Arts Integration Lesson Plan

Teacher Name: / Grade Level:
Grades 3–4
Collaborating Teacher(s): / Art Form:
Music and Dance
Start Date: / End Date:
Unit Title: Jazz Music, Dance, and Poetry
Complete lesson and resources available at
Unit Objectives:
Students will:
  • Be introduced to and explore jazz dance and jazz music
  • Learn basic jazz dance movements
  • Create a cinquain poem inspired by jazz

Standards Addressed:
Grade K–4 Dance Standard 1: Identifying and demonstrating movement elements and skills in performing dance
Grade K–4 Dance Standard 3: Understanding dance as a way to create and communicate meaning
Grade K–4 Dance Standard 4: Applying and demonstrating critical- and creative-thinking skills in dance
Grade K–4 Dance Standard 7: Making connections between dance and other disciplines
Grade K–4 Music Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music
Grade K–4 Music Standard 7: Evaluating music and music performances
Grade K–4 Music Standard 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts
Materials Needed:
  • Assessment rubric
  • Television
  • DVD player What You'll Need
  • Computer access
Web:
All About Jazz
Ellington, Music, and Color
Jazz Kids
Elements of Jazz
Essential/Guiding Questions:
How does dance help us to express our feelings?
How can poetry be used as a form of expression?
Prepare in Advance:
Students should:
  • Be familiar with the genre of jazz
  • Have basic knowledge of poetry
  • Be familiar with the parts of speech (noun, verb, etc.)
Other notes:
  • Be sure to have ample physical space (classroom or auditorium).
  • Know how you want to organize grouping.
  • Decide what small-group instruction you will provide.
  • Accessibility notes
  • Students with physical disabilities may need modified movements.

Pre-Assessment Strategies:
1. Have jazz music playing as students come into the room. Ask them the following questions (you may want to have them written on the board for visual learners):
  • What kind of music is this? (jazz)
  • What are the basic elements of jazz? (melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and expression in jazz; instruments)
2. Ask students the following questions:
  • How is jazz alike or different from some other kinds of music?
  • What are some of the specific instruments used in jazz?
  • Jazz is also a form of dance. What do you know about the jazz dance form?
3. Tell students that jazz dance and jazz music both utilize improvisation. Ask them:
  • What is improvisation? (Improvisation is composing or choreographing on the spot and coming up with melodies and movements in your head.)
  • Where else is improvisation used? (theater, art, life)
Build Knowledge:
1. Have students review the Kennedy Center Cuesheet resource, Jazz in Time.
2. Discuss the history of jazz dance. Jazz dance is more popular in the United States than in Europe. It started with African-American dancers in the U.S., and it combines elements of tap and show dancing. Some important people in jazz dance were Katherine Dunham and Jack Cole. Jazz dance is based on Afro-Caribbean dance, with a theatrical flair. It was influenced by dance forms from Indian, Brazilian, and Cuban sources. Jazz dance has rules like ballet, but the form arose from a need to be more free and flexible than ballet. You need to be able to isolate parts of the body as well and keep a rhythm. Think of the body as a jazz instrument. There are many styles: clean and cool, abstract, sensuous, and energetic. Jazz dance may be fast, or slow and lyrical. As a form, it is often associated with musicals.
Academic Content:
Students will…
  • Effectively use the convention of writing process to produce a cinquain poem
/ Art Form:
Students will…
  • Learn about elements of jazz music and jazz dance
  • Participate in all movement activities
  • Demonstrate understanding between jazz music and dance

Assessment(s)/Culminating Event:
1. Lead a class in the basics of jazz dance, as abbreviated and appropriate for your class and grade level. You can also use elements from instructional videos, including some aerobic dance routines in order to aid you in demonstrating the following movements. Demonstrate each movement and have students follow/mimic you.
2. Begin by demonstrating floor stretches. Stretches could include pelvis rocks and alignment check (lying on the back) as well as sitting, butterfly, parallel, and second-position stretches.
3. Move on to center floor. Demonstrate plié(use jazz hands, use parallel and turn-out foot positions during plié), foot articulations, tondues (tendu), isolations. Add more movements to the center floor repertoire, such as three-step turns, slides, chassé. The jazz dance video may be helpful here.
4. Demonstrate across-the-floor movements. Movements could include walking patterns, jazz walk. The jazz dance video may be helpful here.
5. Listen with students to several recordings of jazz music. Explain to students that jazz dance and music both developed around the same time in the early 1900s. After listening to the first song, have students offer descriptive words for the music. Write these descriptors on the board and follow the same process as students listen to each song. Students will use their words for their independent activity.
Reflect:
1. Have students create a poem inspired by jazz. Explain that students will write a cinquain. Explain and write the structure of the cinquain on the board:
  • Noun (for this activity, have students use “jazz” as the first noun)
  • Two adjectives, describing the noun
  • Three verbs or adverbs
  • Phrase that tells about the noun
  • Repeat the noun
2. Distribute paper and pencils and allow students to work on their cinquains. Encourage them to incorporate the descriptive words about jazz on the board.
3. After all the students are finished, have them read their poems to the class.
Assess:
Assess your students’ work using the assessment rubric located within the Resource Carousel.
Teacher Reflections:
Artist Reflections:
Student Reflections: