Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.
What does Critical Literacy have to do with my Teaching?
Learning through a critical literacy lens encourages students to take steps toward identifying potential solutions to current, real-world problems (Vasquez et al., 2019). They can do this when educators ask them to explore “personal, sociopolitical, economic and intellectual border identities” when they read (Bishop, 2014, p. 52), and to promote valid, thoughtful critique of the power structures they either are subjected to or that are upheld in their classrooms. This session will define critical literacy and provide frameworks and techniques for teachers to begin exploring this concept in their classrooms.
When: Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.
The recording of this event is embedded below.
Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.
This session will feature Drs. Rachelle Savitz and Jennifer D. Morrison.
Dr. Rachelle S. Savitz is an associate professor of reading/literacy at East Carolina University. Her scholarship investigates teacher self-efficacy, literacy within the disciplines, and the use of culturally sustaining pedagogy and practices. She worked across the grade levels as a reading teacher, literacy coach, reading interventionist, and music teacher. She has three published/in-press books and has been published in such journals as Teaching and Teaching Education, Literacy Research and Instruction, Whiteness and Education, and Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. She serves as the President of LiD 6-12.
Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina and a National Board Certified Teacher. She worked as a middle and high school English teacher and instructional coach for 19 years. Her research agenda focuses on teacher induction, literacy attainment (particularly digital and multimodal), and teacher inquiry processes. She has been published in such journals as: English Journal, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Talking Points, Principal Leadership, and Educational Leadership. She serves as the interim Vice President and Secretary of LiD 6-12.
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Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.
Tensions and Supports Between Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Pedagogy and Disciplinary Literacy.
What are Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Pedagogies? What is Disciplinary Literacy? Understanding Ourselves, Our Curriculum, and Our Students. Building Students’ Cultural Competence in Disciplinary Literacy: How Can We Do It? Tensions in Disciplinary Literacy and CSP.
The video recording and the associated slides for the session are available at the bottom of this page.
When: Thursday, June 23, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.
Where: Please register here for the July session. A Zoom link will be sent one day before the session.
Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.
This session will feature Drs. Rachelle Savitz and Britnie D. Kane.
Dr. Rachelle S. Savitz is an assistant professor of adolescent literacy at Clemson University having been a K-12 literacy coach/interventionist and high school reading teacher. She is the recipient of Association of Literacy Educators and Researcher’s Jerry Johns Promising Researcher Award, American Reading Forum’s Gary Moorman Early Career Literacy Scholar Award, finalist for International Literacy Association’s Timothy and Cynthia Shanahan Outstanding Dissertation award, as well as Secondary Reading Council of Florida’s Reading Teacher of the Year award. She has published articles on inquiry-based learning, analysis and use of young adult literature, and response to intervention.
Britnie Delinger Kane is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at The Citadel’s Zucker Family School of Education. Broadly, her research interests focus on DL and instructional coaching. Dr. Kane has published in Teachers College Record, the Journal of Teacher Education, the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of the Learning Sciences, and elsewhere. She serves as the Literacy Program Coordinator at her home institution, the Associate Director of the Lowcountry Writing Project, and the Vice President of LiD 6-12.
Please share this professional learning opportunity with your colleagues.
Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.
Providing Access to Content Area Learning for Students with Disabilities.
When you think about instruction in the content areas, do you automatically think that all students have the opportunity to engage in this type of learning? Can students beyond those with learning disabilities meaningfully participate in content area classrooms? In this session, we will explore what access means for students with disabilities and identify ways to engage this group in content area instruction.
The video recording of the session is available at the bottom of this page.
When: Thursday, July 14, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.
Where: Please register here for the July session. A Zoom link will be sent one day before the session.
Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.
This session will feature Dr. Kavin Ming.
Kavin Ming is a Professor of Literacy at Winthrop University. Her research interests include at-risk student populations, culturally responsive pedagogy, content area literacy instruction, disciplinary literacy, and multisensory teaching of literacy skills. She is published in a wide variety of journals that include general and special education populations. She currently serves as the Curriculum and Pedagogy department chair in the Richard W. Riley College of Education.
