Merriam Big Ideas:

Music expresses emotions and ideas

Music has structure

Essential Questions:
Why do people listen to music?
What makes you like or dislike a song?
What is the purpose of music in our society?
How do people discuss and share their favorite music?
How do you describe music? How do people talk about music?
What can we learn from each other?

Objectives/Content/Dispositions
Describing and analyzing music to garner a more informed perspective for
performing
Digital citizenship and literacy
Performing skills (instrument performance)
o Technical and musical understandings
Open-mindedness and democracy
Evaluating music
Describing and analyzing
Problem solving and grit
Cultivating 21
st
century dispositions (creativity, innovation, critical thinking,
collaboration, communication)

National Core Standards:
Anchor Standard #10 Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to
make art.
Anchor Standard #11 Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and
historical context to deepen understanding.
Phase One: Why do people listen to music?
Phase Two: How do people talk about music?
Phase Three: What can we learn from each
other?

Assessment:
Create an edmodo entry, describe and analyze the orchestra music.
Students assess their post using criteria generated in the beginning of the unit.

Phase 1: Why do people listen to music?
Introduce Essential Questions
o Why do people listen to music?
o What makes you like or dislike a song?
o How do people discuss and share their favorite music?
Create criteria with students to describe and analyze music
o How do you describe music?
Introduce means of accessing recordings of orchestral music

Phase 2: How do people talk about music?
Review criteria
Students listen to music in class
Students post their response on edmodo so the teacher can provide feedback

Phase 3: What can we learn from each other?
Student presentations of song analysis for the orchestra
Students self-assess their post using the criteria generated in the beginning of the
project
o To what extent did you discuss the emotion? To what extent did you
discuss the structure?
Group discussion how critically listening, analyzing, and describing our music
helps us better understand how to perform it.