blank): Concepts, Activities, Materials, Integration
Music ConceptGrade | Activities | Integration (connections, constructivism, creative process, understanding) | Learner/Common Core Standard | Objectives |
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Example Integrating Music, Language Arts and Social Studies: “Goober Peas”
(see also “Erie Canal” Lesson Plan in Chapter 6)
Many older songs offer excellent material for integration. For example, the song “Goober Peas” provides students a very inside look at the life of a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. In this case, both the music and lyrics are highly informative, as is the situation in which the song was sung, lending itself to integration through three areas: music, language arts and social sciences.
Materials:
Timeline: Civil War history timeline including various battles, Sherman’s March, etc.
Song: “Goober Peas”
Text: The Personal Story of Life as a Confederate Soldier, “The Letters of Eli Landers” http://www.gacivilwar.org/story/the-personal-story-of-life-as-a-confederate-soldier
Goober Peas
Southern U.S. folk song, 1866
Sung by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War
2. When a horse-man passes, the soldiers have a rule
To cry out their loudest, “Mister here’s your mule!”
But another custom, enchanting-er than these,
Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas. (refrain)
3. Just before the battle, the General hears a row
He says, “The Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now”
He turns around in wonder and what d’ya think he sees?
The Georgia militia, eating goober peas. (refrain)
4. I think my song has lasted almost long enough
The subject’s interesting but the rhymes are mighty tough
I wish the war was over so free from rags and fleas
We’d kiss our wives and sweethearts and gooble goober peas. (refrain)
Integration Process Questions
How might you integrate this song beyond that of “Arts as Enhancement”? What learning principles will you use? How will students be engaged? Demonstrate their understanding? What will be the processes of creation? What connections to other parts of the curriculum can be made? Are the standards present for both the art and the subject? Go through Silverstein & Layne’s Arts Integration checklist below to see how to incorporate an integrated level of understanding to the lesson.
Approach to Teaching
- Does the lesson contain learning principles of Constructivism (actively built, experiential, evolving, collaborative, problem-solving, and reflective)?
Understanding
- Are students engaged in constructing and demonstrating understanding knowledge rather than memorizing and reciting?
Art Form
- Are the students constructing and demonstrating their understandings through an art form?
Creative Process
- Are students engaged in a process of creating something original as opposed to copying or parroting?
- Will the students revise their products?
Connects
- Does the art form connect to another part of the curriculum or a concern/need?
- Is the connection mutually reinforcing?
Evolving Objectives
- Are there objectives in both the art form and another part of the curriculum or a concern/need?
- Have the objectives evolved since the last time the students engaged with this subject matter? Have the objectives evolved since the last time the students engaged with this subject matter?Have the objectives evolved since the last time the students engaged with this subject matter? (Silverstein & Layne, 2014).
Analysis: Vocabulary and Concepts
You’ll find an abundance of material to integrate and connect after analyzing both the music, lyrical/poetic aspects, and social contexts. The musical forms, phrases, harmonies and the poetic structure reveal a great deal of material apart from the content of the lyrics.
Music | Poetry/Lyrics |
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Social Studies
Setting: Civil War, soldiers resting on the roadside while waiting for orders for the next confrontation.
Date Written: 1866.
Singers: Popular in the South among Confederate Soldiers (losing the war).
Sentiment: Expresses the living conditions of Confederate soldiers and the public, as the war was lost. Sherman’s troops laid waste to much of Georgia, cutting off food supplies.
Song Vocabulary
Students may not be familiar with these terms:
Goober Peas—another name for boiled peanuts. Eaten by Confederate soldiers during the war when rail lines were cut off, making food and rations scarce.
Messmate—a person/friend in a military camp with which one regularly takes meals.
Grinders—teeth.
Row—an argument or fight (rhymes with “cow”).
Georgia Militia—a militia organized under the British that fought the Union during the Civil War. They fought in Sherman’s devastating “March to the Sea” and in the last battle of the Civil War at the Battle of Columbus on the Georgia-Alabama border.
