QUESTION: History of Rock n Roll integrated with Language Arts?

[Justin]

Hi,

I would like to integrate the history of rock n roll in to my Language
Arts classroom.  My initial thought was to do it by theme or unit.  I don't know how to make my LA curriculum tie in to the history time
line.  Or if I should start with the rock n roll time line and try and integrate my curriculum in that way.  But I am not sure if that is the best way.  I would love to hear your suggestions on how to get this
started.

[Frank W. Baker]

These lesson plans, from the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, may be useful.

[Justin]

Thank you! The lessons look very cool.

[Mike Gange]

Hi,
I would suggest you get a book called Station to Station. cant recall the author at this moment. it is a good one for understanding how TV played a roll in helping rock and roll get a foothold into american culture.

[Ryan Goble]

This book is an essential starting point for your background knowledge. Rock And Roll: A Social History by Paul Friedlander .... plus his Rock Window (explained at length in the book) is another nice tool.

Lastly you might dig the free Mindblue study guide on Ben Harper that deals with Civil Rights issues and the LA Riots - it is a free download. Here is a link to the iMix for the songs.

[Deborah A Brady]

I don't have an answer exactly, but I can tell you what three teachers in my district are doing and that I have done with rock songs, though it does not begin with the story of rock and roll, the unit ends with rock and roll and popular culture. After students have studied the elements of poetry, they select their favorite popular song. I link it to a canonical poem and they do a comparison/contrast presentation and a written analysis. When we get to the end of the presentations, before they begin to write their papers, we discuss the themes of the songs and that begins a unit that looks at our contemporary pop culture including its music. There is a comprehensive list that connects canonical literature with contemporary music at http://www.corndancer.com/tunes/tunes_db.html.
I hope this helps.

[Mike Gange]

May I add some counsel from my view as a teacher with more than 25 years experience....if you are going to do this, then get the kids to create some thing too. Since you have to realize you can't teach a kid to swim in a gym, a student can't gain full aprreciation of the genre unless they made some sort of rock and roll too. If you can get your hands on a MAC computer, it comes equiped with Garage Band which the kids can use to make their own tune. You should allow one quarter of your teaching time for them to show-and-sing (rather than show-and-tell) their creation.

[Suzanne Lustie]

Mike your comment made me laugh," you can't teach a kid to swim in a gym." As much as I didn't like the very popular "duh!" sometimes it was apt.
So Justin, with Mike's comment in mind, find a place to let the kids move. Let them hear the music and the sounds of the words and how it invites them to move. To get more bang for your buck try using Rock the SAT and put some movement to that.
It's fun to take some rock and roll songs and re-write them. But I agree with Frank, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has some fabulous lessons. Have fun.
Suzanne

[Mike Gange]

Thanks for your comment, Suzanne. I hope we get to meet sometime and share more ideas.

[Mike Gange]

One of the things to keep in mind, is that R&R was considered a medium of protest. The kids in the 60's were protesting the conservatism of the 50's, and wanted to express their own opinion about the state of the world. Sex, drugs and R&R were considered ways to get away from the control of the previous decade. And teens numbers were burgeoning, as the Baby Boom brought more and more teens into the age where they could speak their minds. A good example of this you could use in your lessons would be to look at specific years from the Billboard charts, which is available on-line at the magazine's site. In 1956, for example, most of the songs on the charts were love songs, of some sort. By 1966, you see many more songs that are not love songs, but are protest songs. This is when you start to see the real rise of C&W music, too, which was a way to provide an alternative to R&R. The values expressed in the two genres are almost opposite viewpoints. Interestingly, C&W never recognized Elvis with any prizes except for his Gospel music, because his use of Black music and his teen appeal nearly killed C&W. The moment that Elvis appeared on Ed Sullivan, and was paid $75,000 btw, is recognized as the moment when marketers realized they had to concentrate on teens as a buying power. That moment, about 1957 or 58, had 84% of the TV's in the country tuned in. That is a phenomenal reach, never again equalled by a single TV show.
Soon the radio stations were playing the protest songs too, appealing to a teen market. Three years later we get Woodstock, bringing us CSN&Y and their protest songs. Remember, at their beginning they were 20-something kids, singing idealistic love songs about "their lady." "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" is an ode-in three-parts to Judy Collins, who would not join Stephen Stills in a life long union, but would go on to sing her own kinds of interpretive songs (Both Sides Now). Their song "Ohio" was a cry against violence in society, against a government that turned its guns against its own citizens. The Doors "Light My Fire" may be a direct reference to the sexual turn-on of a single woman, but "Frog Peace Song" is a complaint against what was happening in the Chicago convention. You see this progress in the soundtracks of movies too. Look at the songs of American Graffiti vs Easy Rider.
A question I would leave your students with is this: Who is playing the protest songs now? What group or groups are singing about poverty, the impact of war on a generation, the environment, the use of unnecessary force such as guns, knives, etc, and the hegemony of a population controlling another part of the population.

Best wishes with your efforts, --Mike