Please share this professional learning opportunity with your colleagues.
Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.
But I Want to Teach What I’m Really Teaching: Supporting Literacy and Content-Area Learning
This webinar will include activities and discussions intended to help educators understand some of the ways that literacy differs across disciplines. The focus of the session is to encourage teachers to support literacy while helping students meet content-specific learning goals. Being aware of our own use of literacy strategies opens up discussions of how to continuously enrich every lesson, every day with content-area and disciplinary literacy practices.
When: Thursday, May 12, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.
Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.
The recording of this webinar is embedded below. The slide deck is available beneath the video.
This session will feature Dr. Britnie D. Kane and Charlene Aldrich.
Britnie Delinger Kane is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at The Citadel’s Zucker Family School of Education. Broadly, her research interests focus on DL and instructional coaching. Dr. Kane has published in Teachers College Record, the Journal of Teacher Education, the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of the Learning Sciences, and elsewhere. She serves as the Literacy Program Coordinator at her home institution, the Associate Director of the Lowcountry Writing Project, and the Vice President of LiD 6-12.
Charlene Aldrich is an instructor in the Office of Professional Development at the College of Charleston. While content-area literacy is her specialty, she also teaches Assessments in Reading, Foundations in Reading, and Instructional Practices as required by South Carolina for recertification. She serves as the Treasurer of LiD 6-12.
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As a future educator and a current student, I find poetry an amazing outlet for students to express themselves. I, personally, use poetry to release these great big emotions I feel. In my high school, we had a lot of mental health concerns in our student body with little to no action. I was a high schooler losing two to three friends each school year. High school was hard enough but this on top of everything else made it 10x harder. Around this time is when I started writing poetry. My English teacher had a whole unit on poetry where we had to write poetry, research poets, and end with slam poetry where I read a poem by Maya Angelou. I still remember the whole poem. This unit really pushed me to think differently about the power of poetry. This is when I bought myself a new journal and started writing my own.
Writing poetry helped me a lot with processing my emotions and help me through my high school years. Even in class when we had free writing time, I would write poetry. I still do this, not as much, I’ll randomly think of a thought and start writing off that thought. It is a great way for a student to relieve stress and express themselves without talking about it. This is why I found it reliving, I didn’t have to vocalize why I was upset or why I was happy… I could just write.
As educators, it is important for us to use this tool as well. Providing a way for us to express and reflect is vital, considering we ask our students to do the same. By allowing our students to write poetry in the classroom, we are creating a space where students can communicate their emotions or thoughts. This is vital because some of our students may not be allowed this opportunity often. You may be the first person to encourage your students to do this openly. By allowing your students to do this, you are creating a welcoming environment in your classroom. In my classroom, having a welcoming environment for students is very important for me. This means being welcoming to new ideas, understanding, and backgrounds. In my classroom, breaking the stigma around mental health will be a must and I believe poetry is a great way to start.
Mental health is a growing problem in our schools, our student’s academics and extracurricular activities are evidence of this. As educators, we spend more time with these students than most parents or guardians. This grants us the opportunity to talk about mental health in a productively and openly way. Instead of running from this concern of mental health, let’s embrace this time to create a warm and meaningful connection with our students. Poetry opens the doors to this. Even having five minutes set aside in class for your students to write could mean the world to them.
This piece is written and submitted by Caroline Graham.
Caroline Graham (she/her/hers) is currently a College of Charleston student majoring in Secondary Education and English. She is a South Carolina Teaching Fellow at the College serving as the President. You can see more of Caroline on her website: https://cgaggraham.wixsite.com/website
I have to admit, I hated poetry when I was in school. I hated having to figure out what an author was saying. Why couldn’t they just come out and say what they wanted us to see and hear? I remember reading ‘The Windhover’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins and being completely confounded. Understanding poetry was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without having seen what the completed picture was supposed to look like.
