Tomlinson and Germundson compare teaching well to playing jazz well. Excellent teaching involves a blend of techniques and theory; expressiveness; syncopation; call and response, and, frequently, improvisation. Weaving in analogies to jazz, the authors delineate four elements of such teaching: curriculum that helps students connect to big ideas, understanding of students, differentiated instruction, and assessment for learning. A description of a middle-school science teacher's effective unit on cells fleshes out the teaching-as-jazz analogy.