Assignment #2 - Country Blues Scrapbook

To commemorate our "journey" through the Mississippi Delta, we will create a scrapbook, to illustrate what you have learned about the socioeconomic conditions that led to the rise of the Country Blues.

The following elements must be included in your scrapbook:

The following elements must be included in your scrapbook:

• Map (from the opening part of the lesson).

• Historical Statement – Write a statement of about 200 words summarizing the economic conditions confronting southern African-Americans in the early part of the 20th century. Your statement should also discuss the relationship among these economic conditions, racial attitudes in the South, and the Country Blues music of this time and place.

• 3 Visuals – Collect three images of important artifacts either from the lesson or independently researched. Your images these may be hand- or computer-drawn original images or photographs. Each visual must have a caption that identifies the subject AND explains its significance.

• 3 Blues Lyrics – Identify at least one set of lyrics from each of the stations. These lyrics must be presented in a way that clearly and specifically connects the lyrics to the places, images and/or historical statement that you write.

Your scrapbook will be assessed based on (1) depth of intellectual engagement; (2) incorporation & sophistication of blues lyric analysis; (3) selection of visual material; (4) seriousness of effort to render a creative, visually compelling scrapbook.  Here is a link to the scoring rubric.  PLEASE PRINT THE RUBRIC, and include it with your scrapbook.

Here are links to the road trip "destinations" we visited in class.

• Station 1: Yazoo City in the Mississippi Delta. Poor southerners, black and white alike, lived in the shadow of natural disaster. Students will examine songs, paintings, and imagery to learn about the floods, pestilence, and drought that threatened the lives of southern field workers. The resources for this station are:
• Video: Bessie Smith, “Homeless Blues” (1927)
• Video: Charley Patton, “Bo Weavil Blues” (1929)
• Video: Son House, "Death Letter Blues" (1968)
• Image: Paintings of Jacob Lawrence from the Great Migration Series, Panel 9
• Image: Photo of destruction from the 1927 Mississippi River flood
  
• Station 2: Hillhouse, Mississippi. Even though slavery was abolished after the Civil War, African-American and white tenant farmers lived a life of grinding poverty under the rules of sharecropping. Students will examine texts to learn about this economic system. The resources for this station are:
• Video: Lightnin’ Hopkins, “Cotton” (1959)
• Handout: Explanation of Sharecropping (from PBS, "Sharecropping in Mississippi")
• Image: Paintings of Jacob Lawrence from the Great Migration Series, Panel 17
• Images: Dorothea Lange, Photographs of Sharecroppers (c. 1937)
• Cotton sharecroppers. Greene County, Georgia, 1937
• Poor mother and children, California, 1936
• Sharecropper's cabin and sharecropper's wife, ten miles south of Jackson,
• Mississippi, 1937
• Thirteen-year old sharecropper boy near Americus, Georgia, 1937

Station 3: Indianola, MS - Birthplace of BB King

• Video: The Blues Were Born
• Video: My Back Porch Guitar
• Video: Skip James, “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues”

Handouts for the stations:

1. Map of Mississippi Area.  Follow the directions, and label the places which we visited on our road trip.  
2. Questions for Road Trip Stations.  We’ve completed these questions in class.  Use them to guide you, as you write your response.  

DUE DATE:  FRIDAY OCTOBER 7, 2016.  

Assignment #1 - Your Favorite Song

Overview:

Music is a very significant aspect of people's lives.  It  plays a very vital role in educating, influencing and entertaining people. While music is a very broad field, it has attracted and influenced many people. Once music is played, it draws the attention of almost every person around. There are wide varieties and forms of music which include gospel, reggae, rock,  and hip hop among many others.

Task: 
You will write an essay (minimum 350 words/1 page), in which you will analyze your favorite song.  Although 350 words may seem daunting, once you start writing, I'm sure that you will wind up writing much more than that!  

Here are the topics you should address in your essay: 
1. Description of the song:  Use the song analysis template to help you.  Identify the following: 

• Title/Artist
• Instrumentation 
• Mood
• Tempo
• Lyrics
• Genre 

2. How you became familiar with the song:  When did you first hear it?  Where were you?  Were you with anyone?  Did someone tell you about it?  How did it make you feel when you heard it?  

3.  Importance of the song to your life:  Does this song make you happy?  Does it motivate you?  What do you think of, when you hear this song?  When do you listen to it?  Why do you listen to it?  How has this song made your life better?  

Due Date:  Monday 9/19/16 

Course Overview

Welcome to The History of Rock Music class blog.  

You do not have to be musically talented to take this course. This course seeks to balance understanding the development and significance of Rock and Roll in its historical and social environment with maintaining a focus on listening to the music as the main mode of understanding. Through listening, analysis, discussion, music, and film students will explore the music and the culture and society of the day.

Class assignments will be organized around song analysis, small group discussions, and in-class activities. The course begins with an overview of ancestors and influences: blues, boogie-woogie, jazz, swing, country & western, gospel and popular music, and the crossover success of rhythm & blues acts that marked the true birth of rock & roll.

We will study the musical and social trends of the 1960s, including the influence of the British Invasion, which really signaled the arrival of rock’s second generation, the rock explosion and social upheaval of the late 1960′s, and the changes in Rock & Roll music during the seventies, eighties, and nineties. The course will culminate in an exploration of today’s current musical trends and icons including rap/hip hop.

Students in this class are expected to enjoy learning about this material and to try and get an appreciation about this type of music, which is such an important part of your lives.