Week 9

PART I: Questions from p. 65 of Clements & Klinger (I’ll answer these from my own perspective since I don’t have a CT)

1. How do you determine how many different components will be in a lesson or rehearsal?

I think about my goals for each class for the year and the semester, in terms of the musical skills I hope they will acquire, and the repertoire I hope they will get through. For skills that take a long time to build, I try to spend at least a little time every class on those skills, such as healthy vocal technique, music-reading, and sight-singing. Then we always work on repertoire as well, so we can keep building on what we learned the class before. I think it’s nice, especially for younger students, to have different activities going on throughout the class to keep them from getting bored. It’s also good, though, to keep a general routine each class so students know what to expect when they come into the room.

2. How, then, do you determine how much time to spend on each component?

I try to spend a lot of class time on repertoire, since the students are expected to perform at different points throughout the year and I want them to feel as ready as possible, so this is usually 20-25 minutes of a 45-50 minute class. I spend about 5-10 minutes on warm-ups, another 5-10 on music-reading/sight-reading, and another 5-10 on an opening video and journal response. Of course, these are also all adjusted depending on what questions the kids have or what they are interested in discussing.

3. What strategies do you use to make the transition from one portion of the lesson to the next?

I’m working on connecting the shorter activities together, like starting singing solfege patterns together while cleaning up the journals, and ideally connecting some of those patterns to the same patterns they will encounter in the sight-reading passage. Also, if we have a specific focus for the day, I try to get kids to think about that thing throughout the lesson. For example, last week in a few of the groups, we were working on distinguishing between steps, skips, and leaps. I would have them identify those intervals in the sight-reading exercise and in the solfege patterns we would sing, but then even as we were warming up, I asked them questions like, “Which one of the warm-ups we do only uses steps? Which one only uses leaps?” That way, they could work on identifying those differences in looking at the solfege ladder and the sheet music, AND in warm-ups. That helps the class feel like it is all connected.

PART II: Reflection

This week we had parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday and Wednesday for the middle school, which was mostly really lovely in terms of being able to connect with parents and have most of them really appreciate what I was doing in the class. I only ran into major drama with one of the parents, who brought up a lot of stuff about the teacher who previously had my position and had a lot of ideas about how I should (or shouldn’t) be running the class. I was frustrated after that conversation for many reasons, but thankfully got to discuss and debrief it with coworkers which helped me keep a good perspective.

Over the weekend, I sent an email to the advisors of every student in my 7th grade group with specific requests for how they can make better choices in the class. They didn’t have class until Thursday this week, which was also when I had scheduled an observation with the head of the middle school so I was nervous about how they would be in class. Then (of course) they had an excellent class! I had switched some of their seats around to help with focus, and they had gotten instructions from their advisors, and they had the head of the middle school sitting in the room, and it was the day when they don’t have class at the very end of the day but at 1:35 instead. But there was much less extra chatting, and we were able to get through so much repertoire, and a few kids who struggle a lot with staying on task were AMAZING in class and being good, positive leaders for the other kids around them. Shocking! The head of the middle school said that one of the songs in particular made her verklempt. I want to share that with the kids next week, because I think if they can see the effects of their group efforts, and how powerful it is to sing TOGETHER, they might find new motivation to sing. I think too, I spend more time than I want to in a sort of “negative” state in their class, correcting their behavior or waiting for them to be quiet, and so I want to spend some time next week praising them for the things that have gone well for them, and recognizing important individual contributions.

One thing I’ve been enjoying is teaching voice lessons for my vocal workshops class. Going into the year, I was a little nervous because I don’t have a lot of experience teaching lessons 1-on-1, but it’s been so much fun! I love the lightbulb moments where students make a connection between what’s happening in their body and what’s happening in the sound they’re producing. I also like being able to share the things that I have struggled with as a singer, and things that I STILL struggle with in my voice. I feel like it helps students be more okay with the idea of process, when I can share with them that I am still in the process of developing my voice too.

Something I am working on with 6th grade is figuring out how to have a student-centered learning environment, but also keep them from arguing with each other about what they should do. 🙂 They are working on The Schuyler Sisters from Hamilton right now, and they have all these creative ideas about how to split the song into different solos and even how to choreograph some movement while they perform – but every single time we try to hear ideas, it devolves into an argument about the best way to do it. I think I could have done a better job of setting them up for success in their conversation, like having a conversation about respectful ways of disagreeing with someone (without calling out!) and what it means to compromise so that everyone’s voices are heard and appreciated. I might take a step back with them next week and talk through some of that with them.