Secondary literacy and numeracy across the curriculum
1. SECONDARY LITERACY AND NUMERACY
ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
EDU 715 – TASK 2
Jessamy Fox
1079752
2. THE TEXT – A YOUTUBE VIDEO
ABOUT TIMBRE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tGEDgkZlC8
3. ALIGNMENT TO THE CURRICULUM
MUSIC – YEAR 7
Analyse composers’ use of the elements of music and stylistic features when
listening to and interpreting music
identifying elements of music aurally and then discussing how these elements, composition
techniques and devices are used and manipulated to create a style
Develop musical ideas, such as mood, by improvising, combining and
manipulating the elements of music
manipulating sound quality by exploring how sounds are produced by different instruments
and voice types, for example, manipulating dynamics and timbre in voice or acoustic or digital
instruments
Experiment with texture and timbre in sound sources using aural skills
4. LESSON GOALS
- To give the students a clear and informative introduction to timbre
- Start to get students thinking about instrument selection:
- Why do composers chose to use certain instruments?
- What do certain instruments convey to the audience?
- How they can lend themselves to a style / genre?
- How they can be manipulated?
Add to students vocabularies
Start to build a word bank to describe timbres
Practical work.
Helpful for future musicology, performance and composition assessments.
5. WHY LITERACY?
- The Australian Curriculum now states that all teachers must be
teachers of literacy.
- The LANTITE test is now a requirement of all pre-service teachers.
6. LITERACY IN MUSIC
- Lyrics
- Musical literacy
- Elements of music (Rhythm, pitch, dynamics and expression,
form and structure, timbre, and texture)
- Articulating thoughts and ideas
8. CODE BREAKING –
- Breaking the codes of the text
- Definitions of new words and works that weren’t fully
understood.
- Creating a catalogue of new words.
- Creating a catalogue of instruments.
- Words to describe timbre. Dark, tinny, bright, reedy,
hollow, Rounded, Piercing, Strident, Harsh, Warm,
Mellow, Resonant.
9. MEANING MAKER
- The text as a whole
- Emphasis on the meaning
- The big picture ideas
- Cloze activity
10. TEXT USER
- Grand conversation:
- What can we do with the information that we
just learnt about?
- What aspects of our music do you think we
could incorporate our new knowledge of timbre?
- Do you think this text will help you in the future
when you are trying to choose an instrument for
a composition?
- Why do certain songs / genres use certain
instruments? Is it for the audience?
11. TEXT ANALYST
Do we think this seems like a
viable source? Do we believe
what this man is telling us?
Why? Was there anything he
said that we think might not
be true or that we should
double check?
Is there anything else we
would like to know about
timbre? Perhaps it would have
been useful to listen to some
more instruments to compare
more tone colours.
I am going to use this text and the four resources model to teach these curriculum achievements. I will also be achieving some of the general capabilities from the syllabus.
The main goal of this lesson is to give the students a clear and informative introduction to timbre. I have chosen to show them this particular text as I think it is engaging and accommodates for multiple learning styles as it incorporates visuals, has spoken words and also written words. It will also expand student’s vocabularies, as we will start to build a word bank.
During this lesson I will also be encouraging students to think about the following things:
Why composers do chose to use certain instruments?
What do certain instruments convey to the audience?
How they can lend themselves to a style / genre?
How they can be manipulated?
This video and this lesson will ultimately help them with their musicology, performance and composition assessments.
The Australian Curriculum now states that all teachers must be teachers of literacy and numeracy and incorporate these teachings into their subjects. The LANTITE test is now a requirement of all pre-service teachers and is undertaken to check that all teachers are both literate and numerate. Teaching literacy in every subject is so important, as it helps students apply their knowledge in real world situations. Being literate in the 21st century is incredibly important, hence the push to teach literacy skills in schools. Some students may be less reluctant to learn literacy skills in a subject that they enjoy, such as music, than they would be in an English classroom.
Literacy is a big part of music, especially in the real world as lyrics are an extremely important ingredient in most contemporary music. In the Australian Curriculum for music, there isn’t a focus on lyrics, however it is vital for students to be able to use and understand musical literacies. There are many words which are fairly unique to the music world. Such words like the elements of music which are rhythm, pitch, dynamics and expression, form and structure, timbre, and texture are vital for musicians to know and understand, so they can communicate. Being literate is also extremely important for musicology as you need to not only know all of the musical ‘jargon’ you also need to be able to articulate your ideas and thoughts clearly. As music has a language of its own, to be ‘musically literate’ is a term that means someone can read notated music fluently. I believe using the four resources model would be a successful way to teach students the elements of music and increase student’s confidence to use their literacy skills in music.
To teach these learning goals, I am going to use my chosen text and a framework called the four resources model. The four resources model consists of four practices, code breaking, meaning making, text use, and text analysis.
Code breaking is part to whole knowledge, small parts are often taught and decoded before moving ahead. In music this is important as musicians need to understand new musical terms and symbols before they can apply them. In this video we need to break down the code by creating a catalogue of new words. To do this I will first watch the video and ask students to jot down any words which are new to their vocabulary, words they didn’t understand, or words that they found important. We will start constructing a mind map about timbre as a class. We will then move on to adding words to our mind map that describe timbre, as I feel this was something that the video lacked, it talked about describing instruments with a colour, but not with adjectives. Some adjectives that I will be looking for are, dark, tinny, bright, reedy, hollow, rounded, piercing, strident, harsh, warm, mellow, and resonant. We will also need to create a catalogue of new instruments and then work towards matching each instrument with an adjective to describe its unique timbre.
Meaning making has an emphasis on the text as a whole and the meaning. I will prepare a cloze activity for the students to complete individually. The cloze activity will focus on the big picture ideas from the text and the most important parts, which are essential for understanding timbre. This will include information such as the definition.
Text user is related to genre based learning. To teach this we will have a grand conversation as a class. This will be student directed, but the following questions are what I hope will be discussed.
What can we do with the information that we just learnt about? What aspects of our music do you think we could incorporate our new knowledge of timbre? Do you think this text will help you in the future when you are trying to choose an instrument for a composition?
Why do certain songs / genres use certain instruments? Are different timbres used for different audiences? Who can tell me when they have heard a particular instrument used for a particular effect? Perhaps in a film to convey a certain emotion.
Text analyst is related to critical literacy and the fact that texts are not neutral.
To teach these skills we will first have a conversion as a class about who the author is and then do a questioning the author activity. These will be questions that we would like to ask the author and we can possibly research some at a later date. Once again this will be mostly student directed, however these are the questions I hope will come into discussion.
Is there anything else we would like to know about timbre? Perhaps it would have been useful to listen to some more instruments to compare more tone colours.
Do we think this seems like a viable source? Do we believe what this man is telling us? Why? Was there anything he said that we think might not be true or that we should double check?
In conclusion I chose this text because it is very visually pleasing and uses high quality photos which help make meaning. I think it would help students associate a word with an item and a sound (for instance they talk about a banjo, we then get shown a photo of a banjo and hear what it sounds like.) This would be extremely helpful for any students who may not be familiar with the instrument.
There are a wide range of learners in my class, ranging from students who learn instruments outside of school, to learners who have limited musical knowledge. I think this text is a good choice as it can be broken down for some students and extension activities are easily produced for excelling students.
