Beethoven's Thoughts

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

English Language Arts
Arts Education

Grade(s)

3, 4, 5

Overview

Students will listen to Ludwig van Beethoven's 5th Symphony and write a descriptive essay about how the music influenced them. They will create watercolor artwork while listening to the music. 

English Language Arts (2021) Grade(s): 3

ELA21.3.33

Write personal or fictional narratives with a logical plot (sequence of events), characters, transitions, and a sense of closure.

UP:ELA21.3.33

Vocabulary

  • Personal narrative
  • Fictional narrative
  • Logical plot
  • Sequence of events
  • Characters
  • Transitions
  • Closure

Knowledge

Students know:
  • A narrative is a piece of writing that tells a story.
  • A personal narrative tells about an event that was personally experienced by the author, while a fictional narrative tells a made up story.
  • A narrative story describes a sequence of events in a logical order (beginning, middle, end) and provides a sense of closure as an ending.
  • A narrative story describes the actions, thoughts, and feelings of the characters.
  • Narrative transitions indicate when and where the story is occurring.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Write a personal narrative that recalls a personal experience or a fictional narrative with a made-up story.
  • Write a narrative with a logical sequence of events and details that describe how the characters feels, acts, and thinks.
  • Use appropriate transitions in narrative writing.
  • Write a narrative that ends with a sense of closure.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Narrative writing includes predictable elements, like a logical sequence of events and an ending that provides the reader with a sense of closure.
  • Because narrative writing describes a chronological sequence of events, it includes transitions that indicate the time and place in which the story is occurring.
  • Narrative writing can be used to tell about something that happened to them personally or it can tell a story they made up.
English Language Arts (2021) Grade(s): 4

ELA21.4.35

Write personal or fictional narratives using a logical plot, transitional words and phrases, sensory details, and dialogue, and providing a sense of closure.

UP:ELA21.4.35

Vocabulary

  • Personal narratives
  • Fictional narratives
  • Logical plot
  • Transitional words and phrases
  • Sensory details
  • Dialogue
  • Closure

Knowledge

Students know:
  • A narrative is a piece of writing that tells a story.
  • A personal narrative tells about an event that was personally experienced by the author, while a fictional narrative tells a made up story.
  • A narrative story describes a sequence of events in a logical order (beginning, middle, end) and provides a sense of closure as an ending.
  • Narrative transitions indicate when and where the story is occurring.
  • Sensory details use descriptions of the five senses.
  • Dialogue is a conversation between two or more people.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Write a personal narrative that recalls a personal experience or a fictional narrative with a made-up story.
  • Write a narrative with a logical sequence of events and sensory details.
  • Use appropriate transitional words and phrases in narrative writing.
  • Include dialogue in narrative writing.
  • Write a narrative that ends with a sense of closure.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Narrative writing includes predictable elements, like a logical sequence of events and an ending that provides the reader with a sense of closure.
  • Because narrative writing describes a chronological sequence of events, it includes transitions that indicate the time and place in which the story is occurring.
  • Narrative writing can be used to tell about something that happened to them personally or it can tell a story they made up.
English Language Arts (2021) Grade(s): 5

ELA21.5.34

Write personal or fictional narratives incorporating literary elements (characters, plot, setting, conflict), dialogue, strong voice, and clear event sequences.

UP:ELA21.5.34

Vocabulary

  • Personal narratives
  • Fictional narratives
  • Literary elements
  • Characters
  • Plot
  • Setting
  • Conflict
  • Dialogue
  • Voice
  • Event sequences

Knowledge

Students know:
  • A narrative is a piece of writing that tells a story.
  • A personal narrative tells about an event that was personally experienced by the author, while a fictional narrative tells a made-up story.
  • A narrative story describes a sequence of plot events in a logical order (beginning, middle, end).
  • Narrative writing includes text elements, like characters, setting, and conflict.
  • Dialogue is a conversation between two or more characters in a text.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Write a personal narrative that recalls a personal experience or a fictional narrative with a made-up story.
  • Write a narrative with a logical sequence of plot events.
  • Incorporate literary elements into their narrative writing, like characters, setting, and conflict.
  • Include dialogue in narrative writing.
  • Use a strong voice in writing by developing a personal writing style.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Narrative writing includes predictable elements, like a logical sequence of events and characters, setting, and conflict.
  • Incorporating dialogue between the characters can add details to their narrative writing.
  • Narrative writing can be used to tell about something that happened to them personally or it can tell a story they made up.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 3 - Music

AE17.MU.3.16

Demonstrate and describe how selected music connects to and is influenced by specific interests, experiences, or purposes.

