I like this discussion topic because it creates an opportunity for students to reflect on the first lesson from the unit and apply ideas from the history then to the present now.

Unfortunately, the assessment format is the same across the board for every lesson. This unit is in need of a rubric for grading and assessing what the students have learned through each lesson (p. 57). The students will answer questions regarding facts, concepts, and application of knowledge in the essay questions for each assessment. As for their learning experiences, a summative assessment project should be created to help students connect the jazz lessons with a real-world context, so that they can demonstrate their knowleldge, understanding and skills in a non-traditional test format (p. 57).

There is no unit web in this curriculum unit. A unit web should be formatted to show the visualization of the unit and how it breaks down (p. 54).

Most of my annotations are on the first lesson because the format for this curriculum unit is the same for every lesson.

Side note: I talked to Terri Lyne Carrington on Zoom over the summer for my project! She's awesome!

Originally, I read this lesson plan for Dixieland Jazz to be a deductive lesson because it was so fact heavy at the start in relaying information and having the students absorb rather than conceptualize. One of the history standards that can be connected with music in this lesson is "Students should understand how new cultural movements reflected and changed American society," and the music standard would be "[students] support personal interpretation of contrasting programs of music and explain how creators or performers apply the elements of music and expressive qualities, within genres, cultures, and historical periods to convey expressive intent."

As you can see, there is a lot of discussion by the teacher listed, which makes me believe that this would be lecture heavy. What I would like to alter to make this lesson more inductive is the information that the students would be interacting with physically. Incorporating the student handouts (newspaper article excerpts, music reviews, history article, photographs etc.) and having them read first and discuss second can help scaffold what the students are learning by allowing them to view the information in multiple ways rather than just a lecture format. Through the lecture and handouts, the teacher is identifying and teaching the critical content that students must know (p.56). After reviewing the historical standpoints of this era, we would listen to musical excepts that would align with the music standard listed to have the students identify why the music may sound a certain way (sad - maybe it's a blues/folk based song, happy - celebratory march, etc.). This application of knowledge will help them connect with the music to better understand how history and music interact with each other (p. 35). Through these lessons, students should be able to connect concepts and topics from the history lesson to the interpretations of the music we will listen to (p. 56).

The Historical Content and the Artistic Process section of each lesson identify the key skills that students will be able to do by the end of the lesson (p. 56). The use of history objectives are definitely geared towards learning experiences rather than the music skills because they are much more specific in what the students are analyzing during the lesson. There should definitely be more focus on the music and jazz genre in the key skills because of the nature of the unit being MUSIC history-based.

This curriculum unit doesn't have an all encompassing title which is the first step in creating a unit. I would name this curriculum unit "And All That Jazz: History, People, Music." This title is fun and not too broad like "What is Jazz?" Instead, it has a clear sense of what we are covering, history, people and jazz music (Erickson p. 52).

The titles for each lesson are the unit strands. Each one helps to break down the unit into manageable chunks that reflect the topic for the lesson (Erickson p. 54).

Because these are national standards, I wanted to align the TEKS with this unit as well.

§117.310. Music, Level I (One Credit), Adopted 2013. (5) Historical and cultural relevance. The student relates music to history, culture, and the world. The student is expected to: (A) compare and contrast music by genre, style, culture, and historical period; (C) identify and describe the uses of music in societies and cultures;

§117.310. Music, Level I (One Credit), Adopted 2013. (5) Historical and cultural relevance. The student relates music to history, culture, and the world. The student is expected to: (D) identify and explore the relationship between music and other academic disciplines;

§117.310. Music, Level I (One Credit), Adopted 2013. (1) Foundations: music literacy. The student describes and analyzes music and musical sounds. The student develops organizational skills, engages in problem solving, and explores the properties and capabilities of various musical idioms. The student is expected to: (A) experience and explore exemplary musical examples using technology and available live performances;

The tests embedded in this curriculum unit require a lot of fact memorization rather than support a conceptual understanding. I would want to create more opportunity for the essay questions to be used in the in-class discussion to gauge my students' overall understanding of these jazz concepts and history and then test them on a question that allows them to respond in their own words what they learned from each lesson (p. 69). This will influence and support integrated thinking to better help students understand that jazz is not just a chapter in a music history book but a genre that is rich in history, experience, and musical knowledge that can be applied to other pieces (Erickson p. 15).

Each lesson has a set of questions for use on the exam (p. 55.

1 This is a factual question because students will have to identify qualities of the music that they hear, and prove why the tunes sound different.

2 is a factual question paired with a conceptual understanding of improvisation. Students must know the definition to improvisation in order to make higher order connections between improv in music and in their daily life (p. 107).

3 This is a debatable question for students because each student may have a different definition for America which will influence their thoughts on how it can be represented by jazz. Students will have learned why jazz is considered America's music, but can reflect on their own to determine how it applies in their own opinion.

4 This is a factual based question similar to number 1 because the students will have to know the definitions to composed and improvised music in order to discuss the differences. These are not debatable terms.

5 This is a conceptual question because students will be given an example from the readings about how slavery influenced jazz. Students are encouraged to think about other events that could influence music by making connections with the examples from class.

The tabs on the side of each lesson include the generalizations that students need to learn from the unit. (A, B, C, D, E). These are the concepts that students will be exploring throughout the lessons via music and handouts (p. 55). While the bullets include more information, these are overarching concepts that students will be discussing, not necessarily straight facts.

Evidently, I was confused by how these tabs worked when I chose this unit. Unfortunately, this is a unit for History, not a band class. I will be reviewing it best as I can in relation to incorporating sections in an applied music class or something like that in the future. After thinking, this unit might still work in that setting for a block scheduled class because the periods are much longer. This would allow for the class to be half "curriculum unit" and half practicing period.