Musical Era WebQuest

Developed by Jean Napier-Faeih and Elizabeth Mulkey for the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Grade Music Technology Classes.

Overview

In this lesson, students will learn about the major musical eras. The content areas that will be included in the lesson are music and language arts. Students will need to have access to a multimedia software such as PowerPoint or HyperStudio. The finished presentations can be burned to a CD and shown to parents.

The Kansas State Standards that are addressed in this WebQuest can be found here.

Introduction

From a galaxy on the other side of the universe, a group of aliens are creating an intergalactic museum. They have sent a team of researchers to Earth to see if our culture and history holds anything of interest. They never heard music until they arrived here. They decided they really liked it and have asked some of the smartest people on Earth - stop laughing, they asked you - to create a sampler CD of the different musical eras which they can take back to their home planet and study. They said the museum space is limited and will only be able to house a display for one of the eras.

Quest(ions) and Task

It is up to you and your teammates to create an entry for the collection. You will research the musical era assigned to you. You will use PowerPoint to create a slide show the aliens will take back with them. You will include information about composers, instruments, and song styles of that era. You will also include a little historical background for the era you selected. Be sure to use sound files and the lyrics or musical notation in your project. You will include information stating why your group feels the era and composers you choose to present are important. It is up to you to convince the aliens the era you are researching is the best.

Process

1. Students will be divided into groups of three. Each student will then be assigned one of three roles. The assigned roles are Composer Researcher, Instrument Researcher, and the Song Style Researcher. For descriptions of your duties, please click on the assigned role.

2. Together as a group you will create a general outline and work together to create the introduction and summary slides of your presentation. Click here for the group work assignment page.

3. You are expected to cite your web sources correctly. You will keep a list of all websites you take pieces of information from.

4. Each researcher will make slides about his/her area of research. All the slides will then be put into one large presentation for the aliens to take back to their planet.

5. For extra credit, all three researchers will decide on a song or musical piece from your era to put in the final slide of the PowerPoint presentation. This slide will include any lyrics and an explanation as to why it was chosen. Song excerpts should be included.

6. Your group will then present the PowerPoint project to the class.

Resources

Middle Ages/ Medieval	Renaissance	Baroque
Classical	Romantic	20th Century

Evaluation

Click here for your evaluation rubric! You should print out a copy of this rubric for each member of your group.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have completed your task and sent the aliens off with their CD sampler. As a group, please reflect on the following questions:

1. How did music evolve?

2. Do historical events influence composers and the music they write?

3. In light of the tragic events that occurred in America on 9/11/01 how do you think music will evolve in America? Do you think these events will have effected American music?

4. Has this WebQuest influenced your feelings about the different musical eras?

5. If you had to do this WebQuest again, what would you do differently?

musical notes

Contact the Web Master - Jean at Besteacherusa@aol.com

Bibliography

Teaching Notes