UP:AE17.MU.3.16

Vocabulary

Rhythm
  • Bar lines
  • Measures
    • Melody
      • Pitch set: Low So, Low La, High Do
      • Treble clef reading (Mi, Re, Do)
      • Middle C to high G
      • Ledger lines
      Harmony
      • Partner songs
      • Rounds
      • Ostinati
      Form
      • Theme and variations
      • Coda
      • D.S. al coda
      • Repeat sign
      • Fermata
      Expression
      • Phrase/ phrasing
      • Pianissimo (pp), fortissimo (ff)
      Other
      • Age-appropriate audience and performer etiquette
      • Orchestral instruments: 4 families
      • Age-appropriate pitch matching (Bb3 - Eb5)

Essential Questions

EU: Individuals' selection of musical works is influenced by their interests, experiences, understandings, and purposes.
EQ: How do individuals choose music to experience?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Using movement, manipulatives, or visual representation, demonstrate and describe how specific music concepts are used to support a specific purpose in music (such as different sections, selected orchestral, band, folk, or ethnic instruments).
Creating
  • Express melodic contour through movement.
Reading/ Writing
  • When analyzing selected music, read and perform rhythmic patterns and/or melodic phrases with voice, body percussion, and/or instruments, using iconic or standard notation.
  • Develop criteria and use them to critique their own performances and the performances of others.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Identify and respond to simple music forms (e.g., AB, ABA).
  • Identify elements of music using appropriate vocabulary.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Music

AE17.MU.4.16

Demonstrate and explain how selected music connects to and is influenced by specific interests, experiences, purposes, or contexts.

UP:AE17.MU.4.16

Vocabulary

Rhythm
  • Conducting patterns in
  • Syncopation
Melody
  • Pitch set: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, Ti
  • Treble clef reading (La, So, Mi, Re, Do)
  • Middle C through High B
  • Create melodic sequences
  • Half-step
  • Whole step
Harmony
  • Canons
  • Chord components
  • Chord progression (I, V)
  • Crossover bordun
Form
  • Phrasing: antecedent and consequent
  • D.C. al coda
  • Fine
Expression
  • pp through ff
Other
  • Age-appropriate audience and performer etiquette
  • Orchestra instruments within the 4 families
  • Age-appropriate pitch matching (A3-E5)

Essential Questions

EU: Individuals' selection of musical works is influenced by their interests, experiences, understandings, and purposes.
EQ: How do individuals choose music to experience?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Demonstrate and explain how specific music concepts (such as form, timbre, etc.) are used to support a specific purpose in music (such as social and cultural contexts) through various means (such as manipulatives, movement, and/or pictorial representation).
Creating
  • Develop criteria and use them to critique their own performances and the performances of others.
Reading/ Writing
  • Evaluate musical works and performances, applying established criteria, citing evidence from the elements of music.
  • When analyzing selected music, read and perform rhythmic patterns and/or melodic phrases with voice, body percussion, and/or instruments, using iconic or standard notation.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the elements of music applied to a listening example using teacher-given vocabulary (such as different sections of complex forms, teacher-selected orchestral instruments, etc.).
  • Explain how the elements and subject matter of music connect with disciplines outside the arts.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Music

AE17.MU.5.16

Demonstrate and explain, citing evidence, how selected music connects to and is influenced by specific interests, experiences, purposes, or contexts.

UP:AE17.MU.5.16

Vocabulary

Rhythm
Melody
  • Pitch set: Do-centered diatonic
  • Treble clef reading (choral octavos)
  • Grand staff
  • Bass clef
  • Accidentals
  • Major scale
Harmony
  • Part singing/ playing
  • Chord progression (I, IV, V)
  • Arpeggio
  • Descant
  • Level bordun
Form
  • Rondo form
  • 12-Bar blues
Expression
  • Vibrato
  • Tremolo
  • Reggae
  • Blues
  • Timbre: soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Other
  • Age-appropriate audience and performer etiquette
  • Age-appropriate pitch matching (Ab3-F5)

Essential Questions

EU: Individuals' selection of musical works is influenced by their interests, experiences, understandings, and purposes.
EQ: How do individuals choose music to experience?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Analyze the formal structure of music that is to be performed.
  • Identify elements of music to be performed for a specific context (for example, dynamic markings that are appropriate for a lullaby).
Creating
  • Choose a literary work, such as a poem or story, to generate musical ideas for performance.
Reading/ Writing
  • Examine performance music for expressive elements, and use correct notation to indicate placement.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Justify personal preferences for certain musical pieces, performance, composers and musical genres both orally and in writing.
  • Discuss contributions of musical elements to aesthetic qualities in performances of self and others.
  • Consider and articulate the influence of technology on music careers.
  • Develop and apply criteria for critiquing more complex performances of live and recorded music.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 3 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.3.2

Demonstrate skills using available resources, tools, and technologies to investigate personal ideas through the art-making process.

