Sharing Hope Through Song6th Grade Choir

Mrs. Melanie Meinders

Pella Christian Grade School

Deep Hope:

My deep hope is for students to appreciate both the musical skills they are developing and themselves as valid musicians who can

touch others and make a difference with music.

Essential Learning Targets:

I can explain how choirs use different elements of music to create a specific atmosphere for me as a listener.

I can demonstrate how the musical choices I make, such as dynamics, tempo, and timbre, can create a moment of beauty for a hurting family in our community.

I can explain how the music I make will have impacts on others in both positive and negative ways and has the potential to bring hope, healing, and harmony to those around me.

Essential Curricular Outcomes:MU: Re8.1.6aDescribe a personal interpretation of how creators’ and performers’ application of the elements of music and expressive qualities, within genres and cultural and historical context, convey expressive intent.

MU: Pr4.3.6aPerform a selected piece of music demonstrating how their interpretations of the elements of music and the expressive qualities (such as dynamics, tempo, timbre, articulation/style, and phrasing) convey intent.

MU: Cn11.0.6a Demonstrate understanding of relationships between music and the other arts, other disciplines, varied contexts, and daily life.

See God’s Story:

Creation Fall Redemption Restoration

God gave us music to touch and be

touched. Music is an ordering of rhythms and

pitches that, when combined with emotion and

intellect, can speak to us deeply.

Music in its broken form is used to

represent selfish ambitions and

ideals.

Music can have a deeper meaning and impact when we share it with

each other within community.

We can create beauty and foster community with

music.

Storyline:

I wanted to find a way for the students to experience a tangible

moment of being able to use music to bring hope to someone going

through a hard time in a way that is meaningful to both the givers and

the receivers.

Through-lines:

Beauty Creator• Students will learn a hurting person’s favorite song, paying attention especially

to how they can sing it beautifully for her.• As musicians, we are always striving to create something that will speak to

hearts. Arranging a song artistically for someone we care about will help us makeconnections between our music-making and bringing hope to dark places.

Community Builder• Students will help strengthen our community by caring for a family in our

community who is facing difficult, uncertain times.• Students will see how music is a foundational way of bringing communities

together and uniting them in a common cause.

Formational Learning Experience:

Real Needs:• Messages of hope and encouragement in difficult times.

Real People:• A mom of a student in our school, who was supposed to be teaching Kindergarten at our

school this year, is fighting brain cancer and the students want to bring her a message ofhope.

Real Work:• Taking one of this woman’s favorite songs, learning it, using what we’ve learned about

music to make it beautiful for her, and then singing it for her and her family.

Students were invited to watch a wide variety of choirs and analyzing what it was about each choir specifically that captured people’s attention. What was the atmosphere each choir created, and what musical elements were used to create that atmosphere?

Students were then invited to think and write about people in their own lives who they thought would benefit by someone making music for them:

Invite

One of the students’ ideas was chosen as a practical, applicable, and meaningful way for us to share music with others. We then looked at some of the song choices which were this person’s favorites and chose one that connected with the students themselves and that we thought would be most fitting for our large-group choir setting.

In the following weeks, we first practiced the basic elements of the song, and then we began discussing and incorporating ideas for how we could musically arrange the song in a way which would speak specifically to the purpose/situation we were preparing it for.

Nurture

Especially for You

Empower

Student Reflections:

Students reflected that it felt good to be able to make music for a family that is hurting. They loved receiving the response back from the Natelborg family, expressing appreciation for them taking the time to create this for them, and Lori told them how impressed she was that they sang in harmony for them.

Although they felt like this lasted a long time they felt overall that this was valuable and that they would like to make music specifically for someone else sometime again.

Teacher Reflections:

Since my deep hope is Hope - Healing - Harmony, it was a privilege to read the ideas many of the students came up with for ways to use music to help others.

The learning targets were reached in real and tangible ways, as we had to:1) analyze how other choirs created effective performances2) brainstorm/work together as a choir to decide how to arrange our song ina way that would effectively communicate our intent for our audience, and3) we got to experience firsthand how powerfully the music we make canaffect others, for God’s glory.