Abstract
Literature provides a wonderful impetus for both meaningful integration and music study, as it can be used to guide students to understanding the relationships between music and other disciplines, varied cultural and historical contexts, and experiences in daily life. This column presents the benefits of integrating literature in the music classroom, and provides an example of an integration lesson using the Russian folktale of The Firebird and the music of Stravinsky.
Keywords
A decade ago, during my first year of teaching elementary music, I found myself collapsed into a beanbag chair in the school library at the end of a long day. The group of lively second graders I had just finished teaching had me seriously questioning my chosen career. The difficulty I had with that particular class was not due to a lack of procedures or classroom management; it was that I struggled to connect with this group of children and find activities capable of engaging them in a way that would channel their energy into productive and meaningful music learning. As I sat in the library, the school librarian, Ms. Sweeney, approached with a knowing smile and simply said, “Second grade, huh?” I remember recounting the events of the previous class period and describing at length all of the things I had done for weeks to engage those second-grade children. When I was finished, she looked at me with a sympathetic smile and said, “They have always been great for me, but I am lucky, all children love a good story.”
A story can be a powerful tool in any classroom. According to Cornett (2006), The power of a shared story emotionally bonds listeners as they vicariously solve problems that propel fictional plots. Not to be ignored are the “ah ha” moments that are possible when informational books are read aloud and students are invited into “secrets of the universe” from social studies and science. (p. 236)
Ms. Sweeney’s words had a tremendous impact on my teaching as I realized that all music provides opportunities to explore stories and foster literacy development and learning in music and other subjects. Over the years I have carefully considered and integrated into my instruction the stories of singing games, folksongs, composers, and songwriters, as well as the stories that inspire the creation of musical works. I have found my students to be engaged in the music we are studying when the music is put into the context of a story.
Elementary classroom teachers are encouraged to integrate the arts into literacy instruction because the arts are considered to be essential to constructing meaning (Cornett, 2006, 2015; Eisner, 2002). Cornett (2006) states, Without the arts, learners are limited to reading, writing, speaking, and listening to process ideas. Such a truncated literacy curriculum leaves many students mute—especially those who struggle. . . . if literacy is the effective communication of thoughts and feelings, how can any program be considered humane or balanced if the focus is only on the language arts. (p. 235)
Cornett (2006) makes an important point about the need to integrate music, drama, dance, art, and language arts to foster literacy. The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) identifies the artistic processes of creating, performing, and responding as essential for cultivating and demonstrating music literacy (NAfME, n.d.). It is through performing, listening and responding to, or creating music that children are developing or demonstrating musical literacy. While the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards includes connecting as a fourth artistic process, NAfME considers connecting to be embedded in the artistic processes of creating, performing, and responding (NAfME, n.d.). Just as Cornett emphasizes the importance of integrating the arts into the literacy curriculum, in order to foster music literacy, music teachers need to strengthen the relationship between students and their ideas, music and other subjects.
Cornett (2015) advocates that literature and the literary arts should be treated as an art form alongside music, dance, drama, and visual art, rather than simply viewed as a means to deliver reading instruction. The literary arts can be especially valuable in the music classroom as they span every curricular topic and literary genre, while also possessing the “aesthetic power to develop deep comprehension and evoke emotional understanding” (p. 114). Like music, literature is produced through a creative process where the author conveys thoughts, ideas, and emotions into their work. Writers use literary devices or techniques (e.g., metaphor, alliteration, hyperbole, imagery) to add meaning and create compelling stories much like composers use compositional devices (e.g., ostinato, sequence, leitmotif) when composing a piece of music. And like music, there are many genres of literature (e.g., tragedy, fantasy, mythology, adventure, mystery).
