SQUILT and Language Arts

Submitted by Martha Stanley, NBCT, Tallahassee, Florida

Idea posted October 9, 2003

I want my students to enjoy their SQUILT experience but also listen intelligently AND manipulate language to explain their ideas. To that end, I have created a "SQUILT Form" and a matching transparency that you may view or download in PDF format. Make a transparency from the blank form.

The form is a type of graphic organizer that allows for four different questions/answers. It is in the shape of a huge ti-ti (two 8ths) with a bar, not individual notes. On the transparency, I write a question in each notehead, the bar joining the notes and, if I wish, in the space between the notes. The students will write their answers in the corresponding areas on their blank SQUILT forms.

I plan to have the questions showing on the transparency every time they hear the piece (at least three different occasions), so they can be alerted to what they will be writing about later when they need to.

One of my questions will be from an idea from Artie Almeida (from the MusicK8.com Mailing List), "Who might the composer be? Why?" I love that; not who IS the composer, but who might it be and explain your idea. That is a much higher level of thinking than just recall, especially when they have to justify their idea. I'm really not into the right and wrong of it all, but rather the careful listening and thinking provoked by the experience. Facts are easy; thinking can be tricky.

My first SQUILT is "Fanfare for the Common Man" (A. Copeland) as an intro to patriotic music. The questions I've chosen are: