"Using
technology and electronic resources to encourage students to read."
I chose this
topic but not in the traditional sense. I'm not going to introduce e-readers,
Kindles, blogs, etc., but rather use videos and music as a "hook" to
excite and help the students discover various genres that they normally
wouldn't seek out. For example, April is poetry month. My plan is to play them
past popular songs, supply them with a worksheet that has lyrics...but missing
key words. The students would then have to listen and figure out what words are
missing. This would tie into how songs are, basically, poems set to music. I
believe music will help and guide the students in understanding that poetry
(must be read) with feeling and enthusiasm ...quite the contrast to reading
academic text!
Annotated
Bibliography
·
Barbieri, Richard. "ERIC - Teaching Pop Songs:
Reflections and Recommendation.” November. 1974. Web. 14 June 2016. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED103905
In
Richard Barbieri’s research paper “Teaching Pop Songs: Reflections and
Recommendations”, the author presents a rationale for using popular music
lyrics in the poetry class. Published in 1974, the academic world at the time
generally viewed the lyrics of pop songs as “… so banal that if you show a
spark of intelligence, they call you a poet” (2). The author suggests that the teaching of “the
poetry of rock” can be accomplished without neglecting “the poetry of poetry”;
teachers could progress from popular music to “profound” music without leaving
a negative impression on this emerging popular art form. By 1975, the rapid rise in popular music lent
to its acceptance as valid art in the classroom.
·
Iwasaki, B., Rasinski, T., Yildirim,
K., & Zimmerman, B.S. "The
Reading Corner." (2013). Web. 14 June 2016 https://astrugglingreader.wordpress.com/2013/10/
In
Iwasaki’s journal, she describes how she teaches reading to first graders. She starts the day off singing a song as the
students enter the classroom. They are then handed a worksheet and they sing
along to pre-recorded music. By the end of the week, most of the students knew
the song by heart and could sing it without reading the lyrics. The class also visited the kindergarten class
and made presentations to the principal and parents, to demonstrate how the
lesson is used. The results were that,
on average, “the students gained more than a year’s growth in reading the word
comprehension” (2013). Can music
provide an increase in comprehension for students from a multi-cultural and/or
disadvantaged background?
·
Lambdin, L. (1994). "ERIC - Lyrical Diversification: The
Music Project.” April 1994. Web. 14 June 2016. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED376462
English
instructor Laura Lambdin detailed (how) she regularly incorporates popular
music in her classroom. In her 1994
paper “Lyrical Diversification: The Music Project”, Lambdin details a project
where the students are to pick a favorite song, write an essay and make a
presentation on a subject related to the song.
She wrote that “I have never had a student who was unable to develop an
intriguing idea for the assignment … the paper and presentation grades are
usually the student’s highest marks in the class” (3). She noted that because the students knew they
had to make a presentation, the classes tended to bond “very well.” Based on this lesson, we know that
incorporating music in English lessons assists in making the work relevant, as
well as exciting for the students. Can
the same be said for younger, as well as multi-cultural, and special needs
students?
·
Scott,
S. "A Minds-On Approach to Active
Learning in General Music." Research Gate. N.p., 2010. Web. 14 June
2016.
Cognitive
constructivists see individuals learning on their own through a cognitive
process as they interact with their environment, whereas social constructivists
emphasize that individuals learn within communities through a process of
collaboration with others. The author asks which perspective best serves her
work in her music classroom. She concludes
that she must bridge the two ways of thinking about learning by providing
opportunities for students to consider their own musicality and work on musical
problems by themselves alongside opportunities to engage in collaborative
problem-solving with others within a diverse musical environment.
·
O'Regan, P. "ERIC - Making Musical Connections”. 2007. Web. 14 June 2016. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ914614
Working
in a special needs school, music sessions tended to be “noisy, chaotic, and
frankly, aimless”. This prompted the author to ask “What could we do to make
the music lessons more effective, and make the whole experience more enjoyable
and satisfying for the students?” By incorporating tuned (along with un-tuned)
percussion, the author found that the students made noticeable gains from
working on very basic musical skills: There was marked improvement in both fine
and gross motor skills, they learned to share and take turns, listening skills
improved, they gained more self-esteem, and they had fun.
·
Gooding, L. (2009). “ERIC - Enhancing Social Competence in the Music Classroom, General
Music Today.” 2009. Web. 10 June 2016 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ857136
In
this article, the authors asked if music can be used to simultaneously teach
social, leisure, and aesthetic skills.
By using small-group and paired-peer musical exercises (that prompted
the students to state positive attributes about their peers’ musical
performances), individual and group haiku writing assignments and then reading
aloud to music, playing duets alongside pre-recorded music (to develop the
ability to cooperate), the author found increased positive changes in social
behaviors, stimulation of nonverbal expression, facilitation of social play,
development of group cohesion, and improvement in on-task behaviors.
·
Lee, Sharon. The effects of Music on Student Psychology (2011). March 23, 2011.
Web. June 12, 2016. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519172.pdf
The
author explores the question “How does music affect students’ ability in the
classroom? This study involved using popular and classical music played in a
wide variety of classrooms K-12. The author concluded that while there was no
general answer for each grade, she did find that the slower and quieter
(classical) resulted in effective classroom management, whereas popular,
(especially rock) music seemed to result in more “off-task behavior. Further,
if classical music was played more often, it also seemed to lose its effectiveness. The calming music had the greatest effect on
the “hyperactive children”. She noted that the improvement of other children
could have come from the lack of distracting behavior from these peers.
·
Filipowitsch, M. "ERIC - Musings of a Songwriter: Connecting Students to Community
and Nature through the Language of Lyric and Song, Pathways: The Ontario Journal
of Outdoor Education.” N.p. 2011. Web. 15 June 2016 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ962049
In
this qualitative study, the author poses the question “How can educators use
music in an effective way that can be engaging, encourage connections with the
natural world and promote active citizenry?”
The author designed lessons that incorporated music representations of
various beliefs (personal, political, etc.). Within this model, music acts as a
way of having meaningful conversations about musical-social consequences of
students’ respective beliefs, values, or the ethics and morality of their
actions. In short, the students classroom engagements increased, as well as
giving both the teacher and students another way of seeing and opening a new
context of diverse experiences.
·
Oxman, W. G., & New York City Board of
Education. “ERIC - Music Language Arts
Program.” 1975. Web. 15 June 2016. eric.ed.gov/?id=ED138684
In
this article, the author explores the question “Can music be used as a vehicle
for ESL instruction in high school, for students with inadequate English
skills?” The lessons were planned around the vocabulary concepts, and sentence
structures involved in the lyrics of a particular song. Based upon observations, interviews, and
analysis of questionnaire responses, it was found that the program was
effective in increasing student abilities.
·
Ming, Kavin. "10 Content-Area Literacy Strategies for Art, Mathematics, Music,
and Physical Education." Taylor & Francis. N.p., 13 Sept. 2012.
Web. 12 June 2016.
The
author poses the question “Can content-area literacy be used in all content
areas, including art, mathematics, music, and physical education, to ensure
that students have opportunities to learn in effective ways?” She designed lessons for each of these
content areas. For example, in an art lesson, they would write journal entries,
math students would write paragraphs to explain procedures and solutions, music
classrooms would write notes, strategies, and vocabulary. In physical
education, the students could write a “quick write” to explain one rule of the
game, along with a journal to record performance and set goals. Through
formative and summative assessment, as well as teacher/student feedback, the
author found that these techniques were successful.
