Planning and Preparation 

I was made aware that the students had been given small composition projects to complete in the past. Given that, I did not want to ‘copy & paste’ a previous assignment but the music-writing process intrigued me. “How much can a 6th grader create? What sort of instructional scaffolding is needed for a 6th grader to be successful? How can I make this interesting for my students rather than it becoming another tedious assignment?” After some grounding, guiding-questions, I began the process of building the assignment.

In preparation for Day 1 specifically, I gathered a few examples of work. Transcriptions that I had completed in the past for my introductory orchestration course at Michigan State, a popular video game song that kids could relate to and a Beethoven piece to use as a guided class-example. 

Planning STP Days 2 & 3 were relatively straightforward, following a normal project timeline. With that in mind, Day 2 would become a work day flowing into Day 3, which included final performances of their work and a reflection on the STP project itself. 

Each class, I continued to update and create new slides with helpful information. Things to watch out for, advanced ideas for high achievers, rhythm examples, even multiple song selections for students that could not decide on a choice or not sure what to pick. 

I tried to come to Day 1 pre-prepped for the barrage of questions from students, ways to 'set up for success' ahead of time. For example, a common question would be, "how do I choose a song to transcribe? What should I pick?" In order to combat their worries, I created prompts for them to think about and guide their song-selection process. 

Implementing Instruction