Attention Teachers!

Looking for new lesson plans to engage your students in learning about themselves? Wishing you had innovative ways to teach your students to appreciate others?

The Institute for Cultural Partnerships announces the publication of What’s Your Name?: Rhymes and Rhythms from Pennsylvania's Neighborhoods, a study guide to the rich cultural heritage of Pennsylvania through its musical traditions.

The study guide features a professional quality recording containing 22 dance tunes, songs and instrumental pieces from 11 ethnic communities throughout Pennsylvania. The recording is available in both compact disk and audio cassette tape formats and features 16 pages of liner notes about the artists and their music, as well as verbal transcriptions and translations of their songs.

But don’t be fooled. This is not only a study guide for music teachers. The 15 innovative lesson plans can also be used to teach Language Arts, Communications, Physics, Spanish, Journalism, Geography and Social Studies. What’s Your Name? includes a Student Fieldwork Guide to encourage oral history and folk life collecting in the community and useful tips for teachers interested in identifying and inviting traditional artists into the classroom to work directly with students. The standards-based lesson plans are designed for grades K-12 and are packed with activities (65 in all) that are coded by ethnic community, curricular area and grade level for easy reference. A Glossary of Key Words and a Pronunciation Key make this study guide accessible and easy to use.

Each lesson plan includes a Teacher’s Page with background information about the music and the culture of the performers, definitions of key terms used, at least three activities for use in the classroom, suggested assessment tools and strategies, follow-up activities for further learning, additional resources and Student’s Page that can be copied and distributed.

Selected topics include:

Please feel free to browse through sample pages from the Study Guide and the accompanying recording in our On Tour section.

To purchase Study Guide and CD, please download our order form.