Genre: Pop
Student Edition:
Brazilian Music and Culture in the United States
Student Edition:
Contemporary Latin Artists and Activism
Unit Plan:
Latin Music and Culture in U.S. History
Through ten lessons, students will explore different people, music, events, and places that helped shape Latin music and culture in the United States. Students will discover how Latin Music like Salsa, Latin Rock, Tejano, Bossa Nova, Swing, and Chicana Punk reflect the experiences of Latin people living in the...
lesson:
Brazilian Music and Culture in the United States
What is the influence of Brazilian music and culture in the United States?
lesson:
Contemporary Latin Artists and Activism
How are contemporary Latin artists pursuing activism and promoting positive change in their communities?
Student Edition:
What Makes a Great Front Person in Music?
Trace It Back:
Louis Armstrong
Trace It Back:
Aretha Franklin
Unit Plan:
Math and the Music Industry
Math is inherent in the music industry. Whether calculating touring costs, analyzing industry data, or determining fan engagement on social media, math interprets numerous aspects of the music industry. Through five lessons, students practice math skills within the context of the music industry. Utilizing important artists as case studies, students...
Trace It Back:
Whitney Houston
Student Edition:
Using Ratios to Identify Social Media Engagement
lesson:
Using Ratios to Identify Social Media Engagement
How can ratios be used to identify a music artist’s social media audience engagement?
Student Edition:
Using Graphing to Analyze Music Industry Data
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Using Graphing to Analyze Music Industry Data
How can graphing be used to analyze music industry data?
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Part 3: Asbury Park from the 1970s to Today
What social issues continue to confront Asbury Park today, and how are activists tackling them?
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Second Wave: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1960s
What was second-wave feminism, and how did music contribute to the movement?
Unit Plan:
Civic Environmentalism
Civic environmentalism is a collective action to address critical environmental issues and implement solutions through democratic processes that will result in an improved and sustainable community. Through six lessons, students identify, analyze, and explore specific details and events related to the origins of the environmental movement in the United States...
Student Edition:
A Veteran’s Soundtrack to the Vietnam War
lesson:
A Veteran’s Soundtrack to the Vietnam War
How did popular music amplify the voices and experiences of Americans serving in the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War?
Student Edition:
What is Cultural Appropriation?
Student Edition:
What is Cultural Identity?
Student Edition:
Indigenous Music: From Wounded Knee to The Billboard Charts
Student Edition:
Music and the Berlin Wall during the Cold War
Trace It Back:
Nina Simone
Student Edition:
Art, Music, and the AIDS Epidemic
Trace It Back:
Janelle Monáe
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Drake
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Mitski
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Thundercat
Student Edition:
“Lean on Me”: Expressing Gratitude and Care with Music
How does Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” express gratitude and the importance of mutual care?
Trace It Back:
Kate Bush
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H.E.R.
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Rosalía
Trace It Back:
Tyler, The Creator
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Amy Winehouse
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Selena Gomez
Trace It Back:
Prince
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How a Bill Becomes a Law: Legislating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
How does a bill become a law in the United States of America?
Trace It Back:
Nicki Minaj
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Camila Cabello
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Beyoncé
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Billie Eilish
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Ariana Grande
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Tame Impala
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Gorillaz
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P!nk (aka Pink)
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Lizzo
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Kesha (aka Ke$ha)
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Selena
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St. Vincent
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Lana Del Rey
Trace It Back:
Jamila Woods
lesson:
Confronting the Climate Crisis
How can society lower the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere?
lesson:
The Journey to Marriage Equality in the United States
How did same-sex marriage become legal in the United States?
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Music and the Berlin Wall during the Cold War
What was the Berlin Wall and how did music respond to what it symbolized?
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Cleaning up the Plastic Beach (Elementary School Version)
What is plastic, how is it harmful for the environment, and how can it be used more responsibly?
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Cleaning up the Plastic Beach (Middle School/High School Version)
How is plastic made, how does it affect our marine environments, and how can plastic waste be eliminated?
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Celebrating Community with Art and Poetry (High School Version)
What different types of communities exist, and how do the people in our communities impact us?
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Celebrating Community with Art and Poetry (Elementary School Version)
What different types of communities exist, and how do the people in our communities impact us?
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Making Music Videos with a Homemade Projector
How can one reproduce the effects seen in the music video for Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey’s song “The Middle” using a homemade projector?
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Learning Rhythm through Gospel
How can Gospel music help students identify the musical concepts of beat, meter, backbeat, subdivision, and syncopation?
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The Leadership Skills of a Music Producer
How do successful music producers practice positive leadership skills?
