Connect the ideas of jazz improvisation and art to writing poetry. Learners collaborate and write different lines of poetry, imitating the jazz styles of improvisation and freewriting. Take a close look at the poems "Tenebrae" by Yusef...

Learners participate in a class discussion about jazz music, compare improvisation with regular conversion, listen to various jazz musicians and compare and contrast their individual sounds.

Students examine jazz's roots and their hybridization in New Orleans in the early 20th century. They listen to ragtime and jazz recordings, then complete worksheets imbedded in this plan.

Young scholars gain an understanding of early jazz. They study Dixieland and the Roaring Twenties. They examine the American historical significance and cultural implications of early jazz.

Students compare and contrast the rhythms of marches and jazz. They watch an excerpt about Buddy Bolden from the PBS Ken Burns Jazz documentary, compare/contrast march and jazz rhythms, complete a worksheet, and notate and perform jazz...

Students observe that there are myriad combinations of rhythms to choose from when improvising jazz and blues music, and recognize that while the variations seem infinite, they are in fact finite. They notate a 12 bar blues progression...

Students study the history of jazz music. They listen to various examples of jazz music and complete a worksheet in which they must identify the individual instruments they hear and identify characteristics of the genre of jazz music.

Students are able to create their own collages using some of the same kinds of images and materials Bearden used. They put to use some of the Bearden techniques they observed in the reproduction/slide lecture and explore to...