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Dear Teachers, Thank you for choosing this Freedom Sings™ documentary and teaching guide as an educational experience for your students. We at Middle Tennessee State University are proud to present this project of the Newseum Institute. Guidebook for Teachers Written and compiled by Freedom Sings™ hones in on the power of Amanda Cantrell Roche of The free musical expression in America and uses Tennessee Performing Arts Center engaging music to underscore our important First Amendment • freedoms. It also shows how those freedoms helped build our nation Table of Contents and how they have been challenged by censorship. Narrator Ken Paulson, dean of our College of Media and Entertainment at MTSU, Song List 2 weaves everything together through his contextual narration. Discussion Questions 2 th The Songs 3 We are offering our documentary on the 15 anniversary of Freedom Interview with Ken Paulson 4 Sings™, as well as this guidebook created for high school classrooms, Q&A: About the First Amendment so you can engage your students about the First Amendment’s 6 protection of freedom of expression. We hope the activities outlined in the guidebook will encourage reflection and discussion. Lesson Plans: Creating a Poetic Anthem I am particularly proud of Dean Paulson’s work in the creation and for Our Age 8 continuation of Freedom Sings™, as well as the involvement by our Music Censorship Debate 10 Media and Entertainment students in the filming of this Creating a Multimedia documentary. We value our partnership with the Newseum Performance Time Capsule 11 Institute’s First Amendment Center and support its continued work to support these important freedoms. Controversies over Music Through the Decades 12 Sincerely, Resources 13 Dr. Sidney A. McPhee President Middle Tennessee State University Constitution Day The Freedom Sings film is a perfect program for Constitution Day. It explains First Amendment freedoms in an engaging and entertaining way, all set to an inspiring and thought-provoking soundtrack. 2 Freedom Sings™ The Songs Student appreciation and understanding of Freedom Sings is designed to be shared with your students in a single class period or you can chose to play individual songs for the documentary, followed by class Freedom Sings™ discussion. The songs are bundled thematically: Civil rights, women’s rights, the will be greatly enhanced with activities that develop environment, and satire and protest. Please note that some of the songs have personal connections to the issues and themes mature themes. American Skin is about the shooting of an unarmed man; The Pill addressed in this film. This guidebook contains addresses contraception in a humorous manner and the performance of Society’s suggestions for classroom-based activities, which are Child includes Janis Ian’s recollections about racial epithets thrown at her after adaptable for independent projects and multi-week recording the song. units. Use your own ideas to suit your time and your students. Song List: Blowin’ in the Wind – performed by Dave Coleman – This 1962 Bob Dylan songs asks, “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” This song has become a staple of social and protest movements worldwide. What’s Going’ On – performed by Sara Beck - 1971 recording by Marvin Gaye about the then -troubled state of the nation. Choice of Colors – performed by Danny Flowers – 1969 hit by the Impressions asks The following questions are suggested to us to reflect upon our relationship with people of other races. start class discussions or independent journaling before and after attending the I Am Woman – performed by Lari White – This 1972 recording by Helen Reddy – performance. who co -write the song – became an anthem for the women’s rights movement. The Pill – performed by Erin Enderlin – This 1975 Loretta Lynn recording about Discussion Questions — Before the reproductive freedom was a top 10 country single. screening: • Where do we see music censorship in our culture? Independence Day – performed by Gretchen Peters – Performed here by the Is it necessary? songwriter, Independence Day was a hit for Martina McBride in 1994. It tells a Why or why not? story of a woman driven to desperate measures after suffering domestic abuse. • Are there current musical artists whose music you find too morally offensive? Big Yellow Taxi – performed by Amy Speace and Fred Knobloch – This cautionary • Would you defend the rights of those artists to tale about the environment was written by Joni Mitchell in 1970, the year of the receive radio play or have their music sold online or first Earth Day. It has been recorded by Bob Dylan, Amy Grant and Counting in stores? Why or why not? Crows. • At what age should a person be able to listen to whatever music Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology) – performed by Joseph Wooten – This 1971 he or she prefers? Marvin Gaye composition raised awareness about the need to protect the • Do you think music today has as much power to environment. influence attitudes and the direction of America as it has held Short People - Performed by Seth Timbs - This Randy Newman composition and historically? Why or why not? recording mocks racism with a satirical attack on the small of stature. A Maryland legislature overlooked the satire and introduced failed legislation to bar the Discussion Questions — After the playing of this song on the state’s radio stations. screening: • What are the most serious threats to freedom of American Skin (41 Shots) – performed by Eric Brace - This protest song by Bruce speech in music today? Springsteen was first performed in 2000, shortly after the fatal shooting of • If music has the power to shape a nation in a Amadou Diallo by New York City Police officers. positive way, does it also have the power to encourage hatred or violent behavior? Why or why The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever done – performed by Brian Wright – not? Legendary songwriter Woody Guthrie (“This Land is Your Land”) wrote this song • What music inspires you personally? What music during his travels through Washington and Oregon in 1941. It recognizes do you consider influential to your community mankind’s achievements and chronicles how commitment, hard work and vision have changed the world. Society’s Child – performed by Janis Ian – Janis Ian was just 13 years old when she wrote this powerful song about a young white girl and black boy, and the girl’s parents reaction to the relationship. Despite its controversial topic, the song was a hit in 1966. Ian faced racist messages and threats, but continued to perform this song. 3 A Conversation with Ken Paulson, Creator of Freedom Sings™ Ken Paulson is the creator of Freedom Sings™, as well as president of the First Amendment Center, Dean of the College of Media and Entertainment at Middle Tennessee State University, and the former editor of USA Today. He took a few moments to talk to us about the program. Q: Can you explain why you were driven to create this production? A: One of the challenges of conveying the value of the First Amendment is that it is 225 years old. As the centuries pass, it’s really easy to take these core freedoms for granted. What I was looking for was a way to share with a new generation of citizens the vibrancy and potency of free speech, and music is a perfect fit. Q: Why is music a particularly intriguing filter through which to look at First Amendment issues? A: Freedom of speech through music has some particularly appealing attributes. Rock ’n’ roll and hip- hop are the music of the young and a very contemporary way to communicate ideas. Young people of every generation feel like an older generation isn’t always listening. It turns out, when you turn up amplifiers, they have no choice. Q: You’ve drawn accomplished professional musicians with full schedules for the cast. Can you explain the musicians’ process of preparing for this performance? A: Let me give you a little broader background. Freedom Sings™ was born in 1999 as a single performance at the Bluebird Café. We invited some of the most talented artists in Nashville to join us to perform songs that were once controversial or had a meaningful impact on a social movement. It was intended as a single concert that would be captured on video and distributed as both a video and CD. It was such an extraordinary success and so rich in ideas that we decided we needed to do two things: Freedom Sings™ would become an annual concert at the Bluebird, and I decided to write a stage performance piece that could tour America’s campuses. Back to your question about artists: At each of those annual concerts we discover new talent, and we also figure out pretty quickly which musicians have the most passion for freedom of speech. Those are the folks we recruit. So the core band consists of people who have been with us for more than a decade. Professional musicians have hectic lives but they also tend to have flexible ones and so they’re able to join us. One of the most exciting things about the process is that I rewrite Freedom Sings™ literally six or seven times a year. Freedom Sings™ is intended to be very topical and timely, and that means reinvigorating it with new music and new materials regularly. So in the past year, we’ve added a wide 4 range of music, from Little Big Town to LMFAO and Kacey Musgraves. That means I walk into a rehearsal and tell the cast, “I have a new song for you to learn on the spot.” It’s sort of like Glee in real life.

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