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Fame and Judgement in “Funny”
How might Tori Kelly’s song “Funny” speak to the potential pitfalls of “superstardom,” and how does it relate to past songs written about the subject?
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The Latin Rhythms of “Despacito”
What Latin American genres inspired Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s hit song “Despacito”?
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Who is “Us” in P!nk’s “What About Us”?
Who is the ‘us’ in P!nk’s song “What About Us?”
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“See You Again”: How We Mourn with Music
How does music help us remember people we are close to, or those we have lost?
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Heroes and Mortals in “Something Just Like This”
Who are the gods and superheroes referenced in “Something Just Like This,” and what are the connections between them?
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Everyday Heroes: Beyoncé and United Nations World Humanitarian Day
How might Beyoncé's song “I Was Here” inspire people to serve their community and make a positive impact on the world?
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“Here”: Managing Peer Pressure and Anxiety
In what ways does Alessia Cara’s “Here” defy popular music conventions, and what does the song say about peer pressure in youth culture?
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Sun City: A Musical Force Against Apartheid – Part 2
What was South African apartheid, and how did musicians unite to challenge it?
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Sun City: A Musical Force Against Apartheid – Part 1
What was South African apartheid, and how did musicians unite to challenge it?
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Recording and Producing the Voice
How have singers responded as advances in studio recording techniques have enabled increased technological “perfection”?
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The Beatles Work Towards Success
How did The Beatles' rigorous work schedule during the years 1960-63 build their strengths as performers, as musicians, and as a band?
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The Beatles and Teen Culture
How did the Beatles’ image as a “rock band” affect young people in America?
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The Teamwork Behind the Beatles
How did the input of manager Brian Epstein and record producer George Martin help The Beatles develop and refine skills that aided the band in presenting their music and personalities to a mass audience?
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From the Stage to the Studio
What caused The Beatles to cease touring in 1966 and how did the innovative music they then created during their subsequent immersion in the recording studio both reflect and influence the world at that time?
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The Many Roles of a Music Producer
What does a music producer do and in what ways does one hear the sound of a producer’s work in recordings?
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How Records and Radio Shaped American Culture
How did changes in the technology of record manufacturing effect popular music, radio, and the people who consumed both?
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The Beatles, a New Kind of Star
How did The Beatles establish a new paradigm for the image of "the star," and how did that image support their global success?
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Sound Waves, Analog Synthesis and Popular Culture
How did synthesizers allow musicians to create new sounds and how did those sounds reflect American culture throughout the 20th century?
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“Hound Dog” and 1950 Race Relations
How does the story of “Hound Dog” demonstrate music culture’s racial mixing as it differed from mainstream American life in the 1950s?
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Multitracking in the Countercultural 1960s
How did The Beatles’ use of cutting edge recording technology and studio techniques both reflect and shape the counterculture of the 1960s?
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The Evolution of Sound Recording
How did multitrack recording technologies enable musicians to create a form of music that could only be realized in the studio?
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The Beatles and American Segregation
How did the Beatles take a stand against segregation while touring America? And what did it mean for popular music culture?
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Producing the Sounds of a Changing South
How did the recordings Sam Phillips produced at Sun Records, including Elvis Presley’s early work, reflect trends of urbanization and integration in the 1950s American South?
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The History of Music Videos
How has the relation between sound and image shifted through the history of recorded music, and how did the rise of MTV bring that relationship to a culmination of sorts?
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Assembling Hits at Motown
How did Motown Records in Detroit operate during the 1960s?
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Thematic Lesson: Love Songs
Why is the Pop song such a common medium for expressing feelings about love, and how do individual songs relate to their historical moments?
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Italian-American Vocalists Before Rock and Roll
How did the careers of Italian American vocalists in the first half of the 20th century reflect the experiences of Italian American immigrants and attitudes toward them in the wider American culture?
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Gospel Music and the Birth of Soul
How did Gospel influence American popular music?
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Liverpool: The Birthplace of the Beatles
How did growing up in post-WWII Liverpool influence the Beatles?
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Beatlemania
What were the factors that contributed to the rise of Beatlemania?
lesson:
Rock and Roll Goes to the Movies
How did movies help to introduce Rock and Roll culture to mainstream audiences in the 1950s?
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Rock and Roll and the American Dream
What is the American Dream and how did Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash personify its ideals?
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Dancing the Twist on Television
How did teen dance shows and the Twist influence American culture?
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The San Francisco Scene, 1967
Why did nearly 100,000 young people descend upon San Francisco in 1967 for a “Summer of Love"?
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The Rise of the “Girl Groups”
Were the Girl Groups of the early 1960s voices of female empowerment or reflections of traditional female roles?