Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (10 page)

By placing student learning at the helm of our teaching, our long-term goals create a stronger, more meaningful curriculum for students. In short, “covering” frameworks and/or teaching skills out of context or by presenting a canonical text such as
To Kill a Mockingbird
using the traditional approach in planning and teaching is not enough. These tired methods of teaching start at the beginning of a text, cover the information for a test in isolation, and, unfortunately, omit opportunities for students to wrestle with genuine problems and ideas that would allow them to make meaning of their learning. When teachers use thought-provoking, engaging, and interactive educational strategies, students walk away with powerful, meaningful interpretations of the understandings they gain from such approaches. Not only that, but students who have been taught using these strategies are not “covering” information from a text; they are “uncovering” essential questions and demonstrating how to apply their knowledge in various situations. As noted previously, the results from research support the uncoverage approach to improve student achievement (Wiggins and McTighe 35; Emberger). Specifically, it demonstrates unequivocally that teaching for meaning and understanding leads to more lasting and significant student learning and simultaneously meets appropriate educational outcomes without having to “teach to the test.”

When students understand, they can proceed to explain, interpret, and apply skills to make sense of their world through assessments that demand transfer of learning. And as students gain such perspective on their own learning, their success at transfer depends on a realization of how to connect otherwise isolated or inert facts, skills, and experiences to the real. By using TSOTN on
To Kill a Mockingbird
, our students were able to connect an otherwise isolated text to real-life experiences and understandings discovered in their world of music. Thus, TSOTN is more process than product since genuine learning is never finished. The primary goal of our literacy classrooms should be to help students learn how to learn. They are not tabulae rasae upon which knowledge is etched nor are they empty vessels for teachers to fill with knowledge. Instead, we as educators must realize that our students come to learning situations with their own knowledge, ideas, and understandings. Through activities such as making text-to-song connections, students can discover their ideas and recognize that they are sometimes invalid, incorrect, or insufficient to explain current experiences and understandings. When students learn new pieces of information, they compare the information to the knowledge and understanding they already have, and when the new information matches up with previous knowledge, students add it to their comprehension—though this sometimes takes some work (Smith 13).

TSOTN includes, reinforces, and sustains the development of students' thinking skills. These skills then enable students to transfer their learning to real-world applications. They learn to solve problems, and, thereby, they learn to consider multiple and flexible perspectives of understanding and thinking (in themselves and about others). By varying opportunities for learning, we can provide students an opportunity to engage in assessment that more specifically meets their individual learning needs/styles. Clearly, accepting the premise that students' learning should drive instruction and committing to ongoing professional knowledge and skill development serves to create lifelong learners and to empower students to explore, reason, infer, problem-solve, and grapple with their understandings and misunderstandings to discover meaningful, purposeful, and engaging learning.

Conclusion

In a welcome address to the parents of incoming students at the Boston Conservatory, Dr. Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of the music division, explained that “music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds.” When we ask students to connect music to the text, we are, in essence, asking them to filter their understanding of an obscure text through the lenses of sensibility in their music—the place where many of today's teens go to discover meaning in and to make sense of their lives. As a consequence, students will find opportunities to express their understanding of a text through their understanding of self. As Paulnack asserts, music allows us to “move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it.” When students create a soundtrack of the novel, they are connecting, learning, and demonstrating newfound skills. Their writing reveals not a product but a process of growth and maturation, one similar to that which Scout and Jem experience in
To Kill a Mockingbird
.

Works Cited

Bransford, John D., Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking, eds. “The Design of Learning Environments.” In
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School
. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000. (131–154)

Carnicelli, Thomas. “The English Language Arts in American Schools: Problems and Proposals.” In
What's at Stake in the K-12 Standards Wars: A Primer for Educational Policy Makers
. Ed. Sandra N. Stotsky. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. (211–231)

Emberger, Marcella. “Assessing the Assessments: Helping Teachers Think Like Assessors.”
Principal
, March 2006: 39–40. Retrieved December 2009 from www.naesp
.org/Principal2006M-A.aspx.

