Instructional plan:
Music Matters Journals
THROUGH JOURNAL WRITING, students will explore their own connections
to and opinions about music. Students will then use interview and data
collection techniques to share journal responses and make observations
about the class.
Length of time required
Flexible — ideally, several class sessions over a three- to
four-week period.
Materials
Music Matters journals, chart paper, paper, pencils
Objectives
- Students will explore the similarities and differences between asking
open-ended interview questions and survey-style short answer questions.
- Students will practice the skills of interviewing including asking
questions, listening carefully, and taking notes.
- Students will organize and present data in a variety of ways.
- Students will use data gathered to identify patterns and make other
kinds of observations.
- Students will build classroom community through the process of learning
about their peers.
Procedure
1. In music journals, have each student free-write responses to
music-related prompts each day. See the sample list of Music
Experience Prompts.
2. Choose prompts that students seem especially interested in
to explore how the members of the class responded in more depth.
3. Ask students to predict what they will find out about the class
through sharing. Record predictions on the board or a sheet of chart paper.
4. Discuss the kind of question asked and agree on a way to learn
about how others in the class responded. Guide students to recognize when
surveying is appropriate (closed, short-answer questions) and when it
is advantageous to interview (open-ended, narrative style answers). See
Open-ended interviewing for ideas on teaching
this.
5. Guide students to collect data in an appropriate way, based
on the particular prompt.
For survey style prompts, students might:
- List all responses on the board and form categories.
- Gather short-answer data from each classmate by walking around with
a class list.
- Write personal response(s) on sticky notes and post them on a chart
or charts for organizing.
For interview-oriented prompts, students might:
- Conduct a series of partner interviews, listing three essential things
learned from each interview.
- Conduct a series of talk-show style interviews.
- Conduct interviews in large or small groups using a bean-bag toss
approach. The person who throws the beanbag asks the questions and the
catcher responds.
6. Identify the specific skills the class is to work on during
this learning experience. Provide a mini-lesson on the given skill that
includes modeling and helping the students to fully understand the attributes
of the skill.
7. Lead a discussion of patterns and themes that are emerging
from the data. Guide students to observe the data closely. Discuss possible
ways to organize the data so it can be shared.
8. As a group, reflect on what has been learned about the class.
Also, reflect on the skill focus of the learning experience. Have students
write brief personal reflections in their journals. Invite students to
generate questions that they would like to have the class explore in the
future.
Assessment
Students should be assessed on the skills emphasized in the particular
journal extension activity. They might be assessed on the extent to which
they demonstrated mastery of note-taking techniques, listening skills,
forming and asking probing questions, organizing data, displaying data,
noticing patterns in data, and making observations of data.
>> Class project: Family
Music Survey
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