Unit Plan Outline

Teacher: Zhijie Zhang

Unit Title: Intervals and chords
Grade: 9
Number of Classes: 4

National Standards:
1. MU:Cr3.1.C.Ia Identify, describe, and apply teacher-provided criteria to assess and refine the
technical and expressive aspects of evolving drafts leading to final versions.

2. MU:Re7.1.C.Ia Apply teacher-provided criteria to select music that expresses a personal

experience, mood, visual image, or storyline in simple forms (such as one-part, cyclical, binary),
and describe the choices as models for composition.

MA Frameworks:
1. Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work. Construct an argument for selecting one criterion over
another for evaluating a musical composition. (AG.M.R.09)

Rationale:
1. Intervals relate to different musical elements such as chords and melodies.
2. when students are composing their own work, the knowledge of intervals helps them
decide what chords or melodies they want to use to make their work better.
3. Intervals help students distinguishing the chords by only listening to the chords.
4. Intervals create a fluid transition for students to learn more complex musical ideas.

Essential Questions:
1. what types of intervals are there?
2. what’s the relationship between different intervals?
2. how to find an interval?
3. how to find the quality of a chord based on the knowledge of interval?

Enduring Understanding:
1. intervals help students make deep connection with different music elements. They need
to use the knowledge of intervals to build up chords in order to compose their own work.
2. By knowing the intervals, students will build up skills of sight-singing.

Student Learning Objectives:

1. Students will memorize all the qualities of intervals.
2. Students will build up different qualities of triads using the knowledge of intervals.
3. students will memorize the qualities of all the 7 triads in major scales.

Assessment/Evaluation:
Informal—class observation & group discussion
Formal—Exit ticket after each class
Formal—10min small quiz on intervals in Lesson 4

Prior Knowledge and Skills:

1. students can read the staff (both treble and bass clef)
2. Students are familiar with the notes on the piano

Accommodations:
1. Special needs students:
I will have both oral and visual presentations of the content.
2. ELL:
They will be provided the images in the PPT.

School to Home/community connection:

1. learning the intervals build up students’ sense of logic. all the intervals have
relationships; by learning the relationships, students will focus more on the connection
between events and the process of how to figure things out instead of only focusing on
the outcome.
2. intervals are not related to music only. By learning intervals, students will have
improvements on other subjects as well such as math.
3. as musicians, students who know the knowledge of interval can communicate with
musicians with a different cultural background as well.

Activator:
1. Kahoot activity related to notes on piano and staff
2. questions during class

Repertoire:
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Materials Needed:
1. virtual piano
2. staff paper and pens
 Lesson Outlines

Lesson 1: see G9 lesson plan 1

Lesson 2: see G9 lesson plan 2

Lesson 3:

Behavioral Objective
1. Students will demonstrate the relationship between intervals by changing the pitches of
the notes to change the quality of intervals.
2. Students will memorize all the qualities of intervals in major scales.
3. Students will build up minor, diminished, and augmented intervals by changing the
pitch from a major interval.

Assessment/Evaluation (proposed)
Informal assessment: class observation (Students will have Q&A activity)
Formal assessment: exit ticket

Prior Knowledge and activator (proposed)

1. students can read the staff (both treble and bass clef)
2. Students are familiar with the notes on the piano
3. remember the way to find a major interval in any major scale

Lesson content
1. Kahoot activity related to the notes on the staff and piano (5mins)
2. review the way of finding major intervals in major scale (3-4mins)
3. learn other qualities of intervals by changing the major interval (10mins)
4. summarize the relationships between intervals (5mins)
5. discuss 20 questions related to different qualities of intervals (5mins)
6. finish the exit ticket (2-3mins)

Lesson 4:

Behavioral Objective
1. Students will distinguish the different qualities of chords by counting the intervals
between notes.
2. Students will memorize the quality of all 7 chords in any major scale.
3. Students will memorize how to notate the chords in major scales.

Assessment/Evaluation (proposed)
Informal assessment: class observation
Formal assessment: 10min quiz

Prior Knowledge and activator (proposed)

1. students can read the staff (both treble and bass clef)
2. Students are familiar with the notes on the piano
3. Students can remember all qualities of intervals

Lesson content
1. review all qualities of intervals (2-3mins)
2. discover the intervals in the diatonic triads in major scale (10mins)
3. learn the notation of chords (letter, quality) (5-10mins)
4. answer 10 questions related to the quality of the chords in major scales (5mins)
5. 10min quiz related to interval (10mins)