New Releases

Featured Lessons

Lesson Plan Collections

  •

    CNN Soundtracks: Songs that Defined History
    19 Lessons
    Soundtracks: Songs that Defined History, from executive producer Dwayne Johnson, Show of Force and CNN Original Series explores the music tied to pivotal moments in history. From the March on Washington to the riots at Stonewall – every episode illuminates how music has played an integral role in celebrating, criticizing, and amplifying these seismic events in our collective history. TeachRock has partnered with CNN and Show of Force to offer a collection of standards-aligned contemporary history lessons to accompany this eight-part CNN series. See a CNN Soundtracks lesson in action at East Side Community High in New York, NY here!

    Long Strange Trip: The Untold Story of the Grateful Dead
    11 Lessons
    The potent mix of musical, literary, scientific, and philosophic influences from which the Grateful Dead sprang made them, in some ways, the most American band. As such, the Grateful Dead’s story creates an exciting window through which students can explore key people, times, places, and issues of the U.S. throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Created in partnership with Amazon Films, the seven lesson plans in the Long Strange Trip: The Untold Story of the Grateful Dead collection create a pathway through which K-12 teachers of all disciplines can use clips from the film, historical documents, and other source material to guide students into important, engaging, and standards-aligned class periods.

    LADAMA: Movement, Music, and Community in South America
    5 Lessons
    LADAMA: Movement, Music, and Community in South America gives elementary school students the opportunity to explore the performing arts, culture, and ecology of Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. With interactive instruction from the members of the group LADAMA, students sing in Spanish and Portuguese, perform traditional dances, and learn the underlying rhythms to musical styles throughout South America. In addition, each lesson offers a variety of worksheets and classroom activities to introduce students to South American history, culture, and ecology. Learn more about what the lesson collection has to offer below:

    Segregation and Integration in Asbury Park
    3 Lessons
    TeachRock’s lesson collection “Segregation and Integration in Asbury Park” provides educational materials for the film Asbury Park: Riot, Redemption, Rock & Roll. In this three-part lesson collection, students discover the impact the city of Asbury Park has had upon the history of American popular music, and investigate the local conditions that led to the emergence of artists such as Steven Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen. More than this, the lesson collection asks students to think of Asbury Park as a case study for the racial dynamics in the United States. By watching clips from the documentary, examining interviews with local activists, and analyzing historical documents, students discover the long history of segregation in Asbury Park, the effects it had on the city, and how it relates to the United States' history of segregation more broadly. Learn more about this lesson plan below:

  • Math and Music: Algebra Featuring Mickey Hart
    4 Lessons
    Math and Music: Algebra Featuring Mickey Hart is a four-lesson unit aligned to 7th - 9th grade standards and designed to fit most algebra classrooms. Through a variety of hands-on activities, algebraic calculations, and graphing exercises, students discover the physical principles of sound waves, the mathematics behind tuning and harmony, and the ways sound and music are measured using mathematics. Check out the Math and Music: Algebra Featuring Mickey Hart Unit Plan here! Learn more about what the lesson collection has to offer below: 

    The Music that Shaped America
    7 Lessons
    TeachRock is proud to present The Music that Shaped America, a lesson collection that draws on the rich archive of Alan Lomax’s Association for Cultural Equity, enlivening American history of the 18th through early 20th centuries with the sounds of regional folk musics and the personal stories of its performers. A musicologist, writer, producer, singer, and talent scout, Alan Lomax was above all else an advocate for working class people. Feeling that it is “the voiceless people of the planet who really have in their memories the 90,000 years of human life and wisdom,” Lomax dedicated his life to recording, preserving, and broadcasting traditional musicians from around the world, giving voice to those that the commercial music industry had long ignored. The Music that Shaped America is standards-aligned and compatible with AP History and other curriculums. Students will explore U.S. social history and events through the words and music of ex-slaves, Appalachian mine workers, Cajun farmers, Mississippi sharecroppers and more.