UP:AE17.VA.3.2

Vocabulary

  • Creativity
  • Criteria
  • Critique
  • Design
  • Media
  • Mixed media
  • Monochromatic
  • Principles of design
    • Rhythm
  • Technology
  • Visual image

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Use a variety of materials to create a three-dimensional mask showing a student's personality.
  • Use torn paper scraps to create rhythm in a landscape.
  • Plan a community/city; then, build a model of it with recyclable materials, such as cardboard, boxes, containers, and tubes.
  • Collaborate with a group to demonstrate how to care for tools used in class (such as paintbrushes).
  • After looking at Vincent van Gogh's painting, Bedroom, create a narrative painting depicting a memory of a student's personal bedroom.
  • Use appropriate visual art vocabulary during the art-making process of two-and-three-dimensional artworks.
  • Collaborate with others to create a work of art that addresses an interdisciplinary theme.
  • Read and explore books like Imagine That by Joyce Raimondo or Dinner at Magritte's by Michael Garland and then create a Surrealistic style artwork.
  • Recognize and identify choices that give meaning to a personal work of art.
  • Create a drawing using monochromatic colors (paint, oil pastels, etc.).
  • Explore individual creativity using a variety of media.
  • Understand what effects different media can have in a work of art.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.4.3

Generate ideas and employ a variety of strategies and techniques to create a work of art/design.

UP:AE17.VA.4.3

Vocabulary

  • Constructed environment
  • Cultural traditions
  • Digital format
  • Engagement
  • Tertiary color
  • Preservation
  • Proportion
  • Principles of design
    • Unity
  • Shade
  • Style
  • Tints & shades

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and artmaking approaches.
EQ: How do artists work? How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective? How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?

Skills Examples

  • Create a list of multiple ideas, sketches, or thumbnail-sketches before beginning the final version of an artwork.
  • Identify, select, and vary art materials, tools and processes to achieve desired results in their artwork.
  • Brainstorm (alone or with others) potential art styles for a given piece of art, such as Monet's Water Lilies.
  • Create an artwork from direct observation (still-life, self-portrait, figure drawing, etc.).
  • Design a two-dimensional drawings of a futuristic art room, town, or planet
  • Use wood, found objects, wire, paper, or clay-based materials to construct a three-dimensional form.
  • Locate business logos in the community and explore the visual arts skills and materials that were used to create these works.
  • Engage in group critiques of one's work and the work of others.
  • Experiment with art materials by using them in unusual and creative ways to express ideas and convey meaning.
  • Use and care for materials, tools, and equipment in a manner that prevents danger to oneself and others.
  • Mix equal parts of a primary and a secondary color located beside each other on the color wheel to create a tertiary color.
  • Use the design principles of repetition and alignment to add visual unity to an artwork.
  • Create a painting using a monochromatic color scheme by using one color (red) adding white to create a tint (a lighter value--pink) and adding black to the color (red) to create a shade (darker value).

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.5.3

Communicate personal ideas, images, and themes through artistic choices of media, technique, and subject matter.

UP:AE17.VA.5.3

Vocabulary

  • Cultural context
  • Formal & conceptual vocabulary
  • Genre
  • Linear perspective
  • Preserve
  • Principles of design
    • Movement
    • Emphasis
  • Relief
  • Vanishing point

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and artmaking approaches.
EQ: How do artists work? How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective? How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?

Skills Examples

  • Use a variety of materials (wood, found objects, wire, paper, clay, etc.) to construct a three-dimensional work of art.
  • Have students keep journals to reflect on and combine ideas for their works of art.
  • Draw a still life of students' favorite objects, while adding color with a variety of media (paint, pastels, collage, etc.).
  • Draw an object or other images (landscapes, hallways, etc.) in linear one-point perspective.
  • Create tessellations in connection with interdisciplinary subjects such as mathematics.
  • Write a short story and illustrate the story with original drawings.
  • Draw and transform two-dimensional shapes into three-dimensional forms.
  • (squares to cubes, circles to spheres, triangles to pyramids and cones)
  • Write a personal artist statement to accompany an original work of art.
  • Draw a landscape including foreground, middle ground, and background.
  • Create an artwork integrating observational and technical skills to solve a problem or address contemporary social issues.
  • Create a bas-relief by carving into a clay slab.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

CR Resource Type

Lesson/Unit Plan

Resource Provider

San Francisco Symphony

License Type

Custom
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