Tone is often a very difficult concept for secondary students to grasp. Explaining tone in terms of providing the right background music helps students to reach a rudimentary understanding of the subtle nature of tone. One of my students created an interesting piece of jazz music set to Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool,” emphasizing the timelessness of Brooks’ theme of dropping out of high school and the flippant attitude of the dropouts toward school and life in general.
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