    Book 1: Birth of Rock
    19 Lessons
    In the mid-1950s, Rock and Roll slammed into the consciousness of the American people. Whether you liked it or not, there was no denying that Rock and Roll had arrived. It was the first American musical tradition constructed from the many musical traditions that animated life in the 20th century, including Gospel, Blues, Country, Jazz and R&B. In bringing together these musical bloodlines, Rock and Roll also brought people together, from across regions, across race and class lines, and, finally, across oceans. It was the beginning of a historical turn that would change daily life in the modern world. This first section, The Birth of Rock and Roll, explores the roots of Rock and Roll, its emergence and its entrance into the cultural mainstream of America.

    Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World
    5 Lessons
    The award-winning documentary RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World tells the story of a profound, essential, and, until now, missing chapter in the history of American music: the Indigenous influence. The standards-aligned TeachRock RUMBLE lesson plans can help you bring that story into the classroom. Drawing on short clips from the film, troves of source documents, archival photos, and journalism, the TeachRock RUMBLE lessons introduce students to important Native American musicians including Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Salas, Redbone, Buffy St. Marie, Robbie Robertson, and the Black Eyed Pea’s Taboo. The materials require students to engage in thoughtful discussion of contemporary issues such as identity and cultural appropriation, and to imagine key moments in American history from a Native perspective.

  • Book 2: Teenage Rebellion
    20 Lessons
    From its raucous beginnings to the time of its mainstream acceptance, Rock and Roll was youth music. More exactly, it was the music of the teenager. Born of postwar affluence and the increased leisure time such affluence afforded young Americans, the teenager was a thing new to the American landscape. If for some they were an object of anxiety, this had everything to do with the fact that teenagers defined themselves in opposition to the parent generation. Rebellion was a part of being a teenager. And Rock and Roll was an expression of that rebellion and of the growing gap between generations. From the teen surf culture celebrated in the music of the Beach Boys to the mini-melodramas of the Shangri-Las’ Girl Group sound and teen dances including the Twist, the Stroll, the Mashed Potato, and the Watusi, the world of the teenager was made larger and more powerful through the music itself. As 60s Soul and the British Invasion demonstrated, it would be the teenagers, inspired by their music, who would define American life moving forward.

    Book 3: Transformation
    21 Lessons
    The teenage culture of the fifties and early sixties was the seedbed for the youth-driven counterculture of the late sixties and early seventies. This shift toward a countercultural sensibility among young people was reflected in the music itself. If in the fifties Rock and Roll had been viewed primarily as a popular entertainment, in the period of “transformation” it would come to be viewed as--in its most elevated forms--an Art. In the hands of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and others, music became a “serious” thing. As young people faced the troubling facts of a war that included them and a country that refused them the right to vote, music now offered, among other things, a megaphone through which their disillusionment could be voiced. As the nation saw the rise of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement that followed, artists like Marvin Gaye, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder used music to express feelings of frustration about the racial divide and excitement around the possibility of change. And as the music addressed the world of which it was a part, the music grew more complex, more varied—but, importantly, that music was also changing the world in ways it hadn’t previously.

    Book 4: Fragmentation
    16 Lessons
    For a brief time, Rock and Roll seemed almost to be building its own utopia. In late sixties Rock and Roll culture in particular, the walls erected in the wider world - between the races, between men and women, between nations - seemed to collapse. The record collections of the young Rock and Roll audience often included R&B, Hard Rock, Blues, Pop, Jazz, Country, and more. Free Form FM radio mirrored this eclectic but inclusive approach to music by creating inventive playlists unbound by genre. And, then, as the “Fragmentation” crept in, the old walls seemed to reassert themselves. Fan communities, radio formats, and, indeed, even personal record collections came to be defined by genre. Hard lines were drawn. Punks defined themselves in opposition to the fans of arena rock groups like Led Zeppelin. Grunge borrowed from Heavy Metal but, more adamantly still, refused the theater of Heavy Metal. Radio was again split down racial lines. If Rock and Roll culture, in the broad sense, had been connected with youth culture as a whole, and this brought different genres and traditions into dialogue with one another, now Rock and Roll culture grew increasingly fragmented. It wouldn’t mean the end of the music. But some of the promise of late sixties Rock and Roll was, for the moment, compromised.

    Book 5: Music Across Classrooms
    45 Lessons
    Music is a gateway to engaging classroom explorations of all types. The Music Across Classrooms Book contains content for all grade bands and lesson plans for ELA, Visual Arts, and STEAM classrooms. New lessons are continually published!

