Abstract
The completion of curricular work in partnership with the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant provides an opportune time to acquaint music educators with our most recent additions to those expansive teaching materials. All units are available at no charge to all on the National Association for Music Education website.
After an initial three-year grant designed to embed the experiencing of all artistic processes in everyday instruction, it has been due to the largess of the Library of Congress that we have been able to continue creating classroom resources for three additional years. Teaching units using student inquiry strategies have since been designed for multiple grade levels and all content areas of the 2014 Music Standards. But because of changes in recent years to classroom environments, schedules, and traditional teaching strategies, writing teams challenged themselves to create highly flexible and practical instructional resources to engage students in both in-person and virtual venues.
Our latest publications focus on the traditional ensembles—band, chorus, orchestra—at the proficient and advanced levels. Our writing practitioners realized that ensemble directors usually have multiple grade levels of students within one ensemble and that they may even experience the teaching of multiple contents within their professional day. To assist in these situations, all six of the latest units share a common theme and first lesson: the role of copyright and how to make informed decisions about artistic ownership and creative choice.
In “Who Owns Music?” (the common Lesson 1 in the units), the study of a recent and contemporary copyright issue (https://www.natlawreview.com/article/truth-hurts-judge-rules-lizzo-100-copyright-owner by Sandra A. Crawshaw-Sparks and colleagues) is explored and applied to further discussions of historical content and interpretations. Specific ensemble areas then proceed to more content-related and skill-leveled lessons, culminating in the creation of a personal performance and/or composition of appropriate repertoire. A wealth of primary sources is included as live links, as are fillable student forms, handouts, and formative and summative assessments. All are directly aligned to specific music standards and artistic processes, with suggested time limits for instruction. Content also includes attention to social-emotional learning and culturally responsive teaching through the selected links and assignments.
These lessons and others are located on the NAfME website (https://nafme.org/my-classroom/nafme-tps-curriculum-units-2014-music-responding-standards) and contain a variety of resources for individual areas and crossing content, both in music and general education classrooms.
Writing Teams and Project Director
NAfME Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Curricular Units
