This week’s resource was Educational Change and the Secondary School Music Curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by McPhail, Thorpe, and Wise. I specifically focused on Chapter 7, written by Vicki Thorpe, titled “Two conceptual models and their relationship to teaching and assessing group composing”. I found this to be a really interesting read, because it was surrounding a study that Thorpe did on assessment in composition classrooms in New Zealand – where students can gain high school credit for composing music. While Thorpe was focused on assessment, much of the problem came about in a disjoint of knowledge levels between composers and teachers. The students were often composing in popular and contemporary music styles, with various levels of musical ability and knowledge between them, and the teachers were not often comfortable with contemporary music styles.

The below picture is of a diagram that Thorpe used to teach the two different phases of composition to one of the classrooms she was in. This concept was able to unify the knowledge and language of the students and teachers, helping them better communicate their learning and processes. Thorpe reported that this also allowed students in rhythm sections or novice composers the ability to contribute more to the music, as they had a better understanding of the framework.

(PICTURE)

One other thing that I found made me have more buy in to this chapter was that Thorpe reported adapting Fautley’s model of group composing in the classrooms, and frequently cited Fautley throughout. This made me feel more comfortable with it, because I knew the name of one of the people being cited and felt like I could trust the research put into the process.