Matthew Abernathy Literacy Education in the Arts Final Project: Rationale December 2, 2012

This lesson would fall somewhere in the beginning of a much more extended unit about the use, contrast and application of text to music. I believe that music, particularly vocal music has a deficiency in the examination of texts that relate to the music that is being performed. In a choral classroom, I often wonder why less time is spent discussing the text. It is a fundamental part of the performance, yet, it is often a last look once the notes and rhythms have been learned. New York State has several standards for the music classroom, but I believe that this unit (while it will cover all of the standards at some point or another) is aimed at Standard 3: Responding to and Analyzing Works of Art and Standard 4: Understanding the Cultural Dimensions and Contributions of the Arts.

The units would begin by examining the use of music attached to text/images. Film scores and clips would depict how integral music is to a film experience. We would then begin exploring how different music can directly affect how you feel about a scene. Does the music make it ironic, or deadly serious? The first project would be taking a movie clip and selecting music that changes the meaning of the scene. From movies, we would move onto poetry in

choral music. How did the composer use the text for their means? Did they pay special attention to it or was the text not as important? A project might involve a composition exploring how text can be set in different ways. We would do lots of listening and comparing of pieces to see different techniques for using poetry.

From poetry, well begin to branch out into wordless music based on stories. This is a great chance to select some literature for students to read first and then listen to a composers version of that story set as music. The opposite works as well, listen to a piece and have students write a story about what they heard; then see if the story they wrote matches with the intended story. Finally, the culminating project would be to write a piece of music based on a story, or a story based on a piece of music. I want them to synthesize everything that they learned throughout the semester in a project so that they have to apply their knowledge, not just recite it on a test.

Wormelli particularly applies to the beginning of this unit because of the need to metaphors, particularly symbolic and extend ones. By symbolic, I mean that students will need to have a codified language to use to describe certain parts of music. Take loud vs. soft what language or metaphor might they use to describe the grey area in the middle? (See, theres one already.) They must also understand the symbols that occur in music to indicate meaning for example: ^ In math, it indicates an exponent but above a musical note it means heavily accented and thats a whole other area that requires a deep metaphorical understanding to be effectively

understood.

Ultimately, this unit serves two purposes; to teach musical/theoretical skills and to introduce students to literature in a different light then the standard ELA classroom. As I mentioned in the lesson plan, The more different ways I teach, the more children I reach is an important part of Cunningham and Allingtons philosophies. That could not be more true of this lesson and unit. I find that students are not likely to read for pleasure anymore, so we need to find creative ways to lead them into reading.without them knowing any better. We need to teach in as many ways as possible so that everybody can take something away from the class. They recommend using literature circles or partners to discuss topics in class and it is a great way to hash ideas out quickly and informally. Plus, it offers insight into another view of a topic in literature and music, opinion matters!

If you bill this as a music class and sneak the reading into it, then you wont find the resistance that an English teacher might when they announce the amount of reading they will do for a semester. Furthermore, I think that we can learn more about literature through music than we can by tearing apart every sentence in an ELA classroom because, with music, it serves another purpose: composition and performance. Music helps to make reading an authentic experience instead of another classroom exercise in futility.

This is just one way to use literature in your music classroom and I am sure that there are

many more options than mine. I would highly encourage teachers to consider ways to keep music classes fresh and full of life. Like all classes, keeping them the same year after year will do nothing to drum up support for your class. Education needs to be interdisciplinary to make it worth the students time. How can you make that happen?