After "Facebooking" with Lindsay from Lindsay's Kodaly Inspired Classroom (check her out if you haven't already), I have decided to share my action research that I completed this past December to graduate with my masters in Instruction and Curriculum Leadership. The document is located in my dropbox (link below)... it isn't short, so I didn't want to paste it into the blog. But, here is the abstract. Also, please remember that this is the first time I ever completed action research, so it's not perfect! And, I am posting this so that other music teachers will be more open to the idea to incorporate writing in their classrooms. Please understand that this was ALOT of work, and should not be copied or printed for any reason other than for personal use. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! Enjoy!
Abstract
The purpose of my action research
professional development plan was to find a way to effectively incorporate
writing strategies in the music classroom. Because of common budget cuts in
education, music teachers often have to prove to administrators that we are
effective teachers and that music is an essential subject. I have added writing
strategies given by other educators and researchers in order to relate the
music room more with the Common Core standards as well as have a way of
assessing students’ music listening skills and music vocabulary understanding.
According to Peterson and Madsen,
“when students learn to transfer information and knowledge to new situation,
they are more likely to retain that knowledge; this retention seems to be
enhanced when the information is presented within an activity where creativity
is encouraged” (2010). Many researchers, including Charles Duke, state that
learning to keep a journal or to respond to music through writing and talking
is a valuable skill. These types of activities encourage students to pay
attention to detail and promote higher order thinking (1984). In order to help
my students be more creative in order to retain information, I decided to
incorporate different writing prompts in my classroom over a six-week period.
The students would complete these prompts while listening to different types of
music. These writing prompts let the students tell stories, free-write,
compare, analyze, etc. The 18 students would either complete a chart I had
given them or write in their journal. All the students also had a “cheat sheet”
of the 6 traits of writing to help make their writing more appropriate for
their grade level as well as remind the students to use their best writing
skills. The students would write from 5-8 minutes and then have time to share
their writing with the classroom.
To document the student’s growth and
understanding through this process, I used the 6 Traits rubric to grade their
work, I kept a research journal, and also had the students complete a needs
assessment survey before and after the six week period. The rubric really
showed the students needs before and after the six-week period, and also showed
their growth in writing. The journal was used to keep my thoughts organized
throughout the process as well as to write down any pertinent information, such
as, if students were absent, what the atmosphere of the day at school was, etc.
And, the needs assessment gaged the students likes and dislikes when writing as
well as pertinent information on each student’s writing needs in the classroom.
Over the six-week period, the
students’ work greatly improved. The rubric helped me understand what the
students’ struggles are in writing and what their strengths are as well. I
believe that their writing has improved simply because of how engaging these
writing strategies are, and because it was something new and exciting for the
students. A couple of the students were not improving and were also not writing
very much in their journals because they were not as engaged as they needed to
be, but for the majority of the class, engaging writing activities in music
class definitely strengthened their writing skills.
This type of activity needs to be measured for longer
than a six-week period, and also with different types of rubrics. At times it
was hard to use the 6 Traits rubric if the student had decided not to write
more than a few sentences. I plan to continue these strategies as well as
implement some of my own writing prompts into my lesson plans to see if it increases
the students’ writing abilities even further. I also plan to share my results
with the fourth grade teacher as well as my music education colleagues.
Writing in the Music Classroom - Full Report
