Final Blog Post

As we have discussed, music is not an area of study that people generally equate with "literacy." Before taking this class, I would have fallen neatly into that category as well. As I have considered music through a more inclusive perspective of literacy, I have discovered that music is not as different from other subject areas as I thought.  In my mind, a more cognitive, critical approach to music is not only possible, but extremely desirable. The concepts we have discussed have affected the way I think about music, and they way I teach my students.

One aspect of teaching I feel particularly strongly about is critical literacy. I feel like this is where students really come into their own as readers/thinkers. It goes beyond comprehension, knowledge, and analysis, and enters a realm where students are challenged to develop independent thought. To see past the text to the intent behind it. I fully intend to challenge my students on this level in my own classroom, and I believe that that starts with me. As I mentioned during the Final, I believe that the first step in fostering critical thinking skills in students is to admit to them (and to yourself) that you don't know everything. That you are biased, that the student's have opinions as valid as your own, and that you are not the only voice that matters in the classroom. You cannot ask students to challenge authority figures or question sources of information without allowing them to challenge and question you. I can feel myself starting stepping up on my soap box now, so I'll stop myself now before I get ahead. Suffice it to say, I see it as my personal mission to show my students how intelligent they are, and that they are entitled to an opinion and a voice. I know these sound like lofty goals. Let me share a few thoughts I have on the day to day approach to these ideals. I want students to have a knowledge of score analysis and be able to critique a song, but I want them to maintain the idea that music is art - it is subjective - and what they feel or think about it is as valid an evaluation as any music critique's. When grading, I want to give students opportunities to defend and explain their answers. In my opinion there are no right and wrong answers, there are only logical and illogical ones. If I can find a way, I want to assess my students with that philosophy in mind. I really feel like I could talk about critical literacy all day, but I will move on for the sake of time...

I am particularly fond of the before, during, and after reading activities we discussed. Although I feel like many teachers do these things instinctively, I have a better understanding now of their importance and how to implement them most effectively. For example, doing activities to get students' brains going and activate what they already know about a subject. Like beginning a lecture about rhythmic notation by talking about ratios, measuring units, or coinage. I also appreciate our discussions on during activities. All too many times, teachers have instructed me to sit quietly and read from a textbook, and although I am a competent reader, this is never very effective. Students need something to watch for, some guide for drawing information out of the material. You see the very same thing with music. During activities make the difference between passively and actively listening to a piece. For example, students could be listening to a programmatic piece, and could be drawing or writing or acting out what they think the music is portraying. I believe they will get a lot more out of their listening this way than if they just sit and let the music glaze over them. After activities are a new and welcome addition to my teacher repertoire. I feel like I often just give the students information and then leave it at that. I know my students will do better if I pay more attention to summarizing/evaluating the text after we go through it.

Vocabulary is a large part of what we learn in the early stages of musicianship. I really liked and will use a lot of the vocabulary activities that we learned about in class. I also intend to take to heart the advice not to teach more than eight or so terms at a time. My favorite chart was the semantic feature analysis chart. This would be so useful in a guided listening activity!

Differentiation. Now this is a topic that I feel I cannot tie into a neat and tidy bow at the end of this course. I will need to study it further. My instinctive response to differentiation is that separate is not equal, it is only separate. I think that treating students differently will only reinforce and emphasize those differences. And I don't believe for a second that the students won't catch on to what I'm doing. How can they not take "I have a different assignment than my peers," to "I have an easier assignment," and from there to "I am not as smart as they are." I just can't abide that. On the other hand, I want my students to be successful, and if they need additional support I want to give it to them. So you see, I am really confused on this one. The scenario where ELL students are given a multiple choice test rather than doing a more involved activity... well I think that sounds like a horrible idea. What do you learn from a multiple choice test? Very little! I think that part of the reason that struggling students don't improve is that they are given given devastatingly boring course work that doesn't stimulate them! I don't think that I want to give my students different assignments or evaluate them on different scales. I do think that I can offer extra scaffolding to students without crossing these lines. For example, helping them take an assignment apart into small steps that are more manageable. Again, this is one of those dilemmas where it is extremely difficult to strike a balance between being helpful, and facilitating dependance. The only think I can do is keep an open mind and see what works in practice!

Using multiple languages in the classroom setting is easily accomplished for a choral director. Learning music form different cultures is a great way to celebrate those cultures. Students who speak multiple languages will have the advantage in this setting. I feel I really must learn Spanish. I have had students who speak spanish and they are disappointed when they find that I do not.

I feel like I could go on for a very long time talking about all I've learned in this class. But my blog post is starting to get really long, and so in the interest of my time and everyone else's, I'll leave it at that.

Affective Dimensions of Reading

I'm having a hard time expressing how much I love to read. I have typed and erased 7 sentences that say "I love to read" in various ways, but I can't seem to encapsulate how I feel about reading in words. (I guess that reveals more about my lack of ability to write than anything. But there it is.)

