Curriculum Review·Montague Township School District
/Grade 7/Music: Ukulele

Montague Township School District

Music: Ukulele Curriculum Guide

Grade 7

2025-2026

Jody Taylor

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Description

Montague Township School General Music Elective Curriculum for Mixed Middle Grades: Introduction to Ukulele. Students compose, create, improvise, perform, respond to, and connect with music across various genres including Jazz, Hip-Hop, Spiritual, Classical, Ragtime, and Rap. Awareness is brought to Climate Change through chosen songs and performances.

Big Ideas

  • The creative ideas, concepts and feelings that influence musicians' work emerge from a variety of sources
  • Musicians' creative choices are influenced by their expertise, context and expressive intent.
  • Musicians evaluate and refine their work through openness to new ideas, persistence and the application of appropriate criteria.
  • Performers' interest in and knowledge of musical works, understanding of their own technical skill, and the context for a performance influence the selection of repertoire.
  • To express their musical ideas, musicians analyze, evaluate and refine their performance over time through openness to new ideas, persistence and the application of appropriate criteria.
  • Musicians judge performance based on criteria that vary across time, place and cultures. The context and how a work is presented influence audience response.
  • Individuals' selection of musical works is influenced by their interests, experiences, understandings, and purposes.
  • Response to music is informed by analyzing context (e.g., social, cultural, historical) and how creator(s) or performer(s) manipulate the elements of music.
  • The personal evaluation of musical work(s) and performance(s) is informed by analysis, interpretation, and established criteria.
  • Musicians connect their personal interests, experiences, ideas, and knowledge to creating, performing, and responding.

Essential Questions

  • How do musicians generate creative ideas?
  • How do musicians make creative decisions?
  • How do musicians improve the quality of their creative work?
  • How do performers select repertoire?
  • How do musicians improve the quality of their performance?
  • When is a performance judged ready to present?
  • How do context and the manner in which musical work is presented influence audience response?
  • How do individuals choose music to experience?
  • How does understanding the structure and context of music inform a response?
  • How do we discern the musical creators' and performers' expressive intent?
  • How do we judge the quality of musical work(s) and performance(s)?
  • 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?

Music - Connecting

Music - Creating

Music - Performing

Music - Responding

ELA
Units 1, 2, 3, 4

Students engage in collaborative discussions about music, develop and present arguments about musical selections, and use written communication to analyze and interpret musical works across all units.

Mathematics
Units 1, 2, 3, 4

Students apply mathematical thinking to understand rhythm patterns, tempo relationships, and proportional structures in musical compositions and performances.

Science
Units 1, 2, 3, 4

Students explore the physics of sound waves and acoustic properties of instruments through inquiry-based learning and investigation.

Social Studies
Units 1, 2, 3, 4

Students learn about diverse music histories and genres reflecting various cultures, historical periods, and societies, including jazz, hip-hop, spirituals, classical, ragtime, and rap traditions.

World Language
Units 1, 2, 3, 4

Students engage with music from diverse cultural and linguistic traditions and develop appreciation for global musical perspectives.

Math
Career & Life Skills
English Language Arts

Students will be assessed across units using Formative, Summative, Alternative, and Benchmark Assessments including Group Work, Projects, Discussion, Question and Answer, Teacher Observation, and Skill Testing.

UnitFormativeSummativeBenchmarkAlternative
01Creating
02Performing
03Responding
04Connecting
Coverage4/44/42/24/4
UnitIEP504MLLAt-RiskGifted
01Creating
02Performing
03Responding
04Connecting
Coverage4/44/44/44/44/4