In college I studied William Wordsworth and Langston Hughes. For the first time, I read poetry that was easy to understand and yet beautiful. Its simplicity did not detract from the beauty of form and content. Because I didn’t feel defeated from the start, I began to read other kinds of poetry, the kind that had turned me off to poetry while in high school. I wish I had come to a greater appreciation of poetry while in K-12. I had missed out on so much. But what had I missed out on? Why should children read and learn about poetry?
Poetry helps us to see the world through someone else’s eyes. We can do the same with essays, short stories and novels, but poetry is life and experiences in concentrated form; it doesn’t take long to read a poem, yet an author can concentrate emotions and feelings that would take pages to convey in a novel or poem. Teenagers with angst can find relief when they read a poem to find out others have shared their own experiences. Thus, poetry can be personal and powerful, but its impact can also be felt on a national or global level.
Just how powerful and impactful is poetry in the world of politics? It is so impactful that Stalin caused Anna Akhmatova to memorize and then destroy all her personal written poems, all so Stalin could not silence her poetic voice. Like painters, writers can stir the mind, but sometimes more importantly, they can stir the heart and passions, especially when rousing people to a cause. Students can come to appreciate the power of words, how a poem can rally people to a cause; there are poems of resistance, protest, and empowerment. Certainly students should be exposed to such words and ideas.
Poetry writing empowers students and builds their confidence. Writing an essay can be daunting for some students, but when they are introduced to and encouraged to write simple poems such as acrostics, they usually eagerly embrace the challenge.
Poetry helps students to appreciate the beauty of subtlety, how so much can be said indirectly. They can come to appreciate the power and beauty of words. It can build vocabulary and encourage abstract thinking. Poetry encourages students to analyze what they are reading. It exposes them to other cultures and beliefs.
Why study poetry? Poetry empowers, arouses. Poetry helps students to put ideas and feeling on paper.
Poetry can stimulate the mind, and it can help students to get in touch with their own feelings. One year, I had a student say the following to me in a letter. “I always thought poetry was for sissies. All my life I’ve suppressed my feelings, but this class has made me change my mind. I’ve come to understand that as a male I can embrace and express my feelings.” Those words were music to my ears.
Dr. Angela M. Cozart is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Teacher Education at the College of Charleston.
The #WalkMyWorld project started as a community focus on poetry and multimodal exploration; it then developed into a community of inquiry. Participants explored the experiences of others by responding to and authoring multimodal poetry. In #WalkMyWorld, educators and students created a social space of engagement to explore civic uses of social media. This exploration served as an opportunity to consider the media literacies at play as the group participated as a community of writers.
Guided by carefully-crafted learning events, participants took photos, authored short pieces, and filmed small glimpses of their lives. At weekly intervals, they documented their “walks” using photo and video capture tools that easily allow users to share content with others. By collecting snippets of their worlds that seemed trivial one at a time, participants experienced the magic that, when strung together, these digital “gatherings” presented narratives of very human things: pain, beauty, joy, friendship, and wonder.
During the project, instructors were able to target specific educational objectives revolving around (but not limited to) explorations with poetry. With the understanding that creating and sharing digital content in online spaces might be a novel and even scary experience, instructors also charged participants to grapple with what to share and how. This raises questions between educators and learners as they contemplate how and how much to share. Accordingly, thoughtful experimentation online, connection with digital texts and tools, and play ultimately serve as valid, if not crucial, educational outcomes.
This project encouraged educators and students in elementary school through higher education to engage in social scholarship practices. Social scholarship utilizes the Internet and other communication technologies to evolve the ways in which scholarship is conducted. Like many other social scholarship projects #WalkMyWorld connected formal scholarship with informal Internet-based social practices while embodying specific values (e.g., openness, collaboration, transparency, access, sharing). #WalkMyWorld evolved into a space that allowed participants to explore the characteristics of online information and educational opportunities by allowing them to share and develop (a) writing lifeworlds, (b) communities of inquiry, (c) media literacies and (d) expanded perspectives of narrative writing. These skills have proven to be integral to the way teachers view themselves as professionals in online and hybrid educational spaces.
