Hero or Tyrant: Connecting Beethoven’s Third Symphony to Napoleon, Part One

Engage students studying the Age of Democratic Revolutions in a series of deep listening activities to the second and third movements of Eroica, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 to help develop their critical thinking, listening and writing skills on World History content standards. Students gain a deeper understanding of democratic ideals from the American and French Revolutions, having had more time thinking about how to frame and explain the events and upheavals taking place. They learn how a powerful musical experience can help them emotionally connect and use their imagination to think about the world of the past. The learning experience also imprints useful information into long-term memory and helps students use graphic organizers to build powerful paragraphs on specific content standards for this time period.