Lesson Plan: Purple People Eater

Lesson Plan Title: Purple People Eater

6th Grade General Music Class

Element Form Expression Dynamics, articulation, and mood
Skill Objective Singing Sing a ballad with expression. (“Purple People Eater”)
Review Review What is a ballad
Connection Genre Creating a dramatization for the ballad. (“Purple People Eater”)
Cultural Halloween Review historical significance to All Hallow’s Eve.
Skill Building Visual Arts Identify the words in the song that describes the Purple People Eater,then create their own purple people eater according to the description.
Cross-Curriculum Language Talk about the night H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” was performed.

Lesson Plan: Purple People Eater
Introduction
  • Discuss the history of Halloween, leading into the song. (Cultural)
  • Play song on CD once through, having students follow along in their books.
  • Ask students about what makes this song a ballad. (Review)
Development
  • Have students describe Purple People Eater based on what is written.(Skill-Building)
  • Play CD again, having students sing along. Encourage proper use of dynamics, articulation, and expression. (Element Form)
  • Divide students into small groups, and assign each group to come up with actions for a small section of the song. (Connection)
  • Rehearse song once, with each group acting out their parts.
Closing
  • Play song with CD, with students acting out their parts. (Skill Objective)
  • Talk about H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds”, discussing what happened on Oct 31st, 1938 when it was read as a radio broadcast drama.
  • Compare the similarities and differences between the “War of the Worlds” storyline and the “Purple People Eater” ballad.

The Upgrades

The technologies that I will be integrating into this lesson plan are: Inspiration, Ipod/MP3, CD, and Electronic Keyboard.

Objectives of the Technology

Software and Hardware Requirement

Skills Required

Reflection on the Technology

All of the added technologies to this lesson unit helps students with numerous educations. They will have added learning time to learn about and witness Ballads, they will learn about the history of Halloween, and they will learn of an entertaining yet well-remembered event that happened at the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds.

The use of the Inspiration created worksheet will allow students to compare differences between a ballad and a story, compare two specific ballads (possibly of their choice), and compare various fictional monsters. In this way they practice their skills of logic and are given a chance to expand their imagination as individuals.

The electronic keyboard is something that almost all music rooms have in today’s schools, and can be easily used to create percussion and sounds as the students come up with their own ballad. It might work out well to have a fill-in-the-blank type of ‘ballad’, one that tells in parenthesis when a verb, noun, or adjective is needed. In this way, the students are able to help create a ballad of their own, to further enhance their understanding of what a ballad is.

With all of these additions, the unit as gone from being only slightly more than learning a song, to a very educational unit on a variety of subjects.

Resources

“Purple People Eater.” Making Music (6th Grade) Teacher’s Edition. Silver Burdett, 2005. 448-49.


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