The trailer shared above was created for a session on the project released at the K12 Online website. The full video for the session is available below.
Lastly, in 2017 this project served as a motivating factor in this chapter on mentored open online communities (MooCs) as a third space for teaching and learning in higher education.
Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our third after-school Webinar Series session. The slide deck and video of the session is available below.
Talk, Text, Content & Context: Using Poetry & Multimodal Exploration to Develop a Community of Inquiry
This webinar will share guidance from a research-tested way to embed literacy and technology instruction in and across disciplines by focusing in poetry response and writing using digital, multimodal texts. The #WalkMyWorld project started with a community focus on poetry and multimodal exploration; it then developed into a community of inquiry. The focus of this session is to identify opportunities to have students explore various lifeworlds by responding to and authoring multimodal poetry. In #WalkMyWorld, educators and students create a social space of engagement to explore civic uses of social media. This exploration served as an opportunity to consider the media literacies at play as the group participated as a community of writers.
When: Thursday, April 28, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.
Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.
This session will feature Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne and Caroline Graham.
Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne (@wiobyrne) is an associate professor of literacy education at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. His research focuses on the dispositions and literacy practices of individuals as they read, write, and communicate in online and/or hybrid spaces. Ian is the author of many journal articles and book chapters focusing on initiatives ranging from online and hybrid coursework, integrating technology in the classroom, computational thinking, and supporting marginalized students in literacy practices. His work can be found on his website or in his weekly newsletter.
Caroline Graham(she/her/hers) is currently a College of Charleston student majoring in Secondary Education and English. She is a South Carolina Teaching Fellow at the College serving as the President. You can see more of Caroline on her website: https://cgaggraham.wixsite.com/website
Please share this professional learning opportunity with your colleagues.
By: Lindsey Douglas, English teacher at Gettys Middle School.
Literacy is often wrongly associated with only the humanities, namely English Language Arts and Social Studies. However, as contemporary studies suggest, disciplinary literacy is a necessary educational shift to meet the demands of the twenty-first century student as they participate in literacies of varied subjects (Lent & Voigt, 2019). The heart of disciplinary literacy is an accurate understanding of how content knowledge is constructed and how literacy (reading, writing, viewing, reasoning, and communicating) supports the knowledge of the respective content (Lent & Voigt, 2019).
For that reason, I teamed up with an experienced, award-winning math educator who is considered an expert in her field. We collaborated and co-taught a lesson, with each teacher valuing the other’s expertise. While the text in Math may look different than texts in my English Language Arts class, we define a text as anything a student can see, interpret, and assign meaning.
Introducing the Lesson
Our first text of the lesson was an image. The images used in the lesson were found on reasonandwonder.com. We introduced the lesson with visual literacy in which students “read” the image to interpret, evaluate, and understand the meaning. We posed two questions for the students to prompt their thinking: What do I notice and What do I wonder? The students first worked independently. Before students began reading the text, we discussed what it means to both “notice” and “wonder.” The classes acknowledged that the skill of “noticing” is what we call observing, and that of “wonder” is to inference. Like Lent suggests, “we want students to know how to interrogate texts rather than simply read them” (Lent, 2015, p.109).
Academic discourse is a critical cornerstone of a Math Disciplinary Literacy classroom. Following the image was both a small group discussion and class discussion of the students’ discoveries. However, before discussing their findings, the Math teacher reestablished group norms.
The group norms of this classroom include:
No one is done until everyone is done
You have the right to ask anybody in your group help
No talking outside your group
No naked numbers
Remember to play your role
Put the question in your answer
Say your “becauses”
Listen to others’ ideas
Take turns
Be Respectful
Confusion is a part of learning
You have the duty to give help to anybody who asks
Disagree with ideas, not people
Helping is not the same as giving answers
Many of the group norms reiterate the marriage between content and literacy such as “say your because” and “put the question in your answer.”