I definitely think of myself as a good reader. Not necessarily a fast reader, but one who comprehends. More importantly, I like it! Fiction and science fantasy are part of my daily diet, but I also really like... you know... everything. Everything that's well written. Or at least, not so bad that it offends my sensibilities. The time of life I read most was probably late elementary school and middle school. I got into Harry Potter and the Ender's Game series and The Wheel of Time series... and countless other books. The majority of the reading I did was outside of school. I would spend a few hours after school at the library every day, just pulling different books from the shelves. I actually got into really big trouble at school for reading during my classes. My grades suffered pretty badly because of my reading habits. It wasn't until my Senior year of High School that I decided I needed to leave my books at home so that I could focus on school. I sometimes wonder where I would be now if I had applied myself back in those days... but all the books I read are an indispensable part of who I am, so I don't regret the time I devoted to them. I can't really think of a time when I didn't enjoy reading. I can think of a handful of books that  I didn't enjoy (most notably the Scarlet Letter. Ugh. Why do they assign that one so often in schools? Ugh.), but reading? I've always enjoyed reading, whether it's scholarly articles or comics or novels or those little emergency instruction pamphlets on airplanes.

My brother had the most influence on me as far as reading goes. Most of the books I read when I was younger were books he recommended to me. I hardly saw him without a book in his hand when he was a teenager. As I mentioned before, the only time I was discouraged from reading was in school. It wasn't until my AP English classes that my ability to read was appreciated or encouraged.

Of course, there aren't a whole lot of opportunities to focus on reading in the choral classroom. Aside from reading and analyzing the text of our pieces, there aren't a lot of ways to incorporate reading without detracting from rehearsal time. It would be cool to incorporate treatises from composers and critics on the music we are studying. I think the best thing you can do to "foster a climate" in the classroom where students are interested in reading is to read them things that ARE interesting. Most music history lectures are so dreadfully dull that it's a wonder anyone majors in music at all. As teachers, it's our job to liven things up by relating texts and concepts to things the students actually care about. If there's one thing i have learned from my own experiences with reading, it's that every student is extremely driven and passionate about something. If you can tap into that energy, and guide students to connect aspects of what they already enjoy doing to aspects of your subject, then it won't be such a struggle to motivate them. Perhaps my teachers could have found a way to use my love of reading to help me become engaged with their own subjects. Perhaps my math teachers could have found me engaging articles about math, or introduced me to books where mathematics are incorporated into the plot or the main character's skills with math are instrumental in their eventual victory! I'm sure it wouldn't have been a stretch for my science teachers to find a science fiction novel that related to what we were studying at the time. Maybe the right sports novel would have gotten me more excited about basketball. It's all about finding the right angle to approach different personalities and learning styles. This is a bold statement, and I know it's not always this simple, but I really believe that if your student isn't succeeding it's because you haven't figured out how to reach them yet. 

Connecting School and Home Experiences

I initially avoided this blog subject because I couldn't think of very many home experiences that relate to my subject. My Mom was a single parent and had to work a lot of the time, so we didn't go to operas or concerts or plays (#pityparty). As I read over the assignment again, however, I realized that I was exposed to intricate, memorable music almost every day when I lived at home. The source of this music was so atypical that I didn't even think of how it relates to my subject. I'm talking about video games!

There is a certain negative stigma attached to gaming, and I understand that. But looking back, I realize that playing video games may have been one of the largest contributors to my current involvement in, and passion for, music. Video game soundtracks are not unlike movie soundtracks. They reflect the mood of what is happening on the screen. I can't imagine how boring a video game would be without heroic musical themes for main characters and intense boss battle themes. Most games include multicultural music as well, changing instrumentation and flavor as characters travel from place to place. Listening to so much music as I played games definitely changed the way I think about music. I'm certainly convinced that music can have a powerful influence on how you feel, and I'm sure so much exposure to video game music shaped that belief.

Of course, I don't expect that the majority of my students will play video games, but I think that keeping my mind open to less traditional forms of music will benefit my ensembles. Why not do video game music in choir? Why not do movie music, popular music, and multicultural music? A few years ago I sang in the Video Games Live concert at Abravanel Hall. The music was quite complex and extraordinary, and though many of the choir members didn't like video games at all, they loved the music. The audience was the most excited and receptive crowd I've ever performed for! Given these experiences with nontraditional genres, I don't believe that music education should be limited to western classical music (although it certainly has it's place). This approach would certainly fulfill the state standard of performing varied repertoire (Standard 1, objective F). We could also use movie and video game music to explore and assess how music effects people's moods (Standard 4, objective A: examine how music relates to personal development and enjoyment of life).

In my defense, I did things other than video games in my childhood. I also read books and talked to people and stuff. Just so you all know.

