It's My Party and I'll Hear What I Want To: Gatsby's Party Playlists

Once students have Why-Lighted both passages describing the party scenes in Chapters 3 and 6 and completed the first part of the handout, they will now return to the essential question, "How can music help establish mood and tone?" on slide 14. After reading this question again, gather students' thoughts on this question. What ideas do they have? What examples can they provide?

Ask students to look at the second page of the Party Playlists handout. Inform students that they will be creating the playlists for Jay Gatsby's famous shindigs! The instructions on the handout are as follows: Consider the question: How can music help establish mood and tone? After you have completed the Why-Lighting of the party scenes in Chapters 3 and 6, choose from each scene: 1) 3 pieces of text evidence, 2) mood or tone identification, 3) a song to accompany this point in the plot that appropriately and effectively communicates the mood or tone found.

Here, students will get much more specific with their analysis of the two party scenes from the text. Since they are relating mood and tone to music, their next step will be to find songs to construct playlists for each of the parties. Ask students, "Now that you get the "vibe" of these parties through examining their mood and tone, what songs do you think would be appropriate to be playing?" and "Why would you choose certain songs to play at these parties of Gatsby's?" Slides 15 and 16 hold the directions for the playlist assignment.

Just as they did with the first page of the handout, ask students to fill out the second page with information to help them organize their thoughts about their playlists. These examples will be more specific though, and should be cited with page numbers. For each song chosen, there should also be a rationale included. Students can either plan using the page provided or on a separate sheet of paper if more room is needed.

Once all evidence and a strong song selection has been made, inform students that they will be creating their playlists using an online creation and presentation platform called Blendspace, which allows them to make interactive presentations. When creating their Blendspace playlist, students will create six squares to host their six chosen songs. For each square, they will then add text that includes: 1) Song title, 2) Party #1 or 2, 3) Brief description of scene, 4) Text Evidence, and 5) Mood/Tone conveyed.

As a final step after the playlists have been constructed, students will analyze the connection between music and mood and tone in which they will respond to the following questions: How can music help establish mood and tone? How did your two playlists differ and how did the songs convey mood and tone? As stated on the handout, this can be answered on another sheet of paper.