After the small groups discussed their answers, the teacher jotted down their responses on the board. The conversation with the whole class continued until a student finally responded with “The phone is charging!” From that response, the teacher shifted to the second sentence starter posed to students, “I Wonder…”, in which the students start sharing inferences based on the image. Eventually, a student says, “What time will the phone be charged?”
Solving the Problem
Once students land on this essential question, the lesson then shifts to the “second act” where students attempt to solve the problem. The Math teacher then asks the students to make a “too low, too high, and just right” guess at what time the phone will be charged if it is 5% at 9:02. Asking students to estimate a too high, too low, and just right answer is critical thinking and at the heart of student’s mathematical practice standards. (SCCCR.MP 1-7). In just one sentence, a too high, too low, and just right guess allows students to use reasoning and analysis to create a path to problem solving. After students shared some guesses, the teacher shared three more images, revealing the next three stages of charging.
The teacher then told the class: “Now we are going to represent data. Four representations of math are words, tables, graphs, and equations. Please remember to answer your questions in the form of a sentence.” She also reminded students of one of the group norms: say your becauses. For the math teacher, it is important that students represent Math in all four representations every lesson. This representation of data reiterates the importance of students developing a deeper mathematical knowledge. The students first represented math through words, so they moved onto representing it in a chart.
Before they began developing their charts, the teacher and the class worked together to define their variables for this situation (x=minutes of charging since 9:02; y=battery percentage).
X
Y
0 8 12 24
5 14 19 33
After creating the chart, the teacher asked, “using the data in your table, can you determine the type of relationship between these two variables?” The class consensus was that it is a positive relationship and appears nearly linear.
The teacher then told the class, “For now, let’s assume it is nearly linear. If this is true, could we use the data to write an equation to use for prediction when the phone will be fully charged?”
Y = 1.17x + 4.88
100 = 1.17x + 4.88
X ≈ 81.3
Therefore, they determined the phone will be charged approximately 81 minutes after 9:02, or 10:23. After they solve the equation, the teacher then revealed the answer to show the students by slowly showing the progression over time.
The slow reveal built suspense, and ultimately curiosity from the students. As Lent states, “The process of wondering, formulating questions, and thinking through concepts while respecting multiple viewpoints is as much the goal as certitude about a concept” (Lent & Voigt, 2019, p 111). If Math is the aspirin, then teachers must create the headache. Not a migraine, but a “cognitive conflict” or a “disequilibrium” (Meyer, 2015). This headache is created through the processes of wondering, questions, and thinking. And at just the right time, with just the right amount of curiosity and inquiry, the aspirin is given to the students in a sigh of relief (and frustration!).
At this point, the class has represented math in three different ways: words, charts, and equations. The last representation is a graph. After the final reveal, the teacher says to the class, “What happened? We assumed that it would continue charging at the same rate. But as we start charging batteries, it actually gets slower. It starts slowing down.”
The Importance of Disciplinary Literacy and Collaboration
While there may be hesitation for educators to pedagogically shift towards a disciplinary literacy approach to instruction, collaboration and co-teaching narrows the gap. Disciplinary Literacy is not merely reading and writing across the content, but rather placing literacy within the discipline itself. Lent explains, “…While practice is still important, the emphasis has shifted from only teaching the principles of math to helping students develop a deeper mathematical knowledge– and such instruction often includes collaboration” (p 155). I am thankful for Math teachers who take transformative action about the way in which they think about their content. I am thankful for a school where disciplinary literacy is a school-wide initiative. But most of all, I am thankful for literacy itself and its rightful place in all disciplines across all curriculums.
References:
Lent, R. C. (2016). This Is Disciplinary Literacy: Reading Writing, Thinking, and Doing… Content Area by Content Area. Corwin.
Lent, R. C. & Voigt, M. M. (2019). Disciplinary Literacy In Action: How to Create and Sustain a School-wide Culture of Deep Reading, Writing, and Thinking. Corwin.
