Objectives: To explore the ways Aretha Franklin’s song “Respect” can inspire and facilitate philosophic discussions of respect, especially with regards to identity. This lesson is designed primarily as a way of using music to do moral philosophizing; however, it could easily overlap with philosophizing about music and/or aesthetics simultaneously.

Whole Sequence Breakdown:

Welcome and warm-up (c. 5-10 minutes)

Brief introduction to “Respect” by Aretha Franklin (5 minutes)

Listening to “Respect” with Lyrics (5 minutes)

Small group discussions (c. 10-15 minutes)

Whole-group share and discussion (20 minutes)

Possible extensions (for extra time, or additional lessons)

Welcome and Warm-up

• Welcome students and share any updates, or follow-up on points from the last session.
• Warm-up question: “What is one thing that makes you feel respected?”
  1. Examples: when someone really listens to me; when someone stands up for me when I’m not even there.
• Encourage students to give some more information about some of their choices, especially overlaps. Why does this make you feel respected?

Brief Introduction to “Respect” by Aretha Franklin

• Check prior knowledge: “Can anyone tell me who Aretha Franklin is?”
• Fill in gaps as necessary with the following information:
  1. Aretha Franklin was a U.S. American musician and singer; she was also an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
  2. She had a background in gospel music and was regarded as the “Queen of Soul”
  3. She has received many awards and honors like being in the National Women’s Hall of Fame and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among others
• Introduce song: “Some of you have probably heard this song before, and that’s great. As you listen today, I want you to try to think of a question this song raises for you, or one interesting point about the song you’d like to discuss more.”

Listening to “Respect” with Lyrics

• Play a video of Aretha performing the song live, accompanied by the lyrics.

Small Group Discussions

• Break students up into small groups (3-4 students per group) to discuss their questions or points of interest. Ask each group to return with one questions or point of interest to propose to the whole group for discussion.
• In small groups, students should take turn discussing their questions/points, before subsequently deciding as a group which question or point to propose.

 Whole-Group Share and Discussion

• Ask students to share their questions/points from their small group discussions. The teacher should supplement these as needed depending on the anticipated depth of discussion arising from the suggested questions and points (I.e., if it seems that the questions /points will be rather quickly discussed, the teacher should supplement with one or two questions or points with more opportunities for longer discussion.) Examples of questions you might use can be found on the “Discussion Questions” tab in this lesson plan.
• The students will vote as a whole group for 2 questions/points to discuss.
• The group who proposed the first voted discussion question/point will begin discussion, which will continue popcorn style from there.
  1. If/when discussion of the initial topic quells, move on to the second voted topic.
• Follow the thread of the students interests! If/when there are lulls in the conversation, give some time, but afterwards, feel free to follow-up with questions or statements on the conversation that is happening (for example, “So I think what I’m hearing is…, is that correct? If that’s true, do you think that…” and etc.)

Possible Extensions 

• Introduce and listen to the original Otis Redding version of “Respect” with this guiding question: does the difference of performer change the meaning of the song or the meaning of respect as an idea? Why or why not, and if so, how so?
• Listen again and consider the role of the music: what does the music add here that the words alone do not capture? How does the music make you feel?
  1. This could likewise be contrasted with the musically different Otis Redding version, or any other cover.
• Explore musical adaptation: if we wanted to create our own version of this song, what would we change and why?