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Teaching Jazz

Get those jazz hands ready.

  • Activities: 13
  • Quiz Questions: 50

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Until you read this novel and wander down the seductive streets of Harlem circa 1926 with Toni Morrison as your guide, your Jazz Age education is totally lacking.

Basically, Jazz is what happens when one of the most lauded American authors writes about the most original American musical form, the most scandalous decade of the American 20th century, and one of the most despicable chapters in American history. What's more American than apple pie? Jazz.

And it doesn't even need melted cheese on top (...or is that just us?).

In this guide, you'll find

  • a letter-writing activity after your students figure out what sort of folks Malvonne's nephew steals mail from.
  • an exploration of all the different relationships between characters in the novel, culminating in a relationship web.
  • an opportunity for your students to make a case for who they believe the narrator to be.

Make Morrison less worrisome with our guide to Jazz.

What's Inside Shmoop's Literature Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring literature to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

  • 13 – 18 Common Core-aligned activities to complete in class with your students, including detailed instructions for you and your students
  • Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students
  • Reading quizzes for every chapter, act, or part of the text
  • Resources to help make the book feel more relevant to your 21st-century students
  • A note from Shmoop's teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the text and how you can overcome the hurdles

Want more help teaching Teaching Jazz?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.



Instructions for You

Objective: As they say in baseball, you can't follow the game without a scorecard. This activity will assist your students in teasing out all the different relationships between the people of Jazz. Dorcas' family is all mixed up with Joe's, so what's a learner to do, but create a relationship web? We need to know how everyone connects, so we can help our students to have the greatest understanding of Morrison's book as possible.

You can start this web at any point, but Jazz really gets to the heart of some of these relationships in Book 7. We recommend starting the web early and having students build on it with new knowledge. Book 7 will give them a lot to work on, so carve out some extra time during this part of the reading. Overall, we think you can have them just take five minute chunks to update this web, dedicating 15 minutes for Book 7.

Materials Needed: Paper, pencil (this one could get messy and need some revision, so pencil is preferable), and text

Step 1: If you're starting early in the book, you can begin simply by having students write down three names: Joe, Violet, and Dorcas. Put Joe in the middle and draw lines from one person to the next. On the line between Joe and Violet have students write: "husband and wife" or "spouses." On the line between Joe and Dorcas, "lovers."

If you're starting later in the book, you need to have students do some major brainstorming. They'll have to come up with a lengthy list of characters. Everyone from Joe to Alice to Joe's crazy momma needs to be represented here. Have students think about the relationships between characters and how they fit together before putting names down. Then they can plop names onto the web, draw lines between characters and write a quick descriptor above them.

Need an example? Here:

 

Step 2: Go through as many characters as students can remember. If they get stuck, or if they're doing these in large chunks, let them take a break and ask them these questions to prod them along the right path:

  • Who's related to who by family ties?
  • Who's related by romantic relationships or friendship?
  • How many people is each character related to in some way?
  • When did they know them?
  • Where did they know them?
  • Do they know them now?

Step 3: Final step. Once the webs are all completed, it's time to sit back and ask a few questions. Have students answer these on the same paper that their web is drawn on.

  • How does this web reflect real life relationships? Are our own connections with people this messy? Explain.
  • Name one surprising thing that you learned. If it wasn't "surprising" then just tell us something new that you learned through building this web.
  • Which of these relationships do you find the most interesting and why?
  • Which relationship do you think is too unbelievable?

Step 4: This one's easy; have your students turn in their webs with the answered questions.

Instructions for Your Students

Do you remember "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?" No? Well, that's okay. The theory was that everyone from all over the world could find a way they connect to Kevin Bacon within six personal connections. This activity is a little like that, only without Bacon.

We'll create a web of characters. Not a list, not an analysis, but a web. This means you should get ready to get messy connecting characters together. You'll need a good handle on who knows who and how they know 'em. Don't worry though, your teacher will be here for extra help and we've got a pretty good handle on how to get you where we're going.

Step 1: If you're starting early in the book, you can write down three names: Joe, Violet, and Dorcas. This one's easy, right? Put Joe in the middle and draw lines from one person to the next. On the line between Joe and Violet write: "husband and wife" or "spouses." On the line between Joe and Dorcas, "lovers."

If you're starting later in the book, you'll need do some major brainstorming. You'll have to come up with a whole list of characters. Everyone from Joe to Alice to Joe's crazy momma needs to be represented in this web. Think about the relationships between characters and how they fit together before putting names down. Then you can plop names down, draw lines between characters, and write a quick descriptor that captures the relationship above them.

Need an example? Here: 

 

Step 2: Go through and connect up as many characters as you can remember. If you get stuck, or if you're doing these in large chunks, you might need to take a break. If you need to jog your memory, think about these questions to get on the right path:

  • Who's related by family ties?
  • Who's related by romantic relationships or friendship?
  • How many people is each character related to in some way?
  • When did they know them?
    • Where did they know them?
  • Do they know them now?

Step 3: Final step. Once the webs are all completed, it's time to sit back and answer a few questions. You can write your answers on the same paper that your web is drawn on.

  • How does this web reflect real life relationships? Are our own connections with people this messy? Explain.
  • Name one surprising thing that you learned. If it wasn't "surprising" then just tell us something new that you learned through building this web.
  • Which of these relationships do you find most interesting and why?
  • Which relationship do you think is too unbelievable?

Step 4: This one's easy; turn in your webs with the answered questions.