Lesson plan Grade 6 Art & Music
Keep It Out of the Drain: A Storm-Drain Chant for Mossvale
A grade 6 music and songwriting lesson where students compose a short persuasive chant with a steady beat urging neighbors to keep pollutants out of storm drains.
Objectives
- Students will keep a steady four-beat rhythm while performing a chant.
- Students will write chant lyrics that state a claim and give reasons.
Vocabulary
Key words: chant, beat, rhythm, refrain, claim
Teacher overview
Most storm drains in a town like Mossvale (a fictional town for this lesson) carry rainwater straight to the nearest creek without any cleaning. That means anything left on the street, such as motor oil, litter, or grass clippings, can wash down the drain and pollute the water that fish and neighbors depend on. In this music lesson students write and perform a short chant that urges people to keep those things out of the drain. The lesson joins two skills. Students practice keeping a steady four-beat rhythm, the musical craft of a chant, and they write persuasive lyrics that make a clear claim and back it with reasons. Because the words must land on the beat, students learn to choose short, strong phrases that still carry an argument.
Procedure
Hook (5 min): Clap a steady four-beat pattern and have the class echo it, then add a simple two-line chant of your own about clean water so students hear how words ride on a beat.
Mini-lesson (10 min): Explain the parts of a chant: a steady beat, a short refrain that repeats, and lines that fit the rhythm. Then explain the writing goal. The chant must make one claim, such as "keep oil and litter out of the drain," and give at least two reasons, such as "it flows straight to the creek" and "it harms the fish." Write one model line on the board and clap it to show the words matching the beat.
Compose in groups (18 min): In groups of three or four, students write a chant of at least four lines plus a repeating refrain. They must include one clear claim and two reasons drawn from the idea that storm drains lead to the creek untreated. Groups clap the beat as they test each line, rewriting any line that does not fit the rhythm.
Rehearse (7 min): Groups practice performing their chant in time, deciding who leads the refrain and who answers, so the performance has a call-and-response shape.
Perform and exit check (5 min): Each group performs its chant once for the class. As a formative check, after each performance ask the audience to name the group's claim and one reason; if the audience cannot, the group notes which line to make clearer before a final copy is turned in.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Provide a chant frame with the refrain already written and blanks for the claim and two reasons, so students focus on fitting words to the beat. Allow groups to tap the beat on a desk if clapping and speaking at once is difficult.
Extension
Ask groups to add a second verse that answers a likely objection, such as "it is only a little oil," with a reason why small amounts still add up. Have them mark where the stressed beats fall in each new line.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "drain," "litter," "claim," and "reason" with pictures and gestures. Let students perform their lines chorally with the group before speaking any line alone, and allow a first draft written as short phrases in the student's home language, then translated with a partner.