slideshow.Lesson Plan- Who are the Great Composers of the Romantic Era?
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Class: Music Appreciation, Romantic Era History
Grade: 5th Grade through High School (the differences would be that the older kids would give more "in depth" information, and present it in a more formal way)
Curriculum: A History of Western Music, Grout & Palisca
Assignment: Composer Presentations
Prereqs: Experience surfing the web, experience using Powerpoint
or alternate- ClarisWorks slideshow.
Materials: Microsoft Powerpoint, webbrowser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer, possibly a screen that displays info to the class(not necessary)
Objective: The student will learn about a composer of their choice from the Romantic era and educate other students, while increasing their proficiency in using computers and technology.
Intro: To begin understanding Romantic History and its composers, each student will find a composer that sounds interesting and learn something about his or her life. To do this, they will go to www.yahoo.com, or some other search engine to find appropriate composers. The composer should have been born between approximately 1777 and 1857 to truly be counted among Romantic Era composers. After they have found their composer and done some research both on and offline, they should create their Powerpoint presentation.
Note: Collaboration is okay on a project such as this, as long as all students turn in their own work.
Details for a student:
-Go to www.yahoo.com and type in a name, or possibly a subject. Use parenthesis to string first and last names together, or subject headings. Make sure a wide variety of composers are picked, including both women and men to increase the classes knowledge of the subject
-after you find a site with information, pay attention to who manages the site. Is it an educational website? How reputable is the info? Is it only an advertising ploy?
-go off line to finish some research, possibly in a library about the composer. A quick sketch of their life and important musical works should be included.
-put information together in a powerpoint presentation using Powerpoint. (note, if teachers and students have no experience using Powerpoint, Clarisworks' Slideshow function can be used for the presentation.
-present to the class and share about all of the different composers so each student has some understanding of most major composers, their works, and their life.
Evaluation:
Evaluation of this will be done by assigning a certain amount of points to the project, depending on how it is weighted in the class. Half of the project should be good information pertinent to class discussion, while the other half will be graded on how the information is presented through use of appropriate graphics in either the Powerpoint presentation or slide show of Clarisworks or other program.
A sample of the type of work a student should do can be found below.