Lesson: Interviewing Composers
Allow students to thoroughly explore all the musical sections of the Joy2Learn website, including Jazz, Dancing, and At the Piano. Each student should pick two composers or musicians. Once students submit their choices, teachers should assign students two roles: an interviewer role and an interviewee role.
Lesson: Comparing the Times
Have students watch the e-presentations I Ought to Be in Pictures and Antigone and ask them to consider the conflicts presented in these scenes. How are these conflicts similar to conflicts students experience in their own lives?
Lesson: Conducting Dance Research (Middle School)
Students will be able to use dance research resources to debate historical mysteries. Think, pair, share activity. What historical questions arise in the arts in general? What questions arise in dance specifically? How do historians answer these questions? What evidence do they need?
Lesson: Drawing Connections to Dance (Middle School)
Students will be able to create a “call and response” clapping duet by varying dynamics and phrasing. Think, pair, share about how slaves communicated. What barriers did they face? Have students guess how slaves communicated when masters wanted them to be silent.
Lesson: Writing Procedures (5th Grade)
What tools have artists had available to them throughout history? Make a list. Discuss how this affects the type of art artists produce. What limitations do artists face? What are some ways in which they might overcome these limitations?
Lesson: Evolution of Dance (Middle School)
How did the slaves communicate and express themselves? Ask the students to create a simple clapping conversation with the person sitting next to them. The conversation should be a call and response without using words. (5 minutes) Emphasize that the clapping can be soft or loud, long phrases of claps or short depending on what message is trying to be communicated.
Examining Historical Context in America 
Lesson: Cultural Conflict (Grade 6)
Ask students what literature tells us about the way we live. How is modern literature different than Victorian or Enlightenment era literature? How are the conflicts different? How are they similar?
Lesson: Understanding Context of Theater (Grade 5)
Students will analyze the historical context of Shakespearean theater.
Exploring Historical Context of Theater
Lesson: Integrating Tap Dancing Into History (Middle School)
Students will be able to compare and contrast dancers using appropriate vocabulary and references to technique. What dancers do students watch now? How are these dancers different? How are they similar? How do students decide which dancers they like best?
Lesson: The Arts and Resistance
Ask students why they think people need creativity. How do they exhibit their creativity in today’s world? How does what’s going on in the world affect the artwork these people produce?
Lesson: Understanding Improvisation in Early Jazz Styles (Middle/High School)
Students will gain an understanding of improvisation by listening to two recorded versions of When the Saints Go Marching In, learning the song, and creating their own improvised performances of the song.
Lesson: Relating Artists and Artistic Movements
Ask students to make a list of examples of times when they have seen one type of fine art influence another type. For example, how has hip-hop music influenced graffiti? How have movies influenced hip-hop? Encourage students to find specific examples from their daily lives.
Lesson: Effects of the Industrial Revolution (10th Grade)
Ask students to make a list of objects in the classroom, in their room at home, or in their backpacks. Once they have finished, ask them if these objects would have been present in these locations prior to the industrial revolution. If so, how would they have been different than the way they are today? If not, what barriers prevented the manufacture and distribution of these particular objects?
Lesson: An Instrument Report (5th Grade)
Ask students to list all the instruments they have heard in jazz. If students do not know what jazz is, ask them to make a general list of the instruments they are familiar with. Then ask them how much they know about these instruments. What countries do they come from? What are they made out of? What are some famous musicians that have played these instruments?
Lesson: Connecting Theater to Community
What are some examples from history when individuals stood up to a system or law? (Examples include Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi) Are there plays or other works of literature written about these individuals? Why are these stories told over and over again? Why are they so appealing?
Lesson: Iago On Trial (Grade 7)
Discuss the Moors. How did they influence European art and culture? Ask students to infer how other Europeans felt about Moors, especially in terms of power relations. Ask them to relate this to the minority experience in the United States today.
Lesson: Comparing Playwrights (9th and 10th Grade)
Ask students about performances they have enjoyed. These can be plays, musicals, concerts, TV shows, or movies. Are any of these movies set in the past? Are any set in the future? If so, are they believable? Why or why not?