ipts6

Standard Six | Instructional Delivery

**Music and Society **

In this mini unit for the class, //Today's Problems//, students discussed music and its impact and importance on our society. I began this unit by showing the classes a VH1 documentary entitled, //Bling'd//. After watching the special, we discussed what blood diamonds were and I showed them two music videos that were supposed to be about blood diamonds from different famous rap artists. My task for the students was then to consider their favorite music and to bring in two songs (with lyrics) that they felt described a social issue. I gathered the homework to find appropriate versions of the songs and had them listen to several songs selections that I had made, such as "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday, "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springfield, and "Do Something" by Steve Means. Using an iPod, I played many of their selections in class while the students worked, in groups, on creating a poster based on a song and social issue. After completing the poster, students had to travel around the room and look at the other posters.

I chose this short unit as my artifact because it presented current issues to the students in a way that they had not previously considered. By encouraging the students to discover lyrics that discussed a social issue, they were able to critically think about //what// issues are important to them and decipher the meaning of the lyrics to popular songs, old and new. The classes enjoyed walking around the room and looking at the other songs their classmates had chosen. Many of the students were talking about other songs they had not thought about for the assignment, but could easily be applied to the mini unit. Using music to discuss issues would also be effective in a history class to discuss wars and social movements.

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