The goal of this project is to provide public middle school students with the tools to analyze music and lyrics through the lens of social justice, use critical listening techniques, and contribute individual points of view to a collaborative songwriting project.
Unit Overview
Proposed Audience: NYC public middle school students (6th-8th grade)
Unit Essential Questions:
- What is the link between popular music and social justice?
- What is the role of popular music in society?
- How can we use collaborative songwriting as a tool for conflict resolution?
Unit Guiding Questions:
- What is a “protest song”?
- How can we use music and lyrics to promote racial equity and justice for all communities?
- How does collaborative songwriting foster allied behavior?
- How does the critical analysis of popular songs encourage empathy, understanding and tolerance for others?
Unit Aim:
What are the elements that make a “protest song?” How can we respectfully contribute our individual points of view (as group members) to a collaborative songwriting project?
Unit Objective:
Students will be able to analyze music and lyrics through the lens of social justice, using critical listening techniques. Students will learn to use song composition (music and lyrics) as a tool for reflecting, shaping, and inspiring meaning related to social inequity (racial, gender, or socio-economic status).
The Songs
The Lessons
Lesson 1 – Critical Listening: What is A Protest Song?
Lesson 2 – Song Portrait Activity
Lesson 3 – Collaborative Songwriting Activity
Lesson 4 – The Classroom Album: Responding and Connecting
Additional Materials
About Laura Brenneman
Laura Brenneman’s love of music has inspired her to work with students in both public and private schools in NYC, including Berkeley Carroll, Talent Unlimited High School, P.S. 124, and Packer Collegiate Institute. Her combined passion for music and teaching led her to obtain an M.A. in Music Education from Hunter College and work to complete her certification in the movement-based Dalcroze Pedagogy (Lucy Moses School). She is a recipient of a Knutson Grant for professional development in music education from the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where she is a faculty member. Laura also maintains a private music studio of voice, piano, and songwriting students aged 4-64. She is currently writing a book entitled ‘All Over the Map,” about teaching music all over the world (remotely) during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As an NYC-based composer, Laura’s recent projects include music for Antipodes (Danspace, NYC) and arrangements for Martha Clarke’s The Threepenny Opera (Atlantic Theatre Company, NYC). A co-creator of the puppet theatre piece Fox vs the Kingdom, (St. Ann’s Warehouse) she is the recipient of two Jim Henson Foundation production grants. She lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn with her husband and a calico cat named Annie Oakley.