Lesson Plan

Name: Emma Fettig Date: 03/28/23

Grade/Class: High School

1. Learning Objective(s):

- Students will know and be able to explain what a key signature is and the function it serves.
- Students will be able to explain the role of sharps and flats.
- Students will be able to distinguish between if songs are in the same key or transposed.
- Students will be able to identify the names of given major keys.

2. Assessment:

- There will be an informal assessment by students participating in the team game and being able to hear
the difference between the same key or transposed versions of the same songs.
- Informal assessment with the students scores that they receive on
https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/keysig, the scores don’t count for a grade but they let the
teacher know what needs to be reviewed and strengthened.
- The students’ exit ticket will be another informal assessment to see what needs to possibly be reviewed
in the next class.

3. Required prior knowledge/skills:

- Students have no prior knowledge for this lesson.

4. Review and/or new information needed:

- Basic review of the pitches on a basic major scale and on a piano. The names of each note are crucial
to this lesson.
- New information about the key signatures is demonstrated in the slide show, details in the footnotes of
the presentation.

5. Materials, Repertoire, Equipment needed:

- Computers/iPads
- Speakers
- Prepared popular music examples on YouTube
4. Review and/or new information needed:

- Basic review of the pitches on a basic major scale and on a piano. The names of each note are crucial
to this lesson.
- New information about the key signatures is demonstrated in the slide show, details in the footnotes of
the presentation.

- Whiteboard/markers

6. Lesson Sequence Pacing

A. Opening: (introduction, “do now”, warm up etc.)

- Students will enter the classroom and get settled by - 5 minutes

taking out their computers and leaving them closed
on their desks.
B. Learning Activities:

1. Switch to the first slide of the presentation. Students 1. 2 minutes

will be reviewing and filling in the notes of a staff.
The staff is blank on the slide and on the white
board, students will raise hands to answer with their
prior knowledge.
2. Students listen to clips and examples of popular
songs embedded into the presentation. This will 2. 8-10 minutes
either be in the same key in both clips, or transposed.
Students are divided into teams and each team must
have all members raise their hand to answer whether
it is in the same key or not and if it is higher or 3. 5-6 minutes
lower. They get a point if they are correct and faster
to answer than the other team. This opens the ears
and serves as another warmup into the lesson.
3. Students will identify the order of sharps and flats
and how to find out what key signature something is
in using the trick of: flats (you look at the final
accidental in the key) and sharps (you find the note
 just above the final accidental) The circle of fifths 4. 1 minutes
will also be utilized on a handout to help visualize
the order and reasoning behind the order of key 5. 5 minutes
signatures.
4. Students will then open up computers and head to
https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/keysig 6. 5 minutes
5. Students will use this website and game on their own
to practice identifying different major and minor key
signatures.
6. Students will be given a sheet of blank staves with
key signatures written underneath the staff, with the
teacher, they will notate the key and write. Then on
their own they will fill out the rest of the worksheet.

C. Assessment Activity:

1. The assessment is embedded into the wrap up,

testing the students knowledge of a couple different
key signatures and the tricks to find them as a
warmup. Also they will be turning in the papers at
the end of the next class when they have been given
time to go over the answers.

D. Summative activity/Closing/Wrap-up:

1. Students will raise hands to answer the review 1. 4 minutes

questions at the end of the slide deck
2. Computers/iPads away

7. Accommodations:

1. Visual aids on the board and/or on a printed out sheet.

2. For students who are struggling to understand the concept, a cheat sheet with the information
explained a lot slower and simply with all of the key signatures and information can be handed out.

8. Checklist of National Standards:

- Responding
 - MU:Re9.1.C.Ia Describe the effectiveness of the technical and expressive aspects of selected
music and performances demonstrating understanding of fundamentals of music theory
- Connecting
- MU:Cn11.0.Ia Demonstrate understanding of relationships between music and the other arts,
other disciplines, varied contexts and daily life.
- Creating
- MU:Cr3.2.C.Ia Share music through the use of notation, Performance or technology, and
demonstrate how the elements of music have been employed to realizes expressive intent

9. Checklist of State Frameworks: Improvisation & Composition, Critical Response, Purposes & meaning
in the arts, Inventions technologies & the arts.

Creating
- Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work. Consistently apply research to generate compositional ideas (e.g., to help
generate new ideas, students listen to several different recordings of pieces that use industrial sounds). (AG.M.Cr.01)
Responding
- Perceive and analyze artistic work. Identify ways contemporary musical compositions push boundaries of the genre and disciplines.

Following Lesson:

10. Teacher Reflection/Self-Evaluation:

a. Reflect on the process and include student responses
- This lesson went alright but definitely could use some more fine tuning. I think that overall the
information is useful and the students did absorb it as seen through the activities.

b. Rethink & Revise - what could you have done differently to improve the outcome of this lesson)
- I definitely could’ve found more exciting and hands-on activities to teach key signatures as it is a very
important, yet dry subject matter to beginning students. Also incorporating the circle of fifths from the
beginning of this lesson would’ve been an extremely useful tool to provide to the students.