Forget the Reading, Get Writing!
Presently, for the spring term my Year 7 class are studying Baroque and Classical Music, while my Year 8 class are happily ploughing through the Romantic period.
I always start these projects off with a keyboard performance module that then morphs into a class performance on several instruments. These bits work fine with both year groups. The bits that the students have always struggled with has been learning the historical elements. We in the department have tried the old 'death by powerpoint' approach, and mind mapping, but it has never been satisfactory as the bright kids end up waiting for the others to catch up, while the ones who are still working on improving their language acquisition (96% of our students are EAL - some to the point that English is their fourth or fifth language) or have SEN requirements have struggled.
Having been doing a lot of reading about differentiation, listening to webinars and picking peoples brains at school, I thought I would try something different - getting the students to write a book!
First of all I researched our students reading ages, and while a number are within a year or two of their expected level, others are 3-5 years lower than age expected. I therefore decided that the reading age that the books should be written for would be around 8 years old. My reason for this was 8 is the age of our year 3's - this is where some are starting to read more confidently by themselves, it is the start of Key Stage 2 where the Music Curriculum starts to introduce music from these periods. It is also the level of a number of our KS3-4 students who we are expecting to know and understand these topics...
I approached a Year 3 colleague, and it came as a shock to me at the level of reading that some of the books were written for. Obviously I had forgotten that at that age, not only did my two parents encourage reading at home, but I also used to spend hours trying to read all my dads WWII history books. This said, I took a wide range away to serve as models for my students, and found that even the simplest books had ideas that we could use, and that the design and attention to detail was highly thought through.
All classes have now completed the first stage of the process, which was to work in a small group to evaluate and analyse a given book to ascertain how it presented information on its topic. The groups have now also been working on finding out information and images on their selected topics.
Having previously used exit tickets and checklists to help the students work through the process of learning a piece, I experimented with asking each group to come up with their own task list of what they thought they needed to do and who should undertake which job. Unfortunately, it seems that my modelling of doing this was far too good, as all they did was copy mine (cheeky beggars)! I have now developed a checklist for them to use, so hopefully this will help them stay on track.
The next step of the process is to start thinking about the design of the book and how the information and images will be displayed on the page. This is the next step because some books only have 10-15 words on a page while others have 3-4 paragraphs. Once they have settled on this, the groups will then have to work as individuals to create their texts and select their images.
The final step will be to give the book in final draft to another group to edit and revise before the final book can be 'published'.
I am planning to have a book launch where each group will have to present their book, and then it will be available in hard copy in the school library and, hopefully, as a PDF on the school website.
If things go to plan I am hoping to spend 4 weeks on this process before returning to a final performance and composition assignment. While this might have taken a little longer than just giving the students the facts maybe, just maybe, when they get to their assessments, the students will be able to confidently approach any questions on these topics.
I always start these projects off with a keyboard performance module that then morphs into a class performance on several instruments. These bits work fine with both year groups. The bits that the students have always struggled with has been learning the historical elements. We in the department have tried the old 'death by powerpoint' approach, and mind mapping, but it has never been satisfactory as the bright kids end up waiting for the others to catch up, while the ones who are still working on improving their language acquisition (96% of our students are EAL - some to the point that English is their fourth or fifth language) or have SEN requirements have struggled.
Having been doing a lot of reading about differentiation, listening to webinars and picking peoples brains at school, I thought I would try something different - getting the students to write a book!
First of all I researched our students reading ages, and while a number are within a year or two of their expected level, others are 3-5 years lower than age expected. I therefore decided that the reading age that the books should be written for would be around 8 years old. My reason for this was 8 is the age of our year 3's - this is where some are starting to read more confidently by themselves, it is the start of Key Stage 2 where the Music Curriculum starts to introduce music from these periods. It is also the level of a number of our KS3-4 students who we are expecting to know and understand these topics...
I approached a Year 3 colleague, and it came as a shock to me at the level of reading that some of the books were written for. Obviously I had forgotten that at that age, not only did my two parents encourage reading at home, but I also used to spend hours trying to read all my dads WWII history books. This said, I took a wide range away to serve as models for my students, and found that even the simplest books had ideas that we could use, and that the design and attention to detail was highly thought through.
All classes have now completed the first stage of the process, which was to work in a small group to evaluate and analyse a given book to ascertain how it presented information on its topic. The groups have now also been working on finding out information and images on their selected topics.
Having previously used exit tickets and checklists to help the students work through the process of learning a piece, I experimented with asking each group to come up with their own task list of what they thought they needed to do and who should undertake which job. Unfortunately, it seems that my modelling of doing this was far too good, as all they did was copy mine (cheeky beggars)! I have now developed a checklist for them to use, so hopefully this will help them stay on track.
The next step of the process is to start thinking about the design of the book and how the information and images will be displayed on the page. This is the next step because some books only have 10-15 words on a page while others have 3-4 paragraphs. Once they have settled on this, the groups will then have to work as individuals to create their texts and select their images.
The final step will be to give the book in final draft to another group to edit and revise before the final book can be 'published'.
I am planning to have a book launch where each group will have to present their book, and then it will be available in hard copy in the school library and, hopefully, as a PDF on the school website.
If things go to plan I am hoping to spend 4 weeks on this process before returning to a final performance and composition assignment. While this might have taken a little longer than just giving the students the facts maybe, just maybe, when they get to their assessments, the students will be able to confidently approach any questions on these topics.
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