Unit 4 — Connecting
Description
Students develop the ability to make connections between music and their personal interests, experiences, and real-world contexts. Students apply personal experiences to compositions, create unique pieces reflecting their individual perspectives, and connect to social issues that matter to them. Students examine how musicians' differences impact their creative processes and demonstrate understanding of relationships between music and other arts, disciplines, and daily life.
Essential Questions
- How do musicians make meaningful connections to creating, performing, and responding?
- How do the other arts, other disciplines, contexts, and daily life inform creating, performing, and responding to music?
Learning Objectives
- Demonstrate how interests, knowledge, and skills relate to personal choices and intent when creating, performing, and responding to music
- Demonstrate understanding of relationships between music and the other arts, other disciplines, varied contexts, and daily life
Supplemental Resources
- Staff paper and compositional materials for creating original pieces
- Markers and construction paper for visually representing musical connections
- Sticky notes for recording ideas linking music to personal experiences
- Visual aids and Promethean Board for displaying diverse musical examples
Music - Connecting
Students develop counting skills, recognize patterns in rhythm, and explore spatial relationships through musical compositions and rhythm notation.
Students engage in investigations and observations related to sound properties, cause and effect relationships in music, and the application of design thinking when creating musical solutions.
Students listen to and respond to diverse literature featuring diverse individuals, develop vocabulary for describing musical elements, and engage in collaborative discussions about music selections and performances.
Students develop body awareness, coordination, and fine motor skills through instrumental performance and movement activities that respond to music.
Students explore diverse composers, musicians, and cultural perspectives through music from different regions and communities, examine social issues like spirituals and protest songs, and learn about contributions of individuals with disabilities to music.
Students engage with music and songs from diverse cultures and regions around the world, building awareness of global musical traditions.
Formative Assessments
- Teacher observation of student compositions reflecting personal interests
- Group discussion about connections between music and other disciplines
- Question and answer conversations about social issues in music
- Skill testing of interdisciplinary connections
Summative Assessment
Students compose or improvise musical pieces that reflect personal interests or social issues important to them, demonstrating understanding of musical connections to daily life
Benchmark Assessment
Students select activities or subjects important to them when composing and explain the connections between their choices and musical expression
Alternative Assessment
Students may demonstrate understanding through recorded musical responses, physical movement, or collaborative group compositions with peer support. Visual aids such as picture cards, emotion charts, or example compositions may be provided to help students identify and express personal connections to music.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
Students may benefit from visual supports such as picture cards or graphic organizers that help them connect personal experiences to musical ideas before composing or responding. Offering oral or movement-based response options in place of written output allows students to demonstrate understanding of music's connections to daily life in accessible ways. Teachers may break the composition or improvisation process into smaller, sequential steps with frequent check-ins, ensuring students can focus on expressing one idea at a time rather than managing the full task at once.
Section 504
Students should be given extended time during composition or improvisation tasks to allow them to fully develop and communicate their musical ideas without time pressure. Preferential seating in a low-distraction area of the room supports focus during group discussions and listening activities that explore connections between music and other disciplines. Providing printed or visual prompts alongside oral directions helps students stay oriented to the task during class conversations and creative work sessions.
ELL / MLL
Teachers should incorporate visual cues, images, and short video examples to help students build background knowledge about how music connects to other arts, daily life, and social topics, reducing reliance on English language alone to access content. Key vocabulary related to musical expression, emotion, and connection should be introduced with visual support before discussions or creative tasks begin, and students should be encouraged to draw on personal and cultural musical experiences from their home lives as valid and valued entry points. Allowing students to share ideas through gesture, drawing, or their home language before transitioning to English supports fuller participation in group discussions and composition activities.
At Risk (RTI)
Teachers can help students access this unit by beginning with concrete, personal connections — inviting students to share a song, sound, or musical moment from their own life as a starting point for composition and discussion. Offering simplified choice structures, such as choosing between two moods or two types of instruments to represent an idea, reduces complexity while still honoring student voice and intent. Frequent encouragement and low-stakes opportunities to share work in progress build confidence and keep students engaged with the creative process throughout the unit.
Gifted & Talented
Students who are ready for greater depth can be invited to explore how a specific social issue or personal interest might be expressed through multiple artistic disciplines simultaneously, examining how musical choices — such as tempo, dynamics, or instrumentation — carry meaning in ways that parallel choices made in visual art, poetry, or storytelling. Encouraging students to research how a real-world musician intentionally connected their work to a social or cultural context, and then apply similar intentionality to their own compositions, pushes thinking beyond personal expression into the realm of artistic purpose and audience awareness.