"My Country 'Tis of Thee"

Our second lesson was on the patriotic song "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Using a picture book, we discovered the origins of the song and how it has evolved over the last 300 years. We also compared and contrasted different versions of the song today.

First, I sang the song "America" by Samuel Francis Smith. Most of the kids had heard this before, so I invited them to sing it with me the second time. We watched a video of Aretha Franklin sing the same song at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She sings it in a jazzy, spiritual style. The kids helped me brainstorm lots of different words to describe what they heard and saw. Then, we watched Mormon Tabernacle Choir's version. They sing it in a more classical and calm way, and the kids noticed that immediately. One of the students pointed out that the first video was sung by a woman and the second video was sung by more men. We had a short discussion about the difference between a soloist and a choir.

I pulled out the book "My Country 'Tis of Thee: How One Song Reveals the History of Civil Rights" by Claire Murphy. Since the print is small, we used the projector so that the kids could sing each new verse with me. From the book, the kids learned about how the song started out as "God Save the King," a British tune. Then the colonists changed the words during the Revolutionary War. There was a new verse written for President George Washington's inauguration. The North and the South each had their own verses during the Civil War, and President Abraham Lincoln sang a new verse with the Union after they won the war. Women wrote new verses about women's rights. Native Americans wrote about the rights they wanted. African-Americans wrote about their rights. Martin Luther King Jr. even quoted the song in his "I Have a Dream" speech. The last part of the book shows Aretha Franklin singing, and invites the children to write their own verse about a cause they believe in. I gave the students a handout to write their new verse on and next time we will sing a few of their lyric compositions.