This lesson compares the tempo of music to the tempo of reading. By having students learn about tempo through music, poems and movement, they will gain an understanding and be able to explain times when they should use a slower or faster tempo when reading.
Tone is a difficult concept for students to grasp in Language Arts because it is hardly ever specifically stated in the text. Students have a much easier time uncovering emotions in classical music even though it also is never specifically stated. By studying classical music and its use of dynamics and using words that show tone in correlation with dynamics, students will be able to gain a better grasp of the idea of tone in literature. Students will have a working understanding of musical vocabulary that describes the dynamics of a piece of music and how that relates to the overall tone.
Students develop reading fluency and comprehension in nonfiction text as they learn about the period of time from post-Civil War to the 1930s. Students take notes and complete a finished project in the form of a slideshow to create art work, import pictures, and type text about the person they studied and music from a composer who lived during the same time period. The finished slideshow shares information and pictures about the person they studied, has transitions, and music from a famous composer.
Students will determine moods created by a piece of music and will analyze how the composer created the feelings. Students will determine the character traits/moods of story characters by analyzing the adjectives, adverbs, and verbs used by the author. Finally, students will determine which piece of music best represents the characters from a story.