Wild Things: Creating an Expressive Movement Poem

Learning Resource Type

Learning Activity

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

5

Overview

This activity is designed to help students make connections between music and their own lives.  They will use their background knowledge to design movement that expresses their feeling about the song.

This activity is designed to be used following the activity Wild Things: A Song Study.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Phase

During/Explore/Explain
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Music

AE17.MU.5.10

Explain how context (such as social, cultural, and historical) informs performances.

UP:AE17.MU.5.10

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: Performers make interpretive decisions based on their understanding of context and expressive intent
EQ: How do performers interpret musical works?

Skills Examples

Performing
  • Sing a varied repertoire with accurate rhythm and pitch, appropriate expressive qualities, proper posture and breath control.
  • Sing intervals on pitch within a major diatonic scale.
  • Perform melodies on recorder while reading standard and/or iconic music notation.
  • Perform, on instruments, a varied repertoire with accurate rhythm and pitch, appropriate expressive qualities, proper posture and breath control.
  • Sing partner songs to create harmony.
  • Sight-read and prepare a performance.
Creating
  • Demonstrate appropriate use of legato and staccato in a song.
  • Create a personal playlist and explain why each piece was selected.
  • Improvise, compose and arrange music.
  • Use technology and the media arts to create and perform music.
Reading/ Writing
  • Read, write, and perform rhythms in 2/4, 3/4.
    • 4/4. and 6/8 meter signatures using whole notes through sixteenth notes, including dotted notes.
  • Read, write and perform diatonic melodies and the major scale on the treble clef staff.
  • Identify tempo markings such as allegro, presto, largo, and andante.
  • Identify ledger-line notes A, B, and C above the treble clef staff.
  • Identify whole and half steps of the major diatonic scale in printed music.
  • Recognize the difference between major and minor tonalities.
  • Write program notes to accompany performances.
Responding/ Evaluating
  • Discuss melodic and harmonic elements used in a piece of music.
  • Explain how a performer performs a piece of music differently when he/she knows the social, cultural, or historical background of the piece, (e.g., How does knowing the history of the American Civil Rights Movement affect the performance of "We Shall Overcome?"
  • Demonstrate appropriate audience etiquette at live performances.
  • Write performance reviews of performances.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
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.

Learning Objectives

  1. Students will explain how the social context of this song informs the performance of the movement poem.
  2. Students will demonstrate and explain how the music connects to and influences the movement poem. 

Activity Details

  1. Listen to the song, Wild Things by Alessia Cara.
  2. Review new vocabulary and connections made during the Wild Things: A Song Study.
  3. Discuss the elements of a story (Characters, Setting, Problem/Solution, Plot, Theme) and how they relate to a song.
  4. Map the elements of this song (verses, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge) using the lyrics PowerPoint.
  5. Discuss how movement can be used to express feelings.
  6. Break into groups of three to five students.
  7. Assign each group an element of the song (verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge).
  8. Brainstorm (a technique where EVERY group member gets to share their ideas and ALL ideas are written down) the emotions that you feel when listening to this part of the song and write down those emotions.
  9. Using your ideas, discuss types of movement that would reflect your emotions.
  10. Choose and write down three to five emotions.
  11. Create a movement poem with your group, based on the emotions evoked during your element of the song. (A movement poem is a group of movements designed by students that is used to express an idea or feeling. The movement poem should be as long as your element of the song and should consist of three to five movements.)
  12. Perform your movement poem for the class.
  13. Use the rubric to assess the movement poems as a whole group. The rubric is included in the PowerPoint.

Assessment Strategies

Determine whether students understand how music relates to the outside world and how music can evoke emotion based on the movement poem students design.

Determine whether students can move to the beat, based on observation of their movement poem. 

Use the Movement Rubric included on slide 22 of the PowerPoint to evaluate students' performances.

Variation Tips

  1. Instead of a movement poem, design a soundscape (use unpitched percussion instruments to reflect the emotions you felt during your element of the song).
  2. Create some artwork to reflect the emotions you felt during your element of the song.

Background / Preparation

  1. Download or access the song, Wild Things.
  2. Download the lyrics PowerPoint.  
  3. Set up the PowerPoint for viewing.
Alessia Cara - Wild Things (Official Audio) YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vUBQBykJ4

Approved Date

Owner (Author)

jmuse83
ALSDE LOGO

This site may contain links to other websites or content belonging to or originating from third parties or links to websites and features in banners or other advertising. Such external links are not investigated, monitored, or checked for accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness by us. WE DO NOT WARRANT, ENDORSE, GUARANTEE, OR ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY INFORMATION OFFERED BY THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES LINKED THROUGH THIS SITE.
Alabama Learning Exchange © 2002-2023 by Alabama State Department of Education is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Design by Adaptive Theme