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On the Road: 4-8/9-12 Great Moments in Rock and Roll: Popular Music Through Decades

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Great Moments in Rock and Roll: Popular Music Through Decades

Suggested Grade Level: 4-8 / 9-12

This research guide serves as a resource for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Education Department course, Great Moments in Rock and Roll: Popular Music Through the Decades . For additional information on the course and for more teacher resources, see http://rockhall.com/education/distance-learning/courses/GMIR/

Take a journey through the second half of the twentieth century by exploring some of the great moments in rock and roll history. Students will actively participate in discussions about shifting cultural values, conceptions of equality, and political activism. Students in grades 4-8 will enjoy historical moments such as Elvis Presley’s first national television appearance in 1956, the Beatles first American performance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, and the birth of MTV in 1981. Students in grades 9-12 enjoy Jimi Hendrix at the 1969 Woodstock music and arts festival, a Blondie performance at the legendary Studio 54 in New York City, and the fusion of rock and hip-hop in the 1986 video “Walk This Way.”

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For Your Students

Objectives

These resources, pulled from class discussion and selected from the Library and Archives' collections, will help you to:

Grade Level 4-8

  • Give examples of how rock and roll music reflects and/or shapes important historical changes that
    impacted American society in each decade from the 1950s to the 1980s.
  • Identify the similarities and differences in rock and roll’s great moments through the decades
  • Analyze basic musical characteristics in various styles of popular music.

Grade Level 9-12

  • Analyze basic characteristics in the lyrics, instrumentation, and formal aspects of various styles of
    popular music.
  • Give examples of how rock and roll music reflects and/or shapes important historical changes that
    impacted American society in each decade from the 1950s to the 1980s.
  • Identify the similarities and differences in rock and roll’s great moments through the decades

 

Books

Audio

Video

Archival Resources

New to Archives? Check out:

Online Resources

YouTube Videos

Elvis Presley, "Hound Dog," The Milton Berle Show

Beatles, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" The Ed Sullivan Show

Jimi Hendrix, "Star Spangled Banner," Woodstock, 1969

Blondie, "Heart Of Glass," live, 1979

Aerosmith and Run D.M.C., "Walk This Way," 1987

Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star"

The Doors, "Light my Fire," The Ed Sullivan Show

The Who, "My Generation," The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
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