Yanks—Refers to “Yankees” or Union soldiers of the North.
Rags and fleas—Tattered clothing and poor health conditions.
Activities:
Sing the song “Goober Peas;” Read some of the letters of Eli Landers.
Questions to think about (Historical perspectives of soldiers)
- What conditions did the soldier’s have to endure?
- What was happening towards the end of the Civil War?
- How do you think they felt during this time? (i.e., anxiousness, anticipation, weariness while waiting by the road).
- Overall, what do the lyrics express on behalf of the Confederate soldiers?
- What does the reference to the Georgia Militia mean in terms of the fighting?
Ideas for Integration
- Constructivism: Analyze the music, text, and history (timeline). Reflect what it would be like to be a soldier in the Confederacy during the beginning, middle, and end of the Civil War. Problem Solve as to how to obtain food after the railroad lines were cut off, strategize as to earlier successes during the war.
- Student Engagement: (historical perspectives). Experience: learn and sing the song. Divide into groups and read Eli Landers letters from different years comparing changes in attitude for a confederate soldier over time from the beginning of the war to the end of the war.
- Art Form: Analyze by comparing Eli Landers’ letters to the lyrics of the song. What are the differences in historical facts? Sentiment? In terms of the song itself, explore the meaning of the music itself apart from the lyrics—sing the melody of the song on a neutral syllable. What does the melody remind you of? What kind of emotion do you hear in the melody, rhythm and phrasing? Does it seem to complement the lyrics or oppose them? Why might this be the case?
- Creative Process: Work collaboratively to create further verses of the song or write “letters home” that will express the feelings of soldiers facing defeat. Read the letters from home along with singing the new verses of the song.
- Objectives (See below)
What Learning Standards or Objectives can you incorporate for this lesson for each of the following?
- Language Arts/Social Studies
a. Language Arts 3: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when speaking, reading, or listening.
b. Writing 3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
c. Reading 2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.
- Music National Standards
a. 1: Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
b. 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
c. 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
Additional Songs for Integrating History/Social Studies
(see also “Erie Canal” Lesson Plan in Chapter 6)
Other examples include songs that are informative and contain a long narrative or historical information for students. For example, the song “Christofo Columbo” chronicles much of the famed voyage including detailed geographic references in a fun and light song.
Christofo Columbo (Christopher Columbus)
Ring Lardner, 1911
To the Kings and Queens of Europe, Columbus told his theory,
They simply thought him crazy, and asked him this here query,
How could the earth stand up if round, it surely would suspend,
For answer, C’lumbus took an egg and stood it on its end.
Refrain
In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-two, ’twas then Columbus started,
From Pales on the coast of Spain to the westward he departed,
His object was to find a route, a short one to East India,
Columbus wore no whiskers, and the wind it blew quite windy.
Refrain
When Sixty days away from land, upon the broad Atlantic,
The sailors they went on a strike which nearly caused a panic,
They all demanded eggs to eat for each man in the crew,
Columbus had no eggs aboard, but he made the ship lay too.
Refrain
The hungry crew impatient grew, and beef-steak they demanded,
Equal to the emergency, Columbus then commanded
That ev’ry sailor who proves true, and his duty never shirks,
Can have a juicy porterhouse, “I’ll get it from the bulwarks.”
Refrain
Not satisfied with steak and eggs, the crew they yelled for chicken,
Columbus seemed at a loss for once, and the plot it seemed to thicken,
The men threatened to jump overboard, Columbus blocked their pathway,
And cried: “If chicken you must have, I’ll get it from the hatchway.”
Refrain
The sailors now so long from home with fear became imbued,
On the twelfth day of October their fears were all subdued,
For after Ninety days at sea, they discovered America’s shores,
And quickly made a landing on the Isle of Salvador.
Refrain
When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
Patrick Gilmore, 1863
American Civil War song
Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier
Traditional English folk song popular during the Revolutionary War
