By Lesley Baird, ETM-LA Music Teacher Mentor

 

Black History Month is an important opportunity to celebrate Black history, culture, and voices in meaningful ways. In the music room, children’s literature provides a powerful starting point. Stories give students context and connection, and when paired with singing, movement, and instruments, they help bring history to life through sound, creativity, and collaboration.

As students engage with these stories, they also explore the musical traditions connected to them. Spirituals, work songs, and field hollers emerged during slavery and post-emancipation labor as tools for coordination, emotional release, and communication. Many contained hidden messages and layered meanings, reminding students that music has long been a vehicle for strength and resistance within Black communities.

Turning Stories Into Music Lessons

When planning book-based lessons, repetition, sound words, and strong contrasts are key. Repeated phrases create rhythm chants, descriptive language inspires percussion choices, and moments of tension or calm guide changes in tempo and dynamics.

Lessons often begin with reading and discussion, followed by musical exploration using speech, movement, and instruments. By listening to authentic examples and creating their own responses, students gain a deeper understanding of how music reflects lived experience. Students are invited to improvise, compose, and perform—allowing them to respond creatively while deepening their understanding of both music and history. 

Understanding History with Follow the Drinking Gourd

Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter introduces students to the idea of songs as coded messages used by enslaved people seeking freedom. As students learn the song, they explore how spirituals, work songs, and field hollers were used for communication, coordination, and hope. 

Through this story, students explore how music functioned as survival, storytelling, and quiet rebellion. Musical activities often include rhythm, call-and-response, and layered textures can be added using voices, body percussion, and Orff instruments to create soundscapes that mirror the journey described in the book.

Students also examine the hidden messages within the lyrics—connecting music, geography, and history—before creating their own “code songs” using familiar landmarks and symbols.

More Than a Month

Black History Month is a time to celebrate, but it also reminds us of the importance of representation and storytelling all year long. By using children’s literature in the music room, educators create engaging, meaningful experiences that honor history while empowering students as musicians and creators.

When students sing, move, and compose through these stories, they learn that music is more than something we perform—it’s something we use to tell stories, build understanding, and inspire change.

 

Lesson Title

Follow the Drinking Gourd: Music, History, and Secret Codes

Grade Level

Upper Elementary (adaptable for grades 2–5)

Time Needed

1–2 class periods (45 minutes each)

Subject Areas

Music, Social Studies, Literacy

Objectives

Students will:

• Understand the historical context of spirituals and their role in African American history
  
• Explain how songs were used as coded messages during slavery
  
• Identify and decode hidden meanings in the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd”
• Sing the song with accurate melody and lyrics
  
• Create an original “secret code song” using directions and symbolic language

Materials

• Book: Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter
  
• Lyrics to “Follow the Drinking Gourd”
• Chart paper or whiteboard
  
• Pencils and paper
  
• Optional: map of the Big Dipper / North Star, classroom map or school hallway map

Introduction 

Begin by asking students:

• Have you ever noticed how the stars can make pictures in the night sky? These are called constellations. Do you think the constellations can tell us stories or secret messages?
• “Have you ever sent a secret message to someone?”
  
• “What are some ways people communicate without everyone understanding the message?”

Explain that today they will learn how music was once used as a secret code and how songs helped people find freedom.

Lesson Activities

1. Story and Historical Context

Read Follow the Drinking Gourd aloud to the class.
As you read, pause to discuss:

• What are spirituals?
  
• Why and how did enslaved people use these songs?
  
• Why were secret codes necessary?

Explain that “Follow the Drinking Gourd” is a spiritual that contained directions to help enslaved people escape to freedom.

Introduce the idea that:

• The “drinking gourd” was a nickname for the Big Dipper.
• Show students a picture of the Big Dipper constellation making sure to highlight Polaris (the North Star)
  
• The Big Dipper points to the North Star, which helped people travel north toward freedom

2. Learning the Song

Teach students the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd”:

• Sing by Call and Response (echo) or phrase-by-phrase
  
• Practice steady beat and correct melody
  
• Add body percussion or unpitched percussion instruments

3. Decoding the Secret Messages

Display the lyrics and work together to decode them.

Guide students to discover:

• Drinking gourd = North Star
• First quail call = spring time
• Left foot peg foot = special marking written on trees
• Dead trees will show you the way = trees were marked with symbols
• Old man is waiting = Peg Leg Joe
• What directions are hidden in the lyrics
• How nature, geography, and symbols were used instead of direct instructions

4. Creative Application: Writing a Secret Code Song

Explain that students will now create their own secret code song.

Students will:

• Choose a destination (the music room).
  
• Think of directions someone would need to get there.
• Replace direct directions with symbols, clues, or metaphors.
  
  • Example: “When the drums get louder” instead of “turn right”

Verse 1

When you see the (code name for the playground)
And you see the (code name for the school)
Follow the (school mascot)

Follow the (school mascot)
Follow the (school mascot)
For (music teacher) is awaiting

For to carry you to (location of music room)
If you follow the (school mascot)

Students may:

• Write lyrics to a familiar tune
  
• Or create original lyrics with a simple melody
  

Closure

Invite students to share their secret code songs.

Discuss:

• How does music help us remember information?
  
• Why was creativity was so important for survival?
  
• How can songs tell stories and carry meaning beyond the words?

End by reminding students that music is powerful — it can entertain, teach, and even help people find freedom.

Extensions / Modifications

• Draw a map to match their song.
  
• Perform songs for another class.
• Write reflections on why the song was important.