Lesson One Information Form

Lesson #: 1/3 Date of lesson: 4/5/19

Objectives:

 Students will vote on the Key of the piece and the time signature.
 Students will create chordal structure of the piece together.
 Assign students to their part groups.
 Discuss rubric with students.
 Allow time for the students to begin working with their groups.

Students will be able to:

 Identify I and V chords in Concert C Major.
 Name the pitches that are in the I (Tonic Triad) and V (Dominant Triad) chords in C
Major.
 Identify ABA’ form.

Assessments:
Informal assessment

Materials:
 Instruments
 Chromebooks

Class Groupings:
 Full Group
 Small Groups

Teaching Plan:

 Begin with a quick review of ABA’ form (A, informal assessment)

o Ask the students to define ABA’ form.
 Quick review of I and V chords (A, informal assessment)
o Ask the students how to find the I and V chords for C Major and B-flat Major.
o Define I as tonic and V as dominant.
 Explain that V leads to I.
 Show the students the example piece and ask them to tell me the form (A, informal
assessment)
o I will see if they recognize the ABA’ form in the piece.
 The I and V chords are labeled in the piece. Ask the students what they notice about
where the chords fall and the pitches that they find in the parts (A, informal assessment)
o Take this time to explain the Concert pitch score and the transposition score.
o I will provide them each with a sheet that explains how their chosen Concert key
transposes to their instrument.
 Explain that the students will create a piece similar to mine in form and chordal
structure. Even amount of measures per section (i.e. 4 measures for A, 4 for B, etc.)
o Take this time to have them view the rubric with me and explain what I am
looking for.
 Assign groups for A, B, C.
o Have the students vote on time signature from the choices: 2/4, ¾, or 4/4. (C)
o Have the students vote on key signature from the choices: Concert C Major or
Concert B-flat Major. (C)
 Have the students group up and begin working on composing their part of the piece
while using their instruments and voices to sound out what they want to write. (C, P)
o I will go around answering questions and checking up on their work (A, informal
assessment)
o If need be, I can demonstrate my process of composing.
 Announce that the first version of the completed piece will be due the day before the
next lesson and encourage them to work together somehow.
o This process will be expedient since Flat is a cloud-based app that will allow them
to have a group call and work on this without needing to meet together.
 Lesson One Analysis
The first lesson ended up not being as successful as I had hoped in terms of time

management and getting to all of our objectives. My CT had unknowingly cut my time in half by

having the student volunteers fill out forms in class. I had made my lesson plan with the

intention of having all 50 minutes of class time but I ended with only about 25 minutes. That

being said, I think that I was able to get through most of the objectives so that the students

could have a successful start on their compositions at home.

We began by checking up on everyone and making sure they were all in the Google

classroom and Flat classroom pages that I had setup for the project. Then I immediately went

into reviewing ABA’ and tonic and dominant chords with the students. They all remembered

basically what ABA form is, but I had to spend a little time reminding them about what A’ is.

They have had very little exposure to the idea of A’, so I expected this outcome. After a brief

explanation, I was felt that the whole class understood the form.

Then we moved on to tonic and dominant chords. The students all seemed to forget

what the term scale degrees were, so I had to go through a quick explanation of how musicians

number scale letters from 1 – 8 and explain that concept. Once I reminded them how we

number scales, they all understood. After that, it was smooth sailing getting them to tell me the

I and V chords for C Major. I learned that they have a good grasp on this concept, which

involves skipping every other note in the scale to get 3 notes for a triad. After this, I was able to

define I as tonic and V as dominant. I gave them a very brief explanation of the harmonic

function of the chords and they seemed to understand. I used the idea of tonic being home

base and dominant leading to home, and that seemed to be helpful in their understanding.
 After this is when I showed them each part of the composition on the marimba and then

played the whole thing for them. They were really responsive to this part and I believed that it

definitely helped them understand how their individual parts worked! I believe this to be a

rather successful part of the lesson.

After this, we had a short time of voting on the different parts of the composition. They

decided to write the piece in 4/4, in Concert C Major, and with the flutes/trombones writing the

melody, the alto saxophones writing the counter melody, and the trumpets/clarinets writing

the bassline.

Now, it is at this point of the lesson that the students all began to be very confused. I

realized that when they decided on Concert C Major, they didn’t understand how that

transposed to all of their instruments. I had planned for letting them go into their different

groups and explaining transposition by giving them the explanation worksheet. However, as I

stated in the beginning, we had run out of time and this left the class very confused as they

packed up. However, I was able to assuage this by sending them the worksheet via Google

classroom and explaining how the process worked. I was also able to catch some of the

students after school and explain it to them.

My main takeaway from this lesson is that I might have planned for throwing too much

at the students at one time without effectively scaffolding. However, I was able to talk to some

of the students after school, and they already seem to be more confident after I explained

everything on the Google classroom. I will double check with my CT to allow me the full time for

the next 2 lessons so that we have enough time as a class to work together.
 My current plan is to meet with each group individually for 10 minutes before the next

class lesson, that way I can check up on each group and help them with anything that left them

confused during the first lesson. For the next lesson, I will go over the rubric with them which I

did not get to do during the first lesson as I had planned. I think that this unforeseen

disadvantage of having half the time I planned for allowed me to utilize some quick thinking

and get information out to the students faster via Google classroom. I think that it also forced

me to think outside of the box in how I could get the students caught up without having to take

them for a 4th lesson. The individual time that I will give the groups now will definitely benefit

them as they create their rough draft of the composition that we will go over together during

lesson 2.
Lesson #: 2/3 Date of lesson: 4/11/19

Objectives:

 Listen to the first rough draft as a group.