  • CNN Soundtracks: Songs that Defined History
    19 Lessons
    Soundtracks: Songs that Defined History, from executive producer Dwayne Johnson, Show of Force and CNN Original Series explores the music tied to pivotal moments in history. From the March on Washington to the riots at Stonewall – every episode illuminates how music has played an integral role in celebrating, criticizing, and amplifying these seismic events in our collective history. TeachRock has partnered with CNN and Show of Force to offer a collection of standards-aligned contemporary history lessons to accompany this eight-part CNN series. See a CNN Soundtracks lesson in action at East Side Community High in New York, NY here!

  • Long Strange Trip: The Untold Story of the Grateful Dead
    11 Lessons
    The potent mix of musical, literary, scientific, and philosophic influences from which the Grateful Dead sprang made them, in some ways, the most American band. As such, the Grateful Dead’s story creates an exciting window through which students can explore key people, times, places, and issues of the U.S. throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Created in partnership with Amazon Films, the seven lesson plans in the Long Strange Trip: The Untold Story of the Grateful Dead collection create a pathway through which K-12 teachers of all disciplines can use clips from the film, historical documents, and other source material to guide students into important, engaging, and standards-aligned class periods.

  • LADAMA: Movement, Music, and Community in South America
    5 Lessons
    LADAMA: Movement, Music, and Community in South America gives elementary school students the opportunity to explore the performing arts, culture, and ecology of Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. With interactive instruction from the members of the group LADAMA, students sing in Spanish and Portuguese, perform traditional dances, and learn the underlying rhythms to musical styles throughout South America. In addition, each lesson offers a variety of worksheets and classroom activities to introduce students to South American history, culture, and ecology. Learn more about what the lesson collection has to offer below:

  • Segregation and Integration in Asbury Park
    3 Lessons
    TeachRock’s lesson collection “Segregation and Integration in Asbury Park” provides educational materials for the film Asbury Park: Riot, Redemption, Rock & Roll. In this three-part lesson collection, students discover the impact the city of Asbury Park has had upon the history of American popular music, and investigate the local conditions that led to the emergence of artists such as Steven Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen. More than this, the lesson collection asks students to think of Asbury Park as a case study for the racial dynamics in the United States. By watching clips from the documentary, examining interviews with local activists, and analyzing historical documents, students discover the long history of segregation in Asbury Park, the effects it had on the city, and how it relates to the United States' history of segregation more broadly. Learn more about this lesson plan below:

  • Math and Music: Algebra Featuring Mickey Hart
    4 Lessons
    Math and Music: Algebra Featuring Mickey Hart is a four-lesson unit aligned to 7th - 9th grade standards and designed to fit most algebra classrooms. Through a variety of hands-on activities, algebraic calculations, and graphing exercises, students discover the physical principles of sound waves, the mathematics behind tuning and harmony, and the ways sound and music are measured using mathematics. Check out the Math and Music: Algebra Featuring Mickey Hart Unit Plan here! Learn more about what the lesson collection has to offer below: 

  • The Music that Shaped America
    7 Lessons
    TeachRock is proud to present The Music that Shaped America, a lesson collection that draws on the rich archive of Alan Lomax’s Association for Cultural Equity, enlivening American history of the 18th through early 20th centuries with the sounds of regional folk musics and the personal stories of its performers. A musicologist, writer, producer, singer, and talent scout, Alan Lomax was above all else an advocate for working class people. Feeling that it is “the voiceless people of the planet who really have in their memories the 90,000 years of human life and wisdom,” Lomax dedicated his life to recording, preserving, and broadcasting traditional musicians from around the world, giving voice to those that the commercial music industry had long ignored. The Music that Shaped America is standards-aligned and compatible with AP History and other curriculums. Students will explore U.S. social history and events through the words and music of ex-slaves, Appalachian mine workers, Cajun farmers, Mississippi sharecroppers and more.

