Grade 8
1st Quarter: The students will be researching notable Christian Rock artists, e.g. Jeremy Camp, Mercy Me, Michael W. Smith, Audrey Assad, News Boys and more artists on the Christian Rock charts at Top Christian Hits and KLove - Positive & Encouraging Christian Songs. The students will create a slide show that highlights a specific Christian Rock artist and includes the song, biographical information, lyrical analysis and video analysis.
For some Christian Rock that is a little heavier in style can be found at Effect Radio.
2nd Quarter: The students will start preparing for the Music Video Projects - due TBD. This is a cooperative learning project. The students will work on Google Classroom assignments that identify the song(s) that they would like to use for their video project, recording artist, song lyrics (for approval purposes) and group members. The students will also submit assignments through Google Classroom that discuss the planning of filming their video, which group members will lip synch specific sections of the lyrics, use of dramatic action or dance in the video, where the video will be filmed (at least two scene changes) background of the recording artist (band).The students will watch their productions in class during the month of November. We will also be working on sacred music for school liturgies and prayer services - see the Liturgical Music page to listen to some of the songs we will be singing this year.
3rd Quarter: The students will be take a review of the fundamentals of music: rhythm, melody, harmony, meter/beat, dynamics, timbre(tone color), form, and texture. We will follow along with with the slideshow, The Elements of Music. The students will review how music is constructed with the most basic elements rhythm, melody & meter and then branch off to the more complex elements. Examples and activities will be shown and used for participation to reinforce each element of music.
4th Quarter: The students will also rehearsing songs to be sung at our Spiritual Olympics Liturgy to be celebrated in March .The students will also be learning about the groundbreaking musical, "Jesus Christ Superstar", by the famous composer of musicals, Andrew Lloyd Webber. The students will delve into the history of creating this musical, watch clips from the original film and the most recent 2013 version (Live Arena Tour) and view the 2001 film version. Pope Paul VI commented about the film in 1973, "Mr. Jewison [the director of the 1973 film], not only do I appreciate your beautiful rock opera film, I believe it will bring more people around the world to Christianity, than anything ever has before" (from Cleveland.com).