Discipline-Specific Writing and Assessment

Music is one of those courses in which a student may never be required to write anything more than their name. Many music teachers incorporate little or no writing into their curriculum, assuming that, as an aural skill, music has little to do with other elements of learning. I think this is a mistake.There are many different learning styles, none of which should be neglected, and the act of writing out your thoughts and seeing them on paper is a powerful learning tool. Writing about any subject forces you to think critically, organize your thoughts, and condense them into a concise, legible form.

In my experience, those music teachers who have required written feedback have also had the most invested students and the most effective teaching styles. In a typical band or choir, learning is assessed through performance: passing off scales, rehearsing in sectionals, passing off sections of pieces, sight reading, playing complex rhythms, etc. My high school choir teacher required us to do concert reports, practice logs, and text analysis forms in addition to the more traditional performance practices. My band teacher required only that we play our instrument well, and assigned no homework other than practicing.. Although both groups had comparable performances, I certainly learned more about music from my choir teacher. A teachers approach to the music classroom depends greatly on their personal teaching philosophy. Many see performances and competitions as the end goal, others choose to teach music theory and aural skills alongside repertoire. Both approaches are valid and have far reaching effects. As for me, I believe that producing well rounded students who understand the musical concepts behind what they are playing/singing will be better prepared (and therefor more likely) to participate in music ensembles in the future. I also believe individual understanding will help with performance. But now I'm on a tangent, so back to writing.

A few assessment methods that I might use in my future classrooms would be listening assignments, concert reports, text analysis forms, and music maps. Listening assignments teach students to listen critically rather than passively, and writing reflections about what they hear can help them compare and contrast different genres of music. Concert reports encourage students to attend live music performances and broaden their experiences with music by exposing them to new and unfamiliar musical styles. The text analysis forms are a personal favorite of mine. My high school choir teacher required us to do these, and I found them fascinating and extremely beneficial. We would basically do a poetic analysis of whatever text we happened to be singing. Students must consider what they think the text means, and then explain what it means to them personally. This enables the students to perform with conviction, put emotion into their singing, and also helps clear up their diction. I learned about music maps in college. You literally draw up a map of a song, including depictions of rhythms, textures, colors, and images. It's difficult to describe, but they are really something. The nice thing about these drawings is that students don't need to have the musical vocabulary and understanding of a musicologist to express what they are hearing.

It is the teachers responsibility to tailor their teaching methods to the students so that they reach as many different learning styles as possible. Writing is one of the many forms teachers can use to prompt critical thinking and assess understanding.

Introduction

Hello Classmates/Amy!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sarah Brenay and I am a music education major with an English minor. Right now I'm listening to Michael Jackson sing  "Blame it on the Boogie," which is putting me in a fantastic mood, and if you haven't heard this song you really should stop reading and YouTube it. It's such a good tune. Above all I love music arranging and editing, singing, and reading. I enjoy listening to all genres of music as long as it's good music, you know? I think all genres can be creatively constructed and performed with artistry. But I won't listen to Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus if I can avoid it. The last book I read was Ender's Game and my favorite read in the last year was Sherman Alexie's Flight. He has such a great sense of humor and he's wonderfully offensive.

Now a little bit about my subject. To me, music means complete concentration and exact execution to produce art. It means collaborating with other musicians to create something, to communicate something that we can't express in any other way. Performing is thrilling! Practicing is fascinating. Teaching is exhilarating and exhausting. Music is about a human connection, it's like dance and poetry expressed through sound. I've always enjoyed music. My experiences running small rehearsals and participating in choirs sparked my passion for music teaching. Choral and small ensemble music is my favorite form of ensemble to participate in. There's something about the experience of working with others, devoting all of your focus to the creation of this one thing, and combining your voices into a patchwork of colors, sounds, and shapes. Being a part of an ensemble is really incredible, and I guess that's why I want to teach. Facilitating that experience for others.

One might think that this course doesn't apply to music, as we seldom read text in the traditional sense of the word. But if we broaden our definitions of literacy to include more than the ability to read and write, it suddenly becomes much more applicable. As we discovered in class, literacy is difficult to define. My vague definition of literacy is the ability to understand and correctly apply information from various mediums relevant to a specific content area. In this sense, music necessitates literacy to a very high degree. Musicians need to learn an entirely new system of notation including the notation of rhythm, pitch, expressive text, and articulations. They also need to be able to transcribe, transpose, and correctly execute aural information. Depending on their instrument there will also be technical considerations, including fingering, bowing, and register adjustment. Becoming what I would define as a "literate musician" is a tall order. As we learn more about literacy and learning in this course, I hope I will be able to cement my ideas about music literacy and better understand the level of information my students will need in order to succeed.

This is my first blog so I have no idea how to conclude this post. I also had a terrible time figuring out a title for the blog. But I thought the subtitle was terribly witty. (So far no one else has. So few people appreciate great humor.)