Goering, Christian Z. “Music and the Personal Narrative: The Dual Track to Meaningful Writing.”
The Quarterly
26.4 (December 2004): 11–17.

——
—. “Open Books, Open Ears, and Open Minds:
The Grapes of Wrath
, the ‘Broken Plow,' and the LitTunes Approach.” In
Dialogue 7: “The Grapes of Wrath”: A Reconsideration
. Ed. Michael J. Meyer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. (801–817)

Goering, Christian Z., Katherine Collier, Scott Koenig, John O. O'Berski, Stephanie Pierce, and Kelly Riley. “Musical Intertextuality in Action: A Directed Reading of
Of ‎Mice and Men
.” In
The Essential Criticism of Of Mice and Men
. Ed. Michael J. Meyer. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2009. (307–330)

Harris, Pauline and Barbra McKenzie. “Networking around the Waterhole and Other Tales: The Importance of Relationships among Texts for Reading and Related Instruction.”
Literacy
, 2005: 31–37.

Hirsch, E. Donald.
The Knowledge Deficit
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

Lenski, Susan D. “Intertextual Connections during Discussions about Literature.”
Reading Psychology
22.4 (October 2001): 313–335.

Paulnack, Karl. “Karl Paulnack to the Boston Conservatory Freshman.” The Boston Conservatory. March 2009. http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/s/940/Bio.aspx?sid
=940&gid=1&pgid=1241.

Rosenblatt, Louise.
Literature as Exploration
. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1938.

Smith, Mark K. “Jerome Bruner and the Process of Education.” The Encyclopedia of Informal Education. http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm.

Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe.
Understanding by Design
. Expanded 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson Education, 2005.

Cindy's Soundtrack

Chapter Song Title Artist or Group

Chapter 1 The Way We Were Barbra Streisand

Chapter 2 Playground in My Mind Clint Holmes

Chapter 3 Hope for the Hopeless Brett Dennen

Chapter 4 Summertime Sam Cooke

Chapter 5 I Was Only Joking Rod Stewart

Chapter 6 Little Lies Fleetwood Mac

Chapter 7 Bad Blood Neil Sedaka

Chapter 8 We Didn't Start the Fire Billy Joel

Chapter 9 It Isn't Right Platters

Chapter 10 Mockingbird Carly Simon and James Taylor

Chapter 11 Devil Woman Cliff Richard

Chapter 12 Go Your Own Way Fleetwood Mac

Chapter 13 I'm Still a Guy Brad Paisley*

Chapter 14 Runaway Del Shannon

Chapter 15 Innocence Kenny G

Chapter 16 Dressed To Kill a Mockingbird Black Blondie

Chapter 17 Walk a Mile in My Shoes Elvis Presley

Chapter 18 You've Got to Be Carefully Rodgers and Hammerstein*
Taught

Chapter 19 I Fall to Pieces Patsy Cline

Chapter 20 Theme from Romeo and Juliet Henry Mancini*

Chapter 21
The Night the Lights Went Ou
t Vickie Lawrence
in Georgia
Chapter 22 Don't Stop Believing Journey*

Chapter 23 High Cotton Alabama

Chapter 24 The Great Pretender Platters

Chapter 25 To Kill a Mockingbird Dear Noel

Chapter 26 You Don't Mess Around Jim Croce
with Jim

Chapter 27 Against the Wind Bob Seger

Chapter 28 Someone Saved My Life Elton John
Tonight

Chapter 29 I Can See Clearly Now Johnny Nash*

Chapter 30 Braveheart L ‘Orchestra Cinematique

Chapter 31 I Believe Brooks & Dunn

*Songs discussed at length.

