UNIT PLAN - SECONDARY CLASSROOM METHODS (ME-311-001) 

IDALIS IRIZARRY, DECEMBER 2019 

 
 
Distinguishing Latin Styles​ - Grades 9-12 Music Elective 
 
Teacher​: Miss Idalis Irizarry 
 
Unit Title: ​Música De Puerto Rico 
 
Grade(s):​ 9-12 
 
Number of Classes:​ 5 
 
MA Frameworks: 
 
● 4.12​ - Improvise rhythmic and melodic variations on given melodies in pentatonic, major, 
and minor tonalities 
 
● 4.13​ - Improvise original melodies over given chord progressions consistent in style, 
meter, and tonality 
 
● 1.8​ - Sing music representing diverse genres and cultures, with expression appropriate for 
the work being performed, and using a variety of languages 
 
● 3.9​ - Perform music representing diverse historical periods, genres, and cultures, with 
expression appropriate for the work being performed 
 
National Standards: (Creating, Performing, Responding, Connecting): 
 
● MU:Cr1.1.E.5a ​-​ ​Compose and improvise melodic and rhythmic ideas or motives that 
reflect characteristic(s) of music or text(s) studied in rehearsal. 
 
● MU:Cr1.1.C.Ia​ - Describe how sounds and short musical ideas can be used to represent 
personal experiences, moods, visual images, and/or storylines 
 
● MU:Cr2.1.C.IIa​ - Assemble and organize multiple sounds or musical ideas to create 
initial expressive statements of selected sonic events, memories, images, concepts, texts, 
or storylines. 
 
● MU:Cr3.2.C.Ia​ - Share music through the use of notation, ​performance​, or technology, 
and demonstrate how the elements of music have been employed to realize expressive 
 intent. 
 
● MU:Cr2.1.E.5a​ - Select and develop draft melodic and rhythmic ideas or motives that 
demonstrate understanding of characteristic(s) of music or text(s) studied in rehearsal. 
 
● MU:Cr3.2.E.5a​ - Share personally developed melodic and rhythmic ideas or motives – 
individually or as an ensemble – that demonstrate understanding of the characteristics of 
music or texts studied in rehearsal. 
 
Rationale: 
(Why is this unit important, how does it fit into the long term goals of the curriculum 
map?) 
 
Música de Puerto Rico​ is an important unit within my curriculum map because I will be 

able to share with my students the great love and appreciation I have for my Puerto Rican culture 

(and more specifically), its music. This will hopefully motivate and inspire my students to 

discover more about the wonderful elements such as music within their own cultural 

backgrounds. There are also around ten genres of music from Puerto Rico that we will touch 

upon within the five lessons that make up the unit.  

In terms of this unit fitting into my larger curriculum map for my class, ​Distinguishing 

Between Latin Styles,​ I would like for it to be the first topic of the semester. Similar to what I 

stated before, if I am able to share music that excites me the most and that I have a strong 

personal connection with at the beginning of the semester, this will hopefully motivate my 

students to step out of their comfort zones and explore new Latin cultures and their musical 

styles. Two of the most common Latin styles today, (reggaeton and salsa), both originated from 

Puerto Rico. It is likely that a lot of my students who sign up for the class have heard of at least 

one of these styles; the sense of familiarity that my students will have with these styles of music 

right from the beginning of the semester will hopefully excite them for what is to come.  
 

Essential Questions: (from the student perspective) 

● How can I ​distinguish different Latin music genres​ from one another?  

○ What ​musical instruments​ can I identify in listening examples to help me do 

this? 

○ What ​rhythmic patterns​ belong to certain Latin music genres? 

○ What ​melodic​ ​patterns ​belong to certain Latin music genres? 

○ What ​harmonic patterns ​belong to certain Latin music genres? 

○ What kinds of ​dance​ belong to certain Latin music genres? 

● What ​countries​ do these Latin genres originate from? 

● How can I ​create my own music in a Latin Music genre​ that we will explore in this 

class?  

● Why is learning about another culture’s music besides my own important? 

● Why is it important for me to learn about my own culture’s music? 

 
Enduring Understanding: 
(What will stick with them in the long term- what will they be able to use later in the year 
or in years to come?) 
 
