Tuesday's Class (February 26 2008)

A marginally-sized multitude of events occurred in our latest class. Starting off was the handing out of a new assignment, the "Jam of the Day," in which each student would select a track out of their personal library to share and breakdown in front of the class. We listened to an example from the mid-nineties to get a better understanding. Next, we were chopped up into partners with each group holding an assigned topic (these topics came from the previous week's homework assignment). The groups were instructed to summarize the topic, come up with salient questions and make some sort of a graphic organizer. Class was closed out with the audio- analyzing of Don McLean's famous song, "American Pie," and its relation to the death of Buddy Holly. Peace.

Thursday, February 7

Went over Elvis group class work we started last class.
Playlist notes on Tutti Frutti by Little Richard
Covered notes
Watched a video that we will be finishing next class

Homework:
None

Tuesday, February 5, 2008:

Went over Roots of Rock and Roll notes. Playlist notes on Smokestack Lightning by Howling Wolf and You upset Me Baby by BB King. Review Elvis packet in groups.

Homework Assignment: Chapter 2, "Elvis And Rockabilly." Write a 2page typed response or create a concept map about what you learned.

Friday February 1 2008

In class today we watched and took notes on a powerpoint about a specific type of song. We listen to different types of call and respond songs like my generation by The Who. Later on in class we went over our homework that we were suppose to do the night before on an Elvis reading. Our homework was collected and we started off from where we left off last class. We listened to a song by Robert Johnson called "Love in Vain". Robert Johnson was known as the king of Delta Blues. We did a playlist notesheet on Love in Vain (Blue Worksheet) while we listened to the song. Later in class we were split into partners and were asked to write lyrics to the instrumental on the song Love and Vain. Our lyrics were suppose to have a call and a response to reinforce the lesson that we learned earlier. We had to sing our lyrics to the class. We ended the class by viewing a few more slides from the slideshow and recieved no homework to do over our weekend.

Wednesday January 30, 2008: Class Overview

Today in class we talked a lot about the Blues, Rock and Roll, and Racism. We had a homework assignment due on wednesday on a reading that was about how rock music was created. We also had to write a 2 page summary on the reading or an organized web graph. Using our homework we broke into 3 groups and were given a large piece of paper. Our task was we were given one of the 3 topics in our reading (Blues, Rock, Racism) and had to do a spider graph on our topic. After we finished we presented and discussed our posters. After that activity we changed groups and listened to 2 different songs. We had to take notes on these songs on a worksheet that was given out. The notes that we were suppose to be taking were on what emotions came from the lyrics and beat of the song. We also took notes on how the video looked like and the genre of the song. We ended class with handing in our homework and were given another assignment due for next class on Elvis Presley written by Peter Guralnick.

Welcome to the History of Rock & Roll

Monday, January 28:

Overview of the course-handout
Using the blog-in-class instruction
http://historyofrockroll.blogspot.com/
Using the wiki-building a classroom community
http://rockroll.wikispaces.com/
Creating your own blogs-what will you write about?
R&R Knowledge Quiz-using personal response system
What is Rock & Roll?-group brainstorm, in-class writing
Homework Assignment: Chapter 1-"The Blues, Rock-and-Roll, and Racism (handout); Write a 2 page typed response or create a concept map demonstrating what you have learned from the reading. Be prepared for classroom discussion. Add your favorites to the classroom wiki.