Title – Jazz Musician Interviews and Jeopardy

By – Carrie Cain

Primary Subject – Music

Secondary Subjects – Social Studies

Grade Level – 4-6

Materials Needed:

• 5 printed pieces of paper containing a small picture and a few short paragraphs (biography) about 5 jazz musicians
  
• SmartBoard or Mimio Board
  
• Computer
  
• Pencils

Procedure:

• This lesson can span about two class periods depending on how long your music time is.

• Divide the class into five groups and assign them one jazz musician. Provide them with the picture and the short biography you have already printed off.

• Tell each group that they will be “interviewing” their jazz musician on a talk show. One person needs to be the musician, someone else needs to be the talk show host, the others can be other people mentioned in the biography – family, friends, band members, etc.

• Have students think of a few questions to ask when they are on stage. I let my kids write on the back of their bio page.

• They will come up and “interview” their musician and the rest of the students in the class will be the audience. They will need to pay close attention.

• The next class period, you will need to have the Jeopardy game set up to suit your jazz musicians. I used the student’s questions from their interviews and a couple obvious questions like “What instrument does this musician play?” in my game.

• I have placed it on this site:
  

  http://www.jmu.edu/madison/teacher/jeopardy/jeopardy.htm

  
  for you to see.

• Project your Jeopardy board on the SmartBoard and divide the class in half. Make sure someone from each group from the previous class period is represented on each side so that it is equal knowledge on both sides.

• Count up the total at the end and find your winner.

• Note from LessonPlansPage.com:

  
  Ms. Cain created wonderful Jeopardy and Double Jeopardy board graphics with numbers electronically linked to the Jeopardy answer screens. Unfortunately, someday the link to her site may no longer be active. In that case, we offer this low-tech replacement idea:
  

  Draw the Jeopardy board on your blackboard. Have one helper erase the numbers as they are called and another to update the score. The teacher reads the answers from cards corresponding to the category and number called. Since only the teacher sees these cards, the questions can be on the same page, with the number and category on the back.

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Carrie Cain

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