Jamie's+Rational+Page

__Title of Unit__: Music Is More Than Ink On A Page: An introduction to jazz history and the art of improvisation.

__Ideal Classroom Setting__: I’ve always had a desire to teach middle school band, and I initially saw this lesson and unit in a middle school band setting. But there are so many rich connections students can explore by looking at the history of jazz and the art of improvisation that a feel the setting of a high school History/English/Music elective would be the best place of this lesson. In an ideal school district, teacher would be encouraged to integrate curriculums and offer such electives. Also, the music program would not consist solely of a traditional performance based band, choir, and orchestra, but would offer other courses to enrich the experience of “traditional musicians” and provide opportunities to talented musicians that school music programs often let slip through the cracks. Also, since I’m teaching my lesson to four members of my literacy class, I feel it would be a very unrealistic to attempt a band rehearsal. But due to tight budgets in schools today, I could see myself modifying this lesson/unit to fit into a middle school band rehearsal schedule as well.

__Rational:__

Out of NAfME’s nine national standards for music, the most neglected standard appears to be standard number 3: “Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.” Why is this so? Ask a student to stand up and improvise a solo in front of the band and you will quickly find out why. First there is fear. Students are afraid they will play a wrong note, something that doesn’t sound good, or something that isn’t correct. Has the emphasis of the “correct answer” debilitated students from ever achieving it? Then there are some students who will say, “I don’t know what to play.” Are we creating students who are only able to play music while staring at black ink on a sheet of paper?

When I think of improvisation, the first thing that comes to my mind is jazz. As a flute player, I never got the experience of playing in a jazz band or having to improvise solos. Are jazz and improvisation areas of music that is reserved for only the jazz band members of our music departments, or could we all benefit from looking at them. Could it be possible that even students not involved in band, choir, or orchestra could do creative improvisation and learn from the historical and cultural development of jazz music? This brings into play another very important standard, number 9: “Understanding music in relation to history and culture.” This standard is often briefly referred to when introducing a piece of music or a brief discussion about a composer. This unit would give students a better understanding of what environment jazz developed in and how that environment effects the music. In my opinion this is what makes jazz music very unique. It recently developed, relatively speaking, and it’s origins are in America not Europe. As jazz developed, it was all about what new sound or idea could be brought to the table. It is the expression of the individual, and when they swing together with a group, it’s just magic.

In turn, this unit would grow individuals as overall musicians. Improve and jazz forces students it listen, which highlights standard 6: “Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.” Standard 2: “Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music,” and 7: “Evaluating music and music performances,” would also be focused on.

Since the unit is not in a solely performance based environment, students are freed to not only make historical connection, but rich literacy connections as well. One area of literacy students could make huge strides in would be the building of their vocabularies. In the book //Classrooms That Work// it states “vocabulary is critical to reading comprehension.” (Allington and Cunningham 2011). Cultural references such as the New Orleans, Dixie, swing, bop, blues, and even just the word jazz would no longer just be words, but have sounds, sights, and smells associated with them. The entomology of the words developed in the jazz era is fascinating and often unknown. A slang lingo developed and often words were just made up. Through the poems in books like //Jazz A-B-Z// by Wynton Marsalis and //The Block// by Langston Hughes, rich vocabularies are used which may be a challenge for students to decipher. This unit and whole class would be built heavily off the constructivist teaching style presented in the Duckworth’s book //Tell Me More//. Students will be presented with music and literature examples alike, and will from these examples have to draw their own conclusions of what it means to improvise and what it means to play jazz. Metaphors, as shown in //Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject// by Rick Wormeli, will be a wonderful way to share with students many big conceptual ideas that I hope to introduce in this unit. For example, jazz is the music of the city, so many different individuals thrown together balancing on a busy crazy yet peaceful ebb and flow that when meshed together correctly, it just swings. At the end of the unit, I would love to assess how students now perceive jazz and music in general through analogies they create. All in all, if this unit challenges students to think about music in a new way and students are then able to clearly articulate how their new perceptions of music, the unit would be a huge success.

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