In this unit, my students will grasp that music is a crucially important and relevant aspect 

in all cultures around the world. They will be motivated and inspired to learn more about their 

own culture and specifically the music from it. Students will recognize that even music within 

one culture can be extremely diverse in terms of musical instruments, harmony, melody, and 

rhythmic ideas. They will begin to develop personal opinions about the diversity of music from 
various cultures, and be able to defend their opinions with supporting musical / lyrical evidence 

and reasoning.  

Behavioral Objectives: 
(Specific knowledge and skills) 
What will they be physically able to do by the end of the unit? 
 
● Students will be able to identify the musical characteristics within four different Puerto 
Rican music genres 
 
● Students will be able to distinguish four Puerto Rican music styles from one another by 
listening to song clips. 
 
● Students will be able to write their own piece of music in one of the four genres of music 
(using GarageBand) by the end of the unit.  
 
● Students will be able to improvise using the voice and / or musical instruments over each 
of these four Puerto Rican genres. 
 
Assessment/Evaluation: 
Informal→  
● Students will complete Kahoot online quizzes at the end of each class. 
 
● Students will be assigned homework at the end of each class in this unit which will be to 
look for / bring in the name of a song from the Puerto Rican genre we learned in that 
class along with a written opinion of things they liked ​and/or​ disliked about the song / 
genre of music with supporting musical evidence and reasoning. 
 
● Students will create GarageBand projects utilizing at least ONE musical element from the 
Puerto Rican genre discussed in class.  
 
● Students will take a field trip to see a salsa band perform live as a class and will be asked 
to write a reflection afterwards. 
 
Formal→ 
● Students will complete checkpoint half sized worksheets at the beginning of each class 
about the content in the previous one. This will ask students to list three musical 
 characteristics that belong to the Puerto Rican genre covered along with the country that 
it derived from. 
 
● Students will be assessed on their ability to improvise on a musical instrument or voice 
by meeting with me in a one on one setting for 5 minutes. Students will each improvise 
over 4 1 minute samples of each of the four Puerto Rican genres that we cover in class.  
 
● Students will be tested using a rubric on their ability to salsa dance with an assigned 
partner. 
 
Summative​ Assignment/Project/Product→  
 
● Students​ ​will complete an in depth analysis of one specific song assigned by me from 
Puerto Rico. This analysis will include but not be limited to: 
● The song’s genre 
● What are the lyrics, and what do they translate to in English? 
● What are all of the musical components of the song? 
○ What are the instruments being played? 
○ Who is the most famous person to have performed / recorded that song? 
○ Do you like or dislike the song? Back this answer up with supporting musical 
evidence and reasoning. 
● This analysis project can be done in any format, as long as all of the information in the 
assignment gets covered. Examples of formats are: 
○ A song 
○ A powerpoint presentation 
○ A lesson 
○ A game 
● Be creative!! 
 
Prior Knowledge and Skills: 
(What do the students need to know and be prepared to do in advance in order to be 
successful in this unit?) 
 
● Prior to this unit, students should take a look at the class syllabus and familiarize 
themselves with the US territory of Puerto Rico, its culture and history. 
● Students should already be able to identify instrument families. 
● Students should already be familiar with singing solfege syllables.  
● Students should already be able to physically keep a steady pulse with one part of their 
body. 
 ● Students should already be able to read quarter note / rest, eighth note / rest, and 16th 
note / rest rhythms in written music notation.  
● Students should already be able to identify the musical elements of songs through 
listening examples. 
○ These would be things such as dynamics, articulation, tempo, etc. 
○ Students may not know the exact musical terminology for what they are 
describing, but as long as they can articulate it using other vocabulary. 
 
Accommodations: 
(How does instruction accommodate for special needs and ELL students to insure equity?) 
1. Special needs 
● Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): 
○ Students will be given a note-taking sheet to follow directly along with what 
information is being given in class. 
○ The entire class will be given endless opportunities to check their understanding 
after a direction was given. 
○ Students who have ASD can wear noise diminishing / cancelling earphones when 
we do exercises with a lot of noise stimulation.  
 
● Gifted and Talented Students​:  
○ Will be asked to do further research into each genre talked about in class and will 
present me with their thoughts and questions (written down) in a 1:1 meeting that 
we will set up outside of our class (during the school day).  
○ They will be given a pretest on these Puerto Rican genres before attending this 
class period. 
○ They will be asked to write a song (about 1 minute in length) in one of the PR 
genres discussed in class.  
 
● Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder 
(ADHD): 
○ Students will sit near good role models in the classroom. 
■ Providing a seating method that helps the student to move such as a silent 
bouncy chair, standing desk, or foot rest 
○ Students will work closely with a partner (who agrees to do so) who displays 
good behavior / understanding of the material.  
○ Students will have a designated quiet / alone time space in the classroom. 
○ Students will be graded on their understanding, and not as much on their 
penmanship.  
 
2. ELL: 
● Will be allowed to have the teacher’s talking points printed out right in front of 
them for this class. 
● I will read the directions out loud, and SLOW for the entire class and have 
everyone repeat the directions back to me.  
● Students will be given visuals up on the board such as key terms or directions for 
assignments. 
● Students will be allotted extra time on the checkpoint quizzes given at the 
beginning of each class in this unit. 
 
 
School to Home/community connection: 
(How can students connect this knowledge to their daily lives, community and/or enhance 
their skills as global citizens?) 
 
By learning about musical genres from a new culture (Puerto Rico), students will become 

more well rounded and culturally aware citizens in the world. They will also become more 

curious about people from different cultures and what kinds of music they create and listen to. 

As my students advance through high school and beyond, they will encounter people from 

around the world, and through this class they will develop comfort in asking and willingness to 

learn about the other person’s culture / music from their culture. As humans, we tend to ignore 

things that make us feel uncomfortable or things that are unfamiliar to us. Through this unit and 

this course, students will learn that you are becoming a better person by stepping out of your 

comfort zone and immersing yourself into learning a new culture.  

 
 
Activator: 
(What activities will the students do in order to activate prior knowledge to support the 
new material in this unit?) 
 
 ● Students will work in teams of two and write down on a large piece of poster paper all of 
the things they already know / ​think​ they already know about Puerto Rico (related and 
unrelated to music) 
● Students will work together as a class to divide 12 Puerto Rican instruments into 
“instrument families” on a poster paper. 
● Solfege-ing a simple melodic line in a tune we are looking at 
● Keeping a steady pulse to a song 
● A 4 bar rhythmic exercise (reading notation up on the board) at the beginning of class 
● Students will go around the room and each say a musical term out loud that they know, 
and we will define it together as a class.  
 
 
Repertoire: 
(List all music literature, scores, octavos, videos, recordings etc.) 
 
● Different listening examples of each of the four Latin genres (1st lesson) 
○ Salsa → ​https://youtu.be/KNcaw0Ye69g 
○ Bachata → ​https://youtu.be/kzbUkVdHsHk 
○ Merengue → ​https://youtu.be/qXXuv5kI5-g 
○ Latin Urban Music / Reggaeton → 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DtW7U7WRiA 
● Salsa Dancing: Basic Steps for Beginners! → 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XgmAPCX85A 
● “Slow salsa songs for beginners” YouTube video →  
○ https://youtu.be/nT4v7W7Fvdw 
● San Juan, Puerto Rico - Bomba →  
○ https://youtu.be/K2_ezPsWivM 
● Danza dance → 
○ https://youtu.be/CL8lHvzl1bY 
● Danza song for movement → 
○ https://youtu.be/LWSf6VFNdr0 
 
 
Materials Needed: 
(List all materials necessary for this unit, including paper, pencils, instruments, audio 
visual, digital equipment etc.) 
 
● White board 
● White board markers / erasers 
● Tubanos 
 ● Music posture chairs 
● Pencils with erasers 
● Computer 
● Chromebooks and iPads for students 
● Projector 
● Powerpoint presentation 
● Other percussion instruments that we touch on in class such as the ​guira​, ​cowbell​, 
congas​, etc. (which will be used for improvisation) 
● Different listening examples of each of the four Latin genres  
○ Salsa → ​https://youtu.be/KNcaw0Ye69g 
○ Bachata → ​https://youtu.be/kzbUkVdHsHk 
○ Merengue → ​https://youtu.be/qXXuv5kI5-g 
○ Latin Urban Music / Reggaeton → 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DtW7U7WRiA 
● Salsa Dancing: Basic Steps for Beginners! → 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XgmAPCX85A 
● Latin genre Identification Worksheet 
● Note taking sheet 
 
 
 
**The two ​full lesson plans​ (Lessons 1 (​Do You Think You Know Your Latin Genres??)​ and 
2 (¡​SALSA!)​ of this unit are attached.** 
 
 
Lesson Outlines 
(number the lessons in order and add as many as needed) →  
 
*Lesson #3 →​Danza 
 
Behavioral Objective: 
● Students will be able to ​identify​ the key musical elements in danza music as well as 
elements in the danza dance style.  
 
