Lesson Plans

Well, it has been quite a bit of time since I have had to think up lesson plans. The last time I did my own, original planning was in 2005, so I will give it a shot for the future teachers out there.

Rationale:

I thought about these assignments as a way to show that the use of pop culture and youth oriented content can be used in a way that stimulates critical thinking about a topic. The use of pop culture within the classroom setting so often is used as a dressing for an otherwise mundane activity. Through these examples of lesson plans, students will be able engage in the pop culture while examining what is occurring within the content as well as what is going on around the context of the music. The students will get to actually interact with the content rather than simply be consumers of whatever is pushed at them in terms of music, style, fashion, or thoughts.

The first activity is a way for students to look a little closer at what is going around them in their own environment to see the trends of what is happening and what might be the next, up and coming trends. By taking pictures or their classmates, students can sort on various themes they identify as trends and look for clues as to what might be the next big thing. The students will then present their findings in some organized manner through a PowerPoint or photo-movie.

The second activity the students will identify three or four random songs with the various charting systems from Billboard. Using some means of constructing a concept map, the students will compare and contrast at least three different layers of the songs including but not limited to music/sounds, words/lyrics, and emotional responses/mindscapes.

Pop music and youth culture can provide a wealth of opportunities for learning. The more a student is given the chance to interact with and think a bit deeper about material they are familiar with, the more likely they the though process will continue into other unknown territory. Teachers should allow for this opportunity to happen more often.

Disclaimer: With my back ground in Special Education, I tend to focus on the social skills needed to accomplish these tasks. I will try to make these as general and adaptable as possible for anyone to use. The activities in these lessons can be pretty easily adapted for a specific content area, I think. Also, these lessons will be more in line with 7th – 9th grade.

Lesson #1:

Cool Hunters

Objectives:

By the end of the assignment, students should be able to…

* Identify marketing techniques
* Find and examine trends in the student population
* Understand how what market research might look for when pitching a product to youth
* Critically think about different ad campaigns and how they are trying to appeal to youth

Context:

Cool hunters work in various fields such as fashion, design, and media consulting to identify “the next big thing” in tends. These big things can be a style of dress, type of music with a particular sound, or way of communicating.

Background

General information from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolhunting

More specific information from FRONTLINE with video interviews of CoolHunters (this is before the era of Facebook and MySpace)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/etc/hunting.html

Materials:

* Digial cameras for each student or for each group of students
* Computer to view and edit the photos (with GIMP or some other photo editing software)
* Some kind of presentation software (openoffice Impress, Microsoft PowerPoint…)
* Some kind of movie making software (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker)

Technology considerations:

* Knowledge of how to use and teach the software for the presentation or for creating a photo-movie
* Or knowledge of who can teach these skills to the students and assess if they are able to produce material with the software pieces.
* Ability to troubleshoot various issues with the digital cameras or the software and communicate those solutions to the students.

Procedure:

Pre-Activities:

Make sure the students know if they are working in groups or individually.

Present the video of the Cool Hunters from the FRONTLINE website or a summary of their profession to the class.

Discuss what the Cool Hunters are doing and how they are doing it.

State that the student’s task is to identify the current and up and coming trends occurring in the school.

Explain the use of the digital camera and various other technical aspects of locating and viewing the photos.

Go over how ask to a peer if their picture can be taken.

Have the students brainstorm various areas they might want to focus on when taking pictures.

The students should make note of these.

During Activity:

Allow the students to take pictures of other students focusing on various items of clothing or other trends that can be captured with a camera.

Monitor student activity.

Post Activity:

Students should transfer photos from their camera to the computer they will be working on.

As a group or individually, students should organize the photos to best present what is currently a trend and what evidence there is for a future trend. This can be done either through presentation software or through video-creation software.

Assessment:

Based on the clarity of what is communicated through the various mode of communication.

Lesson #2

Connections of songs

Objectives:

By the end of the assignment, students should be able to…

* Identify different areas of pop music to compare
* Find and examine differences and similarities in song structure and presentation
* Formulate ideas on how popular music speaks to many different people

Context:

Music in popular culture is popular for a reason. They have elements within them that are familiar and comfortable, yet provide different aspects of other elements (sound, lyrical content, and mood). Examining the similarities and difference between various songs with help students understand what it is about pop music that makes it popular.

Materials

* Lists of various top songs (possibly from Billboard)
* Computers for students or groups of students
* Access to the internet
* Access to some kind of Concept Mapping Software

Technology Considerations

* Ability to locate songs to listen to on the internet
* Knowledge of the affordances and allowances of Concept Mapping Software
* Ability to troubleshoot Concept Mapping software with students

Activity : (not completely hashed out)

Pre-Activity :

Discuss with students about what makes pop music pop music

* Is it structure, content, money, other influences?
* What makes a song #1 on the charts verses any other song?

Brainstorm as a group areas to look across difference songs.

During Activity :

Have students locate different songs to listen to on the internet

While listening to the songs, the students will focus on the different areas of the class identified.

Using a concept mapping software, students will construct diagrams illustrating what they have discovered about the songs for each individual song

Using a concept mapping software, students will construct diagrams comparing at least two different songs indentifying similarities and differences.

Post-Activity:

The class comes together and discusses what they found as a whole and how that relates to what is on the radio and what the students listen to.

Assessment :

Bases on the quality of the findings of the individual songs as well as the comparison between the songs.