Lindsey Douglas is a Clemson University graduate in English Literature, Secondary Education, and a Masters in Literacy K-12. Lindsey is a third year English teacher and is the 8th grade English Department Head at Gettys Middle School. She is passionate about disciplinary literacy and helping teachers embed literacy practices into their content. She also coaches volleyball and enjoys spending time outdoors, and reading.
About the Collaborator
Ashley Weaver is a National Board Certified Teacher and math nerd with 13 years of experience teaching middle schoolers. She teaches with the belief that all students can learn math and achieve at high levels and hopes to instill a love for learning in her students. When she isn’t teaching or learning about teaching, she enjoys reading and spending time with her husband and daughter.
By: Hunter Thompson, University of South Carolina Pre-Service Music Educator
Teaching students how to read music is basically like teaching students how to be literate in another language. As you learn more and more of a language, the rules and guidelines for reading, writing, and speaking that language become increasingly complex. Music educators should approach teaching students music like they are preparing students to be literate in the complexities of music, and we all know how complex music can become (we’re all looking at you, Schoenberg). Music students should not only be literate in musical literacy, but they also need to be literate in traditional literacy, numeracy, communicative literacy, and even technological literacy to be successful in today’s music classes. Students must be literate to comprehend expressive markings such as accelerando or rallentando. The basis of teaching rhythm is contingent on the assumption that students are numerate, and we also use mathematical structures within music theory. Watching a conductor’s gestures and expressions requires students to be literate in the nuances of communication. The rising popularity of electronic music and the usage of online notation software requires students and teachers to be technologically literate. All of these forms of literacy converge in our music classrooms, so this means that we must adapt non-musical strategies for usage in our lessons.
Close Reading is a task that students are expected to do in essentially every class that they will ever take; however, it is a skill that is unintentionally not as well-developed and practiced outside of typical English Language Arts courses. Without clear guidelines for how Close Reading is applied to subjects like music, art, physical education, dance, and other classes that are necessary for educating the whole child, students will not be able to put these strategies into practice. Therefore, it is crucial that we, as music educators, make our approach to Close Reading essential to our lessons, and instead of relying solely on music-specific structures to achieve this, we should also model our approach off of existing structures. Although Close Reading is a strategy that was originally created for use in English language arts courses, Close Reading (with some minor adaptations) will help to engage students in a deeper analysis of music that they are performing and to which they are listening.
Wolsey and Lapp’s Approach to Close Reading for Traditional Print Texts
Close Reading strategies have historically been applied to print texts, but texts come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. There are two types of text: print and non-print texts. In a music classroom, an example of a print text could be a student’s individual part or a conductor’s score. Print texts have traditionally been the dominant of the two in classroom settings, but there is still an enormous amount of information that students can gain from working with non-print texts. With regards to music classes, an example of a non-print text could be a live or recorded performance.
Photo by Jamie Taylor on Unsplash
Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Diane Lapp outline Close Reading for traditional print texts like this. First, you must select a complex text for your students to study, and think about priming questions that you could ask your students before introducing them to the text. Next, have students complete an independent reading and annotation of the text. After that, complete partner sharing activities so that your students are able to hear a diverse range of perspectives. Following that, re-read the text (as an independent reading, student-led reading, or teacher-led reading) with specific goals in mind, and conduct a group discussion to reinforce particular ideas. Re-read the text as many times you deem necessary and conclude with a written extension, reflection, or explanation of the text that highlights a specific skill concept.
This approach to Close Reading has been highly effective in countless traditional literacy settings to help students gain a deeper understanding of complex print texts, but what does this process have to do with music? Close Reading, by definition, uses “text-based questions and discussion,” and “students are guided to deeply analyze and appreciate various aspects of the text” (Brown & Kappes 2012).
