Integrating Music Into High-School History Classes

             In this article in Social Education, Philadelphia teacher Dave Marshall describes how he first introduced music in his history classes. As a new teacher, he occasionally played a pertinent song to start a class – for example, Edwin Starr’s “War” before a lesson on Vietnam protests. Then he began building an entire lesson around an in-depth analysis of a song – in one case, Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.”

            From there Marshall progressed to having students study several related songs – for example, five songs on climate change, including Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and Childish Gambino’s “Feels Like Summer.” This brought depth and passion to class discussions and students’ presentations and essays.

            Marshall came up with the CALM acronym to help students analyze a song more thoughtfully:

• Context – What is the relevant historical and musical background?
• Artist – What aspects of their life and past work inform this song?
• Lyrics – Which lines seem important and why? Are there any allusions?
• Music – What are the most notable musical elements, and what do they achieve? 

He found that after students watched him model the acronym with one song, they loved deconstructing a song of their choice (see the article sidebar for a CALM analysis of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”).

            In 2023, Marshall wondered, “What if, instead of enhancing my curriculum with songs, the music drove my curriculum?” While continuing to teach his regular U.S. history course, he launched a senior elective, Music and U.S. History, which he says has been the most rewarding course of his 18-year career. “The elective opened up exciting new opportunities for student choice and voice, especially for student presentations.” Two students taught a joint lesson on Taylor Swift’s impact on feminism and the music industry. The elective now has four thematic units: Race and Racism, Protest and Patriotism, Climate Change, and Gender and Sexuality (here’s the full syllabus and the 84-song Spotify playlist compiled with students’ help).

            A popular activity in the elective has been having seniors teach a music-themed history lesson to the school’s fourth graders – one group featured John Lennon’s “Imagine” and H.E.R.’s “Change.” Elective students have also crafted their own playlists of 4-5 songs on a topic, writing a paragraph on how each song spoke to the theme and then tying them together in a unifying essay.

            Through his occasional use of songs in regular history classes and an elective course on music in history, Marshall has found three significant benefits:

• Engaging reluctant students – “Several students who were apathetic throughout my 11th-grade U.S. History course dove into our music-based lessons in twelfth grade,” he says. One student got excited about the culture surrounding historical events, while another “learned to be curious about a song and its background, and how that interacts with the time in which it was created, the artist who created it, and the listener.

• Building important historical skills – Without even realizing it, students are doing primary-source analysis when they place a song in historical context and parse its lyrics. One ambitious student wrote her final paper on which had more impact on gun violence – protest songs or political speeches. Marshall cites evidence that infusing music into core academic classes improves long-term retention of course content and develops social-emotional and problem-solving skills.

• Making interdisciplinary connections – A full-class discussion of Nina Simone’s three-minute song “Backlash Blues” touched on: (a) the history and structure of the 12-bar blues; (b) the Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes; (c) how the Vietnam draft disproportionately affected low-income Americans and people of color; (d) Simone’s biography from a documentary they watched; and (e) the history of segregation and redlining (from the line, “You give me second-class houses/And second-class schools”).

            Marshall closes with four caveats for teachers who might want to include music in a regular history course or teach an elective: 

• Think carefully about the lyrics and themes of potentially controversial songs and communicate the rationale for using them to students, families, and administrators.
• Establish class norms and expectations, ideally brainstormed with students.
• Counteract students’ tendency to immediately declare their likes and dislikes by sharing De gustibus non est disputandum (there’s no accounting for taste) and focusing on a CALM analysis instead.
• Devote plenty of time building the skill of close listening. Like close reading, this takes effort, practice, and modeling. 

With these cautions in mind, Marshall strongly encourages the use of songs in history classes. “With intentional structure and practice,” he says, “my students honed their historical skills, learned key content, and had fun in the process.” 

 “‘Songs Make History’: How Music Boosts History Students’ Skills and Engagement” by Dave Marshall in Social Education, November/December 2025 (Vol. 89, #6, pp. 352-357); Marshall can be reached at davem@friends-select.org.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1114 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.