Chris's Soundtrack

Chapter Song Title Artist or Group

Chapter 1 Ghosts You Can See Lost Immigrants

Chapter 2 A Blessing and a Curse Drive-By Truckers

Chapter 3 Walk a Mile in My Shoes Jimmy LaFave

Chapter 4 My Brother and Me Bruce Robison

Chapter 5 Dead Flowers The Rolling Stones

Chapter 6 God Bless this Town Wade Bowen

Chapter 7 Mug Tree Lady Still on the Hill

Chapter 8 California Snow Tom Russell*

Chapter 9 Framed Chris Knight

Chapter 10 Pugilist at 59 Tom Russell

Chapter 11 My Morphine Gillian Welch

Chapter 12 Almost Grown Jesse Malin

Chapter 13 The End of the Innocence Don Henley

Chapter 14 What Do You Say in a Moment Like This Reba McEntire

Chapter 15 If I Were You Chris Knight*

Chapter 16 Time (the Revelator) Gillian Welch

Chapter 17 Before You Accuse Me Eric Clapton

Chapter 18 Reasons to Lie Whiskeytown

Chapter 19 Southern Man Neil Young

Chapter 20 Double Indemnity Scott Miller

Chapter 21 If I Had Possession over Judgment Day Robert Johnson

Chapter 22 Man in Black Johnny Cash*

Chapter 23 Crooked Piece of Time Todd Snider

Chapter 24 No Depression in Heaven The Carter Family*

Chapter 25 Imagine John Lennon

Chapter 26 Childish Things James McMurtry

Chapter 27 Bad Moon Rising John Fogerty

Chapter 28 Never Gonna Change Drive-By Truckers

Chapter 29 In the Arms of the Angels Sarah McLachlan

Chapter 30 Mockingbird Ryan Adams

Chapter 31 Alright Guy Todd Snider

*Songs discussed at length.

Student Handout

Imaginary Soundtrack of the Novel

Music has become an integral part of human existence. It motivates us, calms us, inspires us, at times irritates us, and basically becomes the backdrop against which we live our lives. Songs can bring vivid memories of persons, places, and events from our own past and serve to document our thoughts, feelings, and emotions at a given time or place. One especially rich time for these songs to enter our consciousness is when we read other people's words.

Part I Assignment

Imagine you were asked to compile a soundtrack for
To Kill a Mockingbird
. What songs would you include? Collect the titles of at least eight songs that are meaningful to the group and that the group feels document what is actually happening in the chosen chapters (the minimum is eight songs regardless of number of chapters—you may do more than eight). Your songs should be listed in the chronological order of the chapters/events they document. Put some thought into the order of your songs and the complete package you are presenting to the class. School appropriateness is based on group conferencing.

Song Title Artist or Group

Track 1

Track 2

Track 3

Track 4

Track 5

Track 6

Track 7

Track 8

(extra)

(extra)

Part II Assignment

Now that you have created the imaginary soundtrack to this novel, write a reflective letter (addressed to “Dear Listener,”) that explains why you chose the particular songs that you did. For each song you will need to reflect on the events, characters, settings, and so on that inspired this selection. Again, for the purposes of this assignment, be sure that this letter is school appropriate. Use the outline here to help you construct this letter. You need to cover each topic listed in the appropriate number of paragraphs; however, the questions listed are only there to help you begin thinking about the topic. You do not need to answer each and every question or any of the questions as long

as you have sufficiently explained the topic of each section. Be sure to include specific details of the connections made so we, your readers, will understand your thinking behind each. Finally, please use proper MLA parenthetical citations.

Topic 1—Explanation of This Soundtrack (one paragraph)

This paragraph outlines your rationale or purpose in creating this soundtrack:

What is this album you have created?

Why are you completing it? (because it is an assignment is NOT an answer!)

What do you hope to get out of this project?

What goals did you have for creating it?

Topic 2—Explanation of Each Song on the Soundtrack (one paragraph per song)

This section is made up of many smaller paragraphs. Be sure to explain your choices song by song and address the following questions:

What is the name of the song and the artist?

Why is each song important to this particular chapter?

How does each song connect to the novel?

What does each song reveal about the chapter and why do you think it is representa-

tive of the chapter?

Topic 3—Final Remarks and Reflection on the Soundtrack as a Whole (one paragraph)

This paragraph is your group's conclusion in which you should thank your reader for taking the time to listen to your soundtrack and offer any final reflections upon this project as a whole.