Close Reading Adaptations for Music Classrooms
Music teachers do these things on a daily basis, whether we realize it or not. Additionally, music teachers want their students to develop the skills necessary to perform and listen to complex pieces of music with much deeper analysis. It is extremely important to remember that this level of analysis will require multiple visits with the same text. With every close read, students will pick up on more nuances and important details which will ultimately lead to a greater understanding of the composer’s and/or conductor’s craft.
In music classes, we constantly ask our students to perform and listen at the highest level; therefore, students must develop a more advanced skill set to analyze complex works. Resultingly, I have adapted Wolsey and Lapp’s outline of Close Reading for performing music and listening to music. The adaptation for performing music is geared more towards a band, choir, or orchestra class while the adaptation for listening to music is geared more towards a music appreciation or music history class. However, they can be used in any music classroom with minor adjustments.
Adaptation Chart of Close Reading for Performing and Listening to Music
Wolsey and Lapp’s Close Reading for Traditional Print Texts
A Close Reading Adaptation for Performing Music
A Close Reading Adaptation for Listening to Music
Select a complex text that relates to instructional purpose (use Lexile Levels to help with this)
Select a complex text that relates to instructional purpose (use state grade categorizations to help with this and resources provided by sheet music retailers)
Select a complex text that relates to instructional purpose
Provide priming questions: What are you thinking as you read? What words do you not know? What techniques is the author using? What is the author’s message? What is the impact on the reader?
Provide priming questions:What is the tempo? What is the key signature? What is the time signature? What is the pitch range? Are there any accidentals? Are there any difficult rhythms? What kind of signs, repeats, dynamics, and articulations do you see?
Provide priming questions: What do you hear? What genre is this piece? What is the instrumentation or orchestration? What is the structure of this piece? What style period is this piece from? What message or emotions is the composer attempting to convey?
Number the paragraphs.
Number the measures.
For listening with a score, number the measures. For listening without a score, segment the recording using time stamps.
Independent reading (use paragraph numbers to chunk text for greater analysis)
Independent sight reading (use measure numbers to note difficult and important sections in the music)
Independent listening with a score (use measure numbers to chunk the score for greater analysis)Independent listening without a score (use time stamps to chunk the piece for greater analysis)
Text annotation – writing on paper; using highlighters and/or pens to “mark” the text
Text annotation – writing on music; using a pencil to circle/star/box any notable parts of the music
Text annotation (with a score) – writing on the score; using colored pencils or pens to mark melodic lines and harmonic analysesText annotation (without a score) – write down notes about the piece with time stamps included
Partner sharing – discussion with language frames
Partner sharing – discussion with language frames
Partner sharing – discussion with language frames
Rereading (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with analysis on how text was written and writer’s craft
Re-examining (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with further analysis of sequences, modulations, intervallic relationships, and other patterns
Re-listening with a score (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with analysis of compositional techniques and composer-specific musical idiomsRe-listening without a score (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with analysis of how different time stamp segments are similar and dissimilar
Discussion to reinforce academic vocabulary and interpretation
Discussion to reinforce academic vocabulary and interpretation
Discussion to reinforce academic vocabulary and interpretation
Written extension, reflection, explanation of the piece, or demonstration of the skill concept through writing
Written extension outlining performance goals and practices and/or a summarization of elements of the composer’s style
Written extension (music critique or analysis), reflection, explanation of the piece
Will Close Reading Consume My Already Precious Class Time?
Believe it or not, you are probably already doing parts of activities like this in your classroom. However, it has not been made clear to students that these activities are part of the larger process of Close Reading. It is critical that we are intentional, from the very beginning, in choosing what texts we use, and for music, it is important to take into account the musical abilities of each student if you intend to perform a chosen text. Additionally, we must be purposeful in the strategy we use to teach the musical complexities that our students will encounter within the chosen texts.