  • Book 1: Birth of Rock
    19 Lessons
    In the mid-1950s, Rock and Roll slammed into the consciousness of the American people. Whether you liked it or not, there was no denying that Rock and Roll had arrived. It was the first American musical tradition constructed from the many musical traditions that animated life in the 20th century, including Gospel, Blues, Country, Jazz and R&B. In bringing together these musical bloodlines, Rock and Roll also brought people together, from across regions, across race and class lines, and, finally, across oceans. It was the beginning of a historical turn that would change daily life in the modern world. This first section, The Birth of Rock and Roll, explores the roots of Rock and Roll, its emergence and its entrance into the cultural mainstream of America.

  • Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World
    5 Lessons
    The award-winning documentary RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World tells the story of a profound, essential, and, until now, missing chapter in the history of American music: the Indigenous influence. The standards-aligned TeachRock RUMBLE lesson plans can help you bring that story into the classroom. Drawing on short clips from the film, troves of source documents, archival photos, and journalism, the TeachRock RUMBLE lessons introduce students to important Native American musicians including Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Salas, Redbone, Buffy St. Marie, Robbie Robertson, and the Black Eyed Pea’s Taboo. The materials require students to engage in thoughtful discussion of contemporary issues such as identity and cultural appropriation, and to imagine key moments in American history from a Native perspective.

  • Book 2: Teenage Rebellion
    20 Lessons
    From its raucous beginnings to the time of its mainstream acceptance, Rock and Roll was youth music. More exactly, it was the music of the teenager. Born of postwar affluence and the increased leisure time such affluence afforded young Americans, the teenager was a thing new to the American landscape. If for some they were an object of anxiety, this had everything to do with the fact that teenagers defined themselves in opposition to the parent generation. Rebellion was a part of being a teenager. And Rock and Roll was an expression of that rebellion and of the growing gap between generations. From the teen surf culture celebrated in the music of the Beach Boys to the mini-melodramas of the Shangri-Las’ Girl Group sound and teen dances including the Twist, the Stroll, the Mashed Potato, and the Watusi, the world of the teenager was made larger and more powerful through the music itself. As 60s Soul and the British Invasion demonstrated, it would be the teenagers, inspired by their music, who would define American life moving forward.

  • Book 3: Transformation
    21 Lessons
    The teenage culture of the fifties and early sixties was the seedbed for the youth-driven counterculture of the late sixties and early seventies. This shift toward a countercultural sensibility among young people was reflected in the music itself. If in the fifties Rock and Roll had been viewed primarily as a popular entertainment, in the period of “transformation” it would come to be viewed as--in its most elevated forms--an Art. In the hands of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and others, music became a “serious” thing. As young people faced the troubling facts of a war that included them and a country that refused them the right to vote, music now offered, among other things, a megaphone through which their disillusionment could be voiced. As the nation saw the rise of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement that followed, artists like Marvin Gaye, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder used music to express feelings of frustration about the racial divide and excitement around the possibility of change. And as the music addressed the world of which it was a part, the music grew more complex, more varied—but, importantly, that music was also changing the world in ways it hadn’t previously.

  • Book 4: Fragmentation
    16 Lessons
    For a brief time, Rock and Roll seemed almost to be building its own utopia. In late sixties Rock and Roll culture in particular, the walls erected in the wider world - between the races, between men and women, between nations - seemed to collapse. The record collections of the young Rock and Roll audience often included R&B, Hard Rock, Blues, Pop, Jazz, Country, and more. Free Form FM radio mirrored this eclectic but inclusive approach to music by creating inventive playlists unbound by genre. And, then, as the “Fragmentation” crept in, the old walls seemed to reassert themselves. Fan communities, radio formats, and, indeed, even personal record collections came to be defined by genre. Hard lines were drawn. Punks defined themselves in opposition to the fans of arena rock groups like Led Zeppelin. Grunge borrowed from Heavy Metal but, more adamantly still, refused the theater of Heavy Metal. Radio was again split down racial lines. If Rock and Roll culture, in the broad sense, had been connected with youth culture as a whole, and this brought different genres and traditions into dialogue with one another, now Rock and Roll culture grew increasingly fragmented. It wouldn’t mean the end of the music. But some of the promise of late sixties Rock and Roll was, for the moment, compromised.

  • Book 5: Music Across Classrooms
    45 Lessons
    Music is a gateway to engaging classroom explorations of all types. The Music Across Classrooms Book contains content for all grade bands and lesson plans for ELA, Visual Arts, and STEAM classrooms. New lessons are continually published!