TeachRock

Student Edition:
Riot or Rebellion? Asbury Park in the Summer of 1970

What factors led up to the Asbury Park Riots in New Jersey in the summer of 1970?

Student Edition:
Latin Music and Puerto Rican Migration to New York City

lesson:
Latin Music and Puerto Rican Migration to New York City

What is the history behind Puerto Rican migration to New York City in the 1940s and 1950s, and how did Puerto Rican migration affect American Popular Music?

lesson:
Westward Expansion and Country Music’s Hispanic Influence

What was Westward Expansion, and what effect did it have on American Popular music?

lesson:
Part 3: Asbury Park from the 1970s to Today

What social issues continue to confront Asbury Park today, and how are activists tackling them?

lesson:
Part 2: Riot or Rebellion? Asbury Park in the Summer of 1970

What factors led up to the Asbury Park "Riots" in New Jersey in the summer of 1970?

lesson:
Part 1: Segregation and the Founding of Asbury Park

What does the founding and early history of Asbury Park reveal about practices of segregation in the Northern United States?

lesson:
The Myth of the American Cowboy

How did Westward Expansion and the idea of Manifest Destiny inform the image of the cowboy in American culture?

Trace It Back:
Alice Bag

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:
Toby Keith and The Chicks: Songs and Words during the War on Terror

Student Edition:
The Music Behind the Red Power Movement

Trace It Back:
Bonnie Raitt

Trace It Back:
The Chicks

Trace It Back:
Nina Simone

Student Edition:
Art, Music, and the AIDS Epidemic

lesson:
Toby Keith & The Chicks: Songs and Words During the War on Terror

What were the different reactions to songs and comments by Country musicians about the September 11th terrorist attacks versus the Iraq War?

Student Edition:
Third-Wave Feminism: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1990s

Trace It Back:
Janelle Monáe

Trace It Back:
Drake

Trace It Back:
Mitski

Trace It Back:
Thundercat

Trace It Back:
Betty Davis

lesson:
The Reclamation of the American Cowboy

How has the image and history of the American cowboy been reclaimed in the 21st Century?

Trace It Back:
Kate Bush

Trace It Back:
Chance the Rapper

Trace It Back:
Gary Clark Jr.

Trace It Back:
H.E.R.

lesson:
Women’s Perspectives in Country and Tejano Music

How did female Country and Tejano artists approach the issues of feminism and Women’s Rights in the 20th and 21st century?

Trace It Back:
Rosalía

lesson:
Almost Emancipated: Reconstruction

What is the significance of Reconstruction and what does it reveal about the freedom that the post-Civil War constitutional amendments secured for African Americans?

Trace It Back:
Amy Winehouse

Trace It Back:
Selena Gomez

Trace It Back:
Prince

Trace It Back:
Nicki Minaj

Trace It Back:
Dua Lipa

Trace It Back:
Camila Cabello

lesson:
Almost Emancipated: The Civil War and the Port Royal Experiment

How does the Union occupation of Port Royal highlight the complex issues behind the Civil War?

Trace It Back:
Beyoncé

Trace It Back:
Billie Eilish

Trace It Back:
Ariana Grande

lesson:
DAMN.: The Art and Importance of Storytelling

How do Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. and the work of photojournalist Gordon Parks tell stories that bring attention to social issues?

Trace It Back:
Tame Impala

Trace It Back:
Gorillaz

Trace It Back:
Mavis Staples

Trace It Back:
P!nk (aka Pink)

Trace It Back:
Big Freedia

Trace It Back:
Lizzo

Trace It Back:
Kesha (aka Ke$ha)

Trace It Back:
Selena

Trace It Back:
St. Vincent

Trace It Back:
Lana Del Rey

Trace It Back:
Jamila Woods

lesson:
Beat Culture and the Grateful Dead

How did beat writers like Jack Kerouac influence the Grateful Dead’s music?

lesson:
Counterculture in the 1960s

How did the counterculture movement of the late 1960s challenge traditional American behaviors and values, and how did the Grateful Dead reflect these changing views of life and society?

lesson:
Confronting the Climate Crisis

How can society lower the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere?

lesson:
“Y’all Better Quiet Down”: Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ Pioneers

How did Black and Latinx people in the LGBTQ+ community take initiative in the Stonewall Inn rebellions, Gay Liberation Movement, and in the preservation of LGBTQ+ history?

lesson:
Art, Music, and the AIDS Epidemic

How did the LGTBQ+ community creatively respond to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, and protest government inaction in addressing the epidemic?

lesson:
Third Wave: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1990s

What was Third Wave Feminism, why did it occur, and how did musicians address some of the movement’s demands?

lesson:
Singing Democracy During the Second Great Awakening

What was the Second Great Awakening, how did it change American society, and how does Sacred Harp singing exemplify its ideals?

lesson:
The Banjo, Slavery, and the Abolition Debate

What is the relationship between the banjo and slavery, and how did music making by enslaved people influence the abolition debate during the 18th and early 19th century?

lesson:
Mining and Union Songs in the Early 20th Century

How do Nimrod Workman’s songs and stories about his life as a coal miner illustrate the struggles of working class people during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era?

lesson:
Reagan and the Cold War: A Document-Based Question

Did President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War policies serve to heighten or to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union?

lesson:
Hometown Documentaries

How can music help tell the story of your hometown?

lesson:
The Vietnam War: A Document-Based Question

In what ways and to what extent did the Vietnam War change American culture, society, and values?

lesson:
The Civil Rights Movement: A Document-Based Question

In what ways did the Civil Rights Movement mark a turning point in United States history?

lesson:
Debating Dylan’s Nobel Prize

What are the arguments for and against Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature?

lesson:
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?

lesson:
The Music and Poetry Behind the Red Power Movement

What was the Red Power movement, and what role did Folk and Country music play within it?

lesson:
Negotiating Native Identity through Art, Poetry and Music

How have Native American musicians, poets, and visual artists negotiated their identity, and what role does physical space play in these negotiations?

lesson:
Debating Cultural Appropriation

What is cultural appropriation, how does it affect Native American communities, and should it be regulated by law?

lesson:
The Indigenous Roots of Rock and Roll

What does Link Wray’s biography say about how Native Americans lived in the first half of the 20th century, and what role did Wray’s upbringing have on his music?

lesson:
Indigenous Music from Wounded Knee to the Billboard Charts

In what ways did the music of Native Americans mark them as outsiders from the developing narratives of “American-ness” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and how did the federal government attempt to use music as a tool to force assimilation?

lesson:
“See You Again”: How We Mourn with Music

How does music help us remember people we are close to, or those we have lost?

lesson:
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?

lesson:
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?

lesson:
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?

lesson:
The Birth of the Electric Guitar

How did the electric guitar transform Blues music from the 1940s forward?

lesson:
How to Study Rock and Roll

How can teachers help students analyze and understand Rock and Roll?

lesson:
The San Francisco Scene, 1967

Why did nearly 100,000 young people descend upon San Francisco in 1967 for a “Summer of Love"?