Celebrate Poetry month with this collaborative unit using music.

This is an excellent unit to pull together research skills, history, and music using Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire. In our school this unit was planned for collaboration within language arts, computer, music, and of course library. It would also be appropriate for use with social studies. Discuss who will cover what concepts in their classes. In our school computer class used the time to hone Internet research skills. In library we focused on print research. The students were not allowed to use the Web pages that addressed the people, incidents, or issues in the song.

Concept: Popular music can be poetry and convey history.

Grades: Middle to High School

In the first class (plan who will do this), play the song for the students and do some preliminary background discussion.

• "Have you ever heard this song before?"
• "Do you know who sings this song?"

Now play the song again and ask the students to listen closely to the lyrics. After the song is over ask the students what they can remember. Write these down on a large piece of paper of the white/chalk board.

Play the song once more, but now distribute copies of the lyrics beforehand. Have the students read along. Lead a discussion on what events, people, and places they know of and what ones they do not. Do not give away too much information.

Break the class into pairs. We did this before hand, but you can do it randomly. Each pair of students has one year to research. They are responsible for decoding the lyrics of the song. Have them write a paragraph on each event, person, etc. for that year. They should include basic information, but specify why that year was important.

When the assignments are turned in you can play the video of the song. There is also a presentation with music by a college student with too much time on his hands.

You may choose to have the final years of the song, '64-'89, be extra credit for ambitious students. Because the students are required to do both print and Internet research you may want to give at least two weeks to complete the assignment.

Aside from allowing students to anylize a song that incorporates large portions of American history, we found that students really had to stretch their minds to find appropriate research. Students often don't actually read the content of webpages only reading the first few lines before assuming there is nothing relevant to their search. This assignment required them to search out specific information (Why is 1951 important to Marlon Brando?), so a simple biography wasn't appropriate. It also reinforced the importance of print research. The encyclopedia index turned into one of the students' best friends. Key words, main ideas, and distilling information were all concepts reinforced by this assignment.

Helpful Sites:

• Song lyrics
• The History Behind Billy Joel's Song
• RareException.com
• Another presentation, more suitable for high school
• Lesson Plan with a mini quiz