After the last post, I realised how beneficial it might be to someone, somewhere on the internet, to have access to some of the lesson plans/units that I had created. The early days for me were spent looking over individual lessons, lesson plans, and unit plans. I was attempting to understand how they all connected and worked; this was both before and during my first term of teaching.

I think the reason it took me so long to understand how it all clicked was the fact that I wasn’t in my strong teaching area. Thankfully, I had two fantastic in-school mentors who were my same-grade teaching staff. If it weren’t for them during my first year, I wouldn’t have been as successful as I was. The fact was I was needing to learn concepts and grade-level specific skills in English and HaSS (SOSE for the older ones playing at home) as it’d been quite a while since I had to: a) consider these concepts, and b) think about explaining them to someone who hadn’t come across them before.

There were some websites that I utilised, each for a different purpose, that proved to be so useful for me. I was teaching music from grades 3 to 10, English for 7 & 8, HaSS for 7 & 8, ICT for 7 & 8, and a Home Room (pastoral care).

I used to wait for the free Twinkl days, where you could take anything you wanted for free from the website. This was fantastic for any primary-level materials, and every differentiated work for those in grade10 and younger. Teachers Pay Teachers is another fantastic website where people have packaged up resources quite nicely — you might have to do some filtering in order to find the gold, but they’re in there. Some private websites: MrsArmy123, Mrs Learning Bee, and TheOrb. Facebook Groups are a gold mine for resources and people; Australian Classroom Music Teachers (National), Geography Teachers Online Australia, and History Teachers Resources Australia.

So, where is a unit plan that I created for music, specifically tailored to young people who don’t have much music theory behind them, yet have a wealth of practical experience. The idea was to develop their connection to music theory throughout the year, making the transition between secondary school and (Tasmanian) college (grade 11 and 12) a bit smoother.

Feel free to take, adapt, or reuse anything that you like below.

Unit Plan

Classes

Here is the folder that all of the files for this unit plan are located: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1RVoY_gIZwU1yr5b0mESCLDXm4CJfUIUs

Here is the link to all of the classes that are used within this unit: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZnkJDgVDClpG-m9nwdQUtq_Q8KwCur8YbdSuIGM63JU/edit#slide=id.g2cf9621ce29_0_506

Here is an outline, and slide navigation, to all of the classes within this unit (with worksheets):

• Week 1: What can you hear? Instrumentation for genres,

Worksheet – slide 22, 29,

• Week 2: What speed is it? Tempo,

Reference worksheet

Worksheet – slide 41,

• Week 3: How loud is it? Dynamics,

Worksheet – 65, 80,

Reference worksheet

• Week 4: Using adjectives. Describing musical elements,

Worksheet – Slide 86,

• Week 5: Assessment.

Assessment

There will be a written formative test every week. There will be a summative assessment, song analysis, for this unit (5 weeks).

Students will be offered an additional performative and/or verbalised assessment opportunity to communicate the same written musical idea.

Achievement Standard/s

• Students analyse ways composers and/or performers use the elements of music and compositional devices to engage audiences. Link.
• They evaluate how music and/or performances in a range of styles and/or from across cultures, times, places and/or other contexts communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning. Link.

Big Idea/s and Key Understandings

• Why do music genres sound the way that they do,
• How musical elements and genres impact the listener.

Guiding question/s

• How can you allocate certain musical scores into a specific genre?
• What musical elements have been manipulated, and in what way, to elicit the listener’s intended response?