B.B. King and Muddy Waters are two of the most famous blues performers of all time. In this music lesson, middle schoolers study the early careers and lasting musical contributions of both artists, each of whom carried the blues on to...

Contemplate what music learners listen to and why they listen. Can they find poetry within music lyrics? Specifically hone in on blues lyrics and ruminate upon the social issues prevalent in the themes. Particular song lyrics coincide...

Students determine the best solvent system for separating a methylene blue/sodium fluorescein mixture by thin layer chromatography. They conduct an initial TLC separation using ethanol and a different solvent mixture and analyze the data...

Watching Great Performances’ Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival Chicago launches an investigation into and discussion of how the electric guitar and guitarists have changed the sound of the blues over time. An engaging way to...

Learners examine how American Jews affect music and entertainment. They identify problems between immigrants and their children. They relate the Jewish American issue to those of African Americans.

Students explore the conditions needed to grow Texas Blue Bonnets. In this Blue Bonnet planting lesson, students recognize the differences in Texas Blue Bonnet. Students record their findings in a graphs and analyze their results.

Here is a complex lesson plan that interweaves the history of the Jim Crow South and the Great Migration with the study of poetry, art, and blues music from the Harlem Renaissance. The plan helps young historians develop a deep...

Use a container full of water as a prism and show that as light is bent, the individual colors from different wavelengths become visible. This explains why the sky appears to be blue midday, and why as the sun nears the horizon, it looks...

Enable students to use the blues to explore urbanization, technology, and their effects on everyday life in the 20th century. Musicians were among the large number of people who, between 1914 and 1945, participated in the Great Migration...

Brenda Z. Guiberson’s nonfiction book, Cactus Hotel, launches a series of activities that model for readers how to determine the main idea in a passage.  Class members engage in an online interactive game to test their...

A plethora of information about the blue crabs of Chesapeake Bay will amaze and delight your marine biologists. They learn, through direct instruction, about the characteristics and life cycle of this fascinating arthropod. A highlight...

And then what happened? Class members engage in a series of activities that model for them how to read the story in a painting. Participants respond to questions that ask them to closely examine the elements in William Glackens'...

Students examine influence The Blues had on Rock and Roll and the concomitant social, political, and economic factors and movements during the post-World War II period. Students then research and create multimedia reports on...

Jazz, Blue Grass, Hip Hop, Swing. Gospel, R&B, Ragtime, Disco. So many music genres born in the USA. After reading an article about the fate of New Orlean's Jazz after Hurricane Katrina, class members investigate the life cycles of...

Students cut out red, white, and blue stars and create different patterns with them. In this patterns instructional activity, students can make stamp patterns, number patterns, color patterns, and more!

Students practice playing and improvising while playing the 12 bar blues. They practice compositional skills, evaluate and perform musical pieces focused on the blues.

Model for young readers how to make the shift from passive to active reading by making text-to-self and text-to-text connections. After a series of activities that provide guided practice, the focus shifts to making text-to-words...

An online interactive activity encourages young readers to employ the monitoring/repairing strategy to become better readers. Class members identify unfamiliar words, decode them, and use them in other contexts.

Model for your class how to become a better reader through questioning. After conducting a picture walk that introduces prediction strategies, learners play an interactive questioning cube game. Complete directions for the game and...

Introduce young readers to the comprehension strategy of visualizing by asking them to think about a place that makes them happy. After illustrating or using words to describe this place, the class moves on to an interactive game using...

This lesson plan enables students to gain a broader awareness of the basic blues scale and the harmonic structure of the standard blues progression. Students will be given introductory exercises on blues improvisation and will also...

This lesson focuses on how the blues both operates as poetry and informs the poetry of many prominent African American poets. Students consider the poetic devices and recurring themes in blues lyrics and the significance of the poetry of...

In this lesson students will learn about finding the blues in a variety of musical styles. They will investigate instances of the blues form heard in mainstream pop music, along with exploring the musical styles of two new artists who...

This lesson examines both the content and form of lyrics in blues songs. In addition to highlighting the basic musical form of a blues song, it also addresses the use of floating verses in blues music, both within the context of the...