The Firebird
Music, visual art, theatre, dance, and the literary arts share a number of concepts or big ideas that provide a means for meaningful integration. Folktale is a literary genre that is easy to integrate authentically with all of the art forms. I recently created and taught a series of lessons that explored the connection between folktale and folk song through Jane Yolen’s (2002) adaptation of the Russian folktale The Firebird and the music of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. After reading the story with the class and sharing that it is a folktale from Russia, we compared and contrasted definitions of folktale and folk song. The students identified that both folktale and folk songs originate among the people of a country or area and are passed by oral tradition. I introduced the students to Igor Stravinsky and shared a number of facts about the composer, including his love of Russian folk songs and his use of folk songs in some of his compositions, including The Firebird. I sang the melody of The Firebird finale to the students using solfège, and shared how Stravinsky borrowed the melody from folk song No. 21 “At the Gates of the Pine” (collected and compiled by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, 1876). I invited the students to sing the melody from iconic notation using solfège (see Firebird Presentation, available with the online version of the journal). Afterward, the students listened to the finale while following a chart that outlined how many times the melody was played and by which instruments (see Firebird Chart, available with the online version of the journal).
After the students listened to the finale we discussed how Stravinsky was able to repeat the same melody more than 11 times and keep the interest of listeners. The students identified Stravinsky’s alterations of tempo, dynamics, rhythm, instruments, and even the melody itself. I displayed the melody in standard notation and invited the students to perform the melody again using solfège. I asked the students to identify where Stravinsky split the melody into two smaller parts (A and B). The students were then invited to create and perform their own variations of the melody by arranging the two smaller parts of the melody into different patterns (e.g., ABA, BBA, ABBA).
The culminating activity was to play along with the finale using kazoos, drums, and triangles. To prepare students for the play along, I gave each two different colored scarves to represent the two parts of the melody and instructed them to hum and move their scarves at the appropriate time while following a displayed “score” (see Firebird Play Along, available with the online version of the journal). After having a few opportunities to listen and interact with the whole piece, students played along with the piece using kazoos (for the theme), drums, and triangles while following The Firebird score. After performing with instruments, the students were given the opportunity to analyze and improve their performance, as well as try the different instrument parts. At the end of the lesson, the students discussed the mood of the composition and shared some of the ways Stravinsky used the elements of music (dynamics, timbre, melody, rhythm, tempo, form) to help portray the ending of the story in the music of the finale.
“That. Was. Amazing!” exclaimed a fourth-grade student as The Firebird finale concluded. At the conclusion of The Firebird lesson the students expressed joy from their experience learning about and performing The Firebird finale. The children engaged in all of the artistic processes during The Firebird lesson as they listened and responded to the finale, performed the music (singing and playing instruments), and created their own variations of the folk song melody used in The Firebird finale. The Firebird lesson fostered musical literacy as students demonstrated their ability to listen for and identify the folk song melody in the finale, identify the number of ways Stravinsky altered the melody (instrumentation, dynamics, tempo, rhythm, using pieces of the theme), read and perform the melody from iconic notation, read and perform variations of the melody created by students, and read and perform the piece on instruments (kazoos, hand drums, and triangles) while following a score. The story of The Firebird permeated the lesson, and the students were able to gain valuable insight into the relationship between folk song and folktale, as well the cultural underpinnings in the story and music, the use of the literary arts as inspiration for other art forms, and how a composer can use the elements of music to express the mood of a story musically.
Literature provides a wonderful impetus for both meaningful integration and music study. I cannot help but be thankful for Ms. Sweeney’s profound words nearly 10 years ago. She was right: Students love stories, and stories make it possible for music teachers to guide their students to understanding the relationships between music and the other arts, other disciplines, varied contexts, and daily life (National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, 2014). Over the years I have found that by adding stories to my music lessons I am able to connect with my students and engage them in meaningful music learning.
Supplemental Material
Firebird_Chart_FINAL – Supplemental material for The Firebird: Integration of Folktale and Folk Song
Supplemental material, Firebird_Chart_FINAL for The Firebird: Integration of Folktale and Folk Song by Brittany Nixon May in General Music Today
Supplemental Material
Firebird_Play_Along – Supplemental material for The Firebird: Integration of Folktale and Folk Song
Supplemental material, Firebird_Play_Along for The Firebird: Integration of Folktale and Folk Song by Brittany Nixon May in General Music Today
Supplemental Material
Firebird_Presentation – Supplemental material for The Firebird: Integration of Folktale and Folk Song
Supplemental material, Firebird_Presentation for The Firebird: Integration of Folktale and Folk Song by Brittany Nixon May in General Music Today
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author Biography
References
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