 Discuss what the students notice about the composition and their opinions of it.
 Break out into groups and go over each group’s part in accordance to the rubric.
 Let the students fix their mistakes and begin working on the final version.

Students will demonstrate their ability to:

 Notice errors in form or chord structure.

 Work collaboratively to fix shared issues in the composition.
 Read and understand what the rubric is asking of them.

Assessments: Formal Assessment via rubric

Materials:

 Chromebooks
 Instruments

Class Groupings: Circle all that apply:

 Full Group
 Small Groups

Teaching Plan:

 Revisit my example composition

o I will play each Part for them on marimba (A, B, and C)
 After each time I play a part, I will ask them what they think about the
section in terms of its composition (i.e. does this sound like a melody,
what do you notice about the bassline, etc.)

 Have everyone pull out the composition on Flat

o We will listen to it a few times as a class and I will ask them to focus on various
elements (A, informal assessment)
 Form
 Chords
 The style of each part
o I will then open up the floor for discussion to see their opinions on it. (C)
 Then they will play the piece together with everyone on their individual parts (P)
o Then we will see if their opinions change on it (A, informal assessment and C)
 Then they will break up into their groups and I will visit each group with their grade from
the rubric. (A, formal assessment)
o I will then facilitate their understanding of the concepts and help them make
improvements if need be.
 They will continue to work together until the class is over (C).
 Lesson 2 Reflection
I believe that this lesson went really well! All of the students completed their work by

Wednesday night and that was a huge relief for me. I decided to include myself going over my

example piece again so that I could be more clear about my compositional process and show

the students how different composing melody, counter melody, and bass parts could be. I think

this was a very effective part of the lesson for the students.

I was able to grade each group’s work using the rubric that I explained to them. For the

most part, every group understood ABA’ form extremely well, which I noted. They all had some

small issues regarding using the right pitches between I and V, which could be partly due to

them rushing through and not double checking their work. As for the function of their assigned

part, most of them had a great attempt. As this is one of the first times they are actually writing

music specifically to some kind of guidelines, it was great work! I think that understanding the

function of each part is the hardest thing to understand in music, so they all had little things to

fix in this regard.

The impressive part is that when I point out all this small errors, it was easy for them to

understand what to change and how to fix things. They are very open to critic and changing

their parts. I think they all realized that the hardest part about composition is starting, but once

you get going, the process of writing is a lot of fun and not as daunting. Giving them the

limitations that we started with allowed them to be creative within the box they were given

and they did a great job!

One idea that most of them were missing was any kind of style indication within their

composition. This is mostly my fault as I did not explicitly say anywhere on the rubric or in my
last lesson that they had to add articulations or dynamics. These are easy to add in after the

finished product was completed, so they were able to quickly move on to this step. For the next

lesson, we will go over Version 2 of the piece with the rubric. Their 2 goals for this version are

to fix any errors from Version 1 and add dynamics and articulations. This part will be tricky since

they will have to line up their thinking on dynamics and articulation as a collective group

instead of just in their small groups. This will take a little more communication on their time,

but I have hope that they will do just fine.

Lesson #: 3/3 Date of lesson: 4/18/19

Objectives:

 Finalize the composition in terms of accuracy, dynamics, and articulations.

 Hear every part individually.
 Ask the students questions to check retention.
 Perform the piece for the rest of the 8th grade band.

Students will demonstrate their ability to:

 Work collectively (large group) to go over dynamics and articulations.

 Demonstrate knowledge of ABA’ form.
 Demonstrate knowledge of tonic and dominant chords.
 Demonstrate knowledge of Melody, Counter Melody, and Harmony.

Assessments: Formal assessment via rubric.

Materials:
 Instruments
 Chromebooks

Class Groupings: Circle all that apply:

 Full Group
 Small Groups

Teaching Plan:

 Listen to the piece and go over the changes/additions to the music.

o Lead a discussion on dynamics, articulations. (IA)
o Are they unified or not? What do we want from the piece? (IA)
 Listen to each part separately. (P)
o Have the other groups listen and comment on what they hear from each part.
o Use the rubric for feedback for each group.
 Then perform the parts together. (P)
 Ask them questions about form, chord structure, and part style (IA).
o Check their retention.
 Practice the piece a little and then perform for the rest of the 8 th grade band (P)
 Lesson 3 Reflection

This lesson went really well! The students were able to demonstrate their

knowledge of form, tonic and dominant chords, and part writing rather well. I think that

having such a focused goal for them worked out in my favor as they all excelled at those

concepts. There were some little errors with not using the correct pitches in the bass

part, but it was a quick fix and the students understood their mistake.

We listened to each of the parts individually and the students felt good about

what they had written. I asked the students if they enjoyed the project and most of

them said that they actually had fun and thought it was a good change of pace to just

reading and learning someone else’s music all the time. I am hoping that this project will

inspire them to keep writing or at least experimenting with playing their own music in

the future.

We performed the piece for the rest of the 8th grade class and I think they were

impressed that their peers wrote something that came together in a cohesive way. The

students really wanted me to play with them, so I improvised some snare drum part to

their piece which had the added benefit of keeping them together without me having to

be standing in front of them and conducting. I think that students also appreciate when

their teacher plays with them instead of at them and it can be a lot of fun to collaborate

with your students in that way, so I will consider this for future ideas in my teaching.