Assessment/Evaluation (proposed): 
● To watch this video of danza dance that will be posted in Google Classroom 
https://youtu.be/CL8lHvzl1bY 
○ Students will be asked to write a 1 page, 12 pt font, double spaced, times new 
roman reflection on what we talked about in class / what they just watched and 
post it in Google Classroom before next class meeting. 
 
Prior Knowledge and activator (proposed): 
● What it is like to move around to Latin music styles 
● Remembering common Latin instrument sounds / names of the instruments 
 
● ACTIVATOR​ →  
○ Have students in the beginning of class move around / walk to a danza song 
○ Ask students to think about the instruments they are hearing and call out the 
names of instruments they recognize in our first song we listen to. 
 
Lesson content (bullet points): 
● Listen to and move around the classroom to a danza song 
○ https://youtu.be/LWSf6VFNdr0 
● Complete checkpoint worksheet based on the content from the previous class. 
● Listen to and dissect the key musical elements occurring in danza music as this style is 
different / more classically based than the ones we have listened to so far.  
○ Students will take notes at this time. 
● Class will watch videos together of the danza dance and try to do it! 
● Wrap up with explaining class assignment on Google Classroom.  
-------- 
*Lesson #4 → ​Bomba Puertorriqueña  
 
Behavioral Objective: 
● Students will be able to ​dance ​and ​play the tubanos​ in the style of bomba and plena.   
 
Assessment/Evaluation (proposed): 
● After this class, students will need to send in a brief video of them doing the bomba and 
plena dance that we learned from our special guest who came in to teach us in class. They 
will submit this using Google Classroom. 
 
Prior Knowledge and activator (proposed): 
● What is like to move around the room to Latin music styles 
● The correct way to play the tubano 
● How to feel the pulse of any song 
● ACTIVATOR →  
○ Move around to Bomba music 
○ Watching me model how to play the tubano  
○ Asking the class to pat out the ​pulse​ on their bodies to the warm up song 
 
Lesson content (bullet points): 
● Move about the room listening to bomba music 
● Complete checkpoint worksheet based on the content from the previous class. 
● Introduce our guest who will teach us about bomba dance / drum rhythms that go along 
with it 
● Learn the bomba dance / drum patterns 
● Inform class about Google Classroom assignment due next class 
-------- 
*Lesson #5 → ​Reggaeton / Latin Urban Music 
 
Behavioral Objective: 
● Students will be able to ​incorporate​ at least two musical elements from reggaeton / latin 
urban music (learned in class) into their own musical creation.  
 
Assessment/Evaluation (proposed): 
● Students will be asked to create their own 8 bar composition using Garageband on the 
class iPads using at least ​two​ musical elements in Reggaeton / Latin Urban Music 
 
Prior Knowledge and activator (proposed): 
● How to use Garageband on the iPads 
● How to identify a musical idea such as melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic ideas in any song 
● Students should already be able to ​read and write​ quarter note / rest, eighth note / rest, 
and 16th note / rest rhythms in written music notation.  
● ACTIVATOR →  
○ Solfege warm up (brief) 
○ Rhythmic dictation warm up (brief) 
○ Watching my screencast on how to use GarageBand 
 
Lesson content (bullet points): 
● Students will move around the room to a reggaeton song as our warm up. 
● Students will complete their checkpoint worksheet based on the content from the 
previous class. 
● Students will have a group discussion about the musical elements in this style / what they 
remember from our second class where we briefly touched on this genre. 
● Students will then take out their note sheets on reggaeton / latin urban music from the 
second class, grab their assigned iPads and research a little bit more about reggaeton 
● After about 5 minutes, I will touch more on this genre’s significance in Puerto Rico. 
● Students will watch a screencast that I have created and have posted on Google 
Classroom explaining how to navigate GarageBand if they have not yet done so before. 
 ● Students will begin their 8 bar compositions using GB for the rest of the class period and 
I would move about the room answering questions.  
● **INTRODUCE and EXPLAIN UNIT SUMMATIVE PROJECT** 
○ (There will be a 6th class in this unit ​solely​ to work on this project in class / 
do research / etc.) … ​Students​ ​will complete an in depth analysis of one specific 
song assigned by me from Puerto Rico in one of the genres discussed in this unit.