You most likely are using some of these steps within your classroom, but Close Reading works best and benefits more students when the full process is completed for specific texts. If your wind ensemble is playing Holst’s First Suite in E-Flat for Military Band, it may prove wise for students to complete several close readings of their own part and several close readings of the score. Since this piece is public domain, you can find the score online from the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP). If you are unable to provide each student with a conductor’s score, you could also use a document camera and projector to display the score during class for a teacher-led close reading of the text. Vision is the dominant sense, and many of our music students may be visual learners, so it could prove very beneficial to those students if they can see how their individual part is connected to other parts. If you are teaching a unit in a music appreciation course on dance rhythms, you could complete a close listening of Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, which might be more recognizable and engaging to students than a Baroque dance suite. Remember, we could choose any school-appropriate text for our students to work with, but it is important that we know exactly what we want students to learn from that text and that we know exactly what strategies we will use to teach the text.
One concern about implementing a Close Reading strategy in your music classroom is that it will take a large amount of time from technique building and preparing for performances. However, Close Reading is a method of keeping students engaged with a text. If students simply go through the motions, rehearsing the same set of pieces day after day, then students will begin to lose focus while performing. If we take class time to purposefully implement Close Reading strategies into our routines, then it will help students to better understand individual and ensemble performance goals for that particular piece. Ultimately, a strong foundation of technique and fundamentals mixed with the implementation of Close Reading and other literacy strategies will set students up for musical success.
Adapting Other Literacy Strategies to Grow Students’ Music Literacy
Additionally, I urge music educators to avoid what Laura Sindberg refers to as “music teacher isolation” (Sindberg 2011). Look for ways outside of your school’s Fine Arts Department to adapt literacy strategies. Regularly ask your colleagues in the Science, Mathematics, English, History, and Foreign Language Departments about how they adapt traditional literacy strategies in their classrooms. Remember to talk to the other Fine Arts teachers in your schools who do not teach music as well, and do not forget to share your ideas too. Readers’ Theatre is a literacy strategy that requires small groups of students to create and perform a dramatic script based on a provided text. When adapted to a music appreciation class, you could assign small groups of students a recitative and aria or an ensemble song. Make sure the libretto of the assigned opera is translated for your students. Then, they can create their own script to perform their adaptation in front of the class. If you have enough groups and pick out key parts of the opera, your class will be able to summarize the plot of an entire opera with short scenes that they have created. When you have amassed your own stockpile of creative strategies, you will be able to impact a more diverse group of learners because of the numerous options from which you have to choose.
Just as students in an English class will not be able to comprehend William Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, Harper Lee, and Oscar Wilde if they cannot comprehend Dr. Seuss yet, students in a music class will not be able to comprehend the masterworks of great composers like Ludwig van Beethoven, Jennifer Higdon, Eric Whitacre, and David Maslanka if they cannot comprehend their beginner technique books. Literacy looks different in each discipline, and it is our job to make sure that our students can read, perform, listen to, analyze, and critique increasingly complex texts. This blog post is by no means a critique of the strategies currently employed in music classrooms, but in actuality, it is a call to broaden the literacy strategies we are using in our music classrooms. I encourage us to do what music teachers do best, and use our imagination to see what kind of ways we can incorporate creative adaptations of literacy strategies, like Close Reading, into our lessons.
References
Brown, S., & Kappes, L. (2012). Implementing the Common Core State Standards: A primer on “close reading of text.” Washington, DC: Aspen Institute.
Sindberg, L. (2011). Alone All Together—The Conundrum of Music Teacher Isolation and Connectedness. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, (189), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.5406/bulcouresmusedu.189.0007
Wolsey, T. D.V., & Lapp, D. (2017). Literacy in the Disciplines: A Teacher’s Guide for Grades 5-12. Guilford Press, a Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
About the Author
Hunter Thompson is a junior at the University of South Carolina, where he is majoring in Music Education. He grew up in Hartsville, South Carolina, and he participated in his school band program beginning in sixth grade and continuing to his senior year of high school. He would like to thank several educators for the tremendous impact they had on him: His mother, Elizabeth Thompson, who will always be his biggest educational influence; his high school band director, Cameron Watkins, who always believed in his musical abilities; and one of his college professors, Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison, who provided him with an amazing opportunity to write about a subject that is very important to him.
