Art and Music of WWI: A Constructivist Approach

Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919

The lesson involves a collaboration on the parts of the music and art teacher. It is designed to cover the art and music of WWI and tie these in with social studies discussions. 

For this lesson, the teacher will lead students in a discussion of WWI events, show students examples of DaDa art, play recordings from WWI, and lead a discussion on how the war influenced and affected art and music during the time. Teachers might also need to scaffold students in terms of creating a collage, and interpreting a musical piece.

Students will be expected to achieve the following based on teacher presentations and prior knowledge from the social studies classroom:

Using information presented by the teacher, and their prior knowledge and experience from social studies, art, and music classes:

- Describe a musical piece after listening to a recording
- research and discuss how the war and propaganda were related to the DaDa movement
- Create their own DaDa collage, relate it to contemporary social events.
- Discuss pieces of music and art from WWI and relate them to the war and other social contexts of the period being discussed.

This is a good website with many links to articles on connecting art to other disciplines.