Independent Student Rehearsal By The Second Month Of School School
Welcome back to Choralosophy Community Contributor, Ian Henning! This fantastic article will useful to vocal music educators of all levels. Ian is a great example of a myth buster.
Namely, Ian is living proof that YOUNG STUDENTS CAN!! Music literacy, independence, collaboration and problem solving skills don’t have to be reserved for “snobby high school and college programs.” Enjoy the article below, from Ian Henning.
Context and Disclaimers:
I teach 6-12 choir at a small K-12 school, and my typical class size is just over 20 students. Choir is one elective among many, so students who sign up for the class really want to be there. I don’t think this method would work if that was not the case. We are on a block schedule, so we have a 90 minute rehearsal every other school day. We have a smallish classroom and no alternative rehearsal spaces, aside from sometimes singing outside when the weather permits. My teaching philosophy is rooted first and foremost in independent musicianship; we do 90% of our rehearsing a cappella, with the other 10% of rehearsal time making use of accompaniment tracks (not learning tracks). From the first day of school, I use Dale Duncan’s S-Cubed curriculum to teach middle school sight reading, and Chris Munce’s Choralosophy methodology to teach high school sight reading. The following process is how I get my 6th graders (none of whom have ever had choir with me) to become reliant on themselves within 4 weeks of the first day of school, every year. Singers who’ve been with me before rehearse on their own constantly, starting on the first day of school. Nothing gets them more excited than learning on their own!
By about 2 months into the year, my 6th graders inevitably ask to run their own rehearsal every day.
If you don’t see much value in that, this guide is likely not for you.
Your mileage may vary!
Create The Opportunity
Every year in mid-September, I take a day off for an annual event I attend. I view this as crucial to my success. I had an extremely hard time letting go of the reins while I was in the classroom; it is so easy to shout out helpful advice and steer them away from pitfalls! Ultimately, that keeps them reliant on me. The best method, I have found, is to announce my impending absence about a week and a half before it arrives, and spend lots and lots of class time teaching them how to run an effective rehearsal without me.
When they have a sub, I never have students do anything other than run independent rehearsal. (A side benefit is that this saves me a TON of time writing sub plans.) I always get a sub that doesn’t know anything about music by advertising it as “the easiest sub day you’ll ever have”, as they get paid to sit around and make sure nothing catches fire. I tell the students this from the get go, so they know the substitute won’t be able to guide them at all. The sub should also not step in to redirect them if they get off task or don’t follow the lesson plan or give up on running rehearsal. The sub, ideally, should take attendance and do literally nothing else all day. Worst case scenario, nothing gets done and you lose a sub day. It’s okay if they fail! It’s very good data for you. The reason why they failed is important to know.
Scaffold the Skills
There’s a million little things students need to be able to do to run a good rehearsal. How do we avoid talking (or worse, shouting) over each other? How do we operate classroom technology? How do we count off before we sing? How do we stay together? How do we stay in body alignment and practice healthy/stylistically appropriate singing technique without teacher reminders? How do we decide when it’s time to switch to the next activity? How do we mediate disagreements? How do we stay focused? (This one can be extra tough for 90 minute classes!) Some of those questions I may never need to ask aloud, and some may require lots of thought, trial and error, and reflection across many classes to figure out; it varies year to year. My best results have come from asking students these questions and putting their ideas into practice during what I call “test runs”.
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Test runs are when I temporarily step back from leading rehearsal for a few minutes and observe how they do without me. They can happen any time, during any activity. At first, once the concept is introduced, I will shout “test run!” and go to a corner of the room. After they get used to this, I will sometimes silently move away without announcing anything. If they look at me for guidance, I make a “keep going” gesture with my hand. This gets them used to answering those questions I posed above in a practical setting. I respond to what I see them struggle with during test runs, and help them brainstorm ideas for addressing those struggles. I give them the tools they need to succeed.
The class before the sub day, we write the lesson plan together, and I post it on Google Classroom or write it on the whiteboard. I’ve done this a couple different ways, but most recently: for their bell ringer, I had them write down a short list of what songs they most wanted to work on and what games they most wanted to play while I was gone. They shared in small groups and I asked for 1 volunteer from each group to share 1 idea.
For each idea shared, we did a quick test run: “you have 2 minutes to pull this off with no help from me”. We modified activities as needed to fit within that time frame. It showed them which things they were capable of doing with no help, and which they weren’t ready for yet, all without my input. Additionally, it let them put into practice the skills we had worked on over the past week in a more holistic way; oftentimes, the hardest part of a student-run activity is getting it off the ground.
Debrief and Move Forward
I always ask the sub to leave a brief note of how each class goes. At the start of the class following my absence, I read the note aloud and ask
Is this accurate?
What else happened that the sub didn’t write down?
How did you like the sub?
Overall, how did it go?
What specifically went well?
What could have been better?
The first 4 questions are asked to the whole class at once and answered pretty rapidly. The last 2 are given some think time, I take answers individually, and encourage students to bounce off each other.
For each class, 1 of 3 things will have happened: 1) they ran a successful rehearsal, 2) they ran an unsuccessful rehearsal, 3) they did not run rehearsal. Both 1) and 2) are good outcomes, assuming your students are motivated by running a successful rehearsal without any teacher help. That they tried probably means this is true, even if they did not perceive it as successful. In the case of 3), forget trying to get them to rehearse independently, you’ve got bigger fish to fry. Try to determine why they did not run rehearsal, and go from there.
In the case of 1) or 2), it’s time to reflect on the wins and opportunities for growth and talk about what we want to do differently for the next sub day. As it happens, I always have a different annual event a couple weeks later, which is perfect for this. Even if I didn't end up going to that event in the future, at this point I would take the sub day regardless.
Once they reach a critical mass of tools in their Rehearsal Toolbox (which could be its own document), I start dramatically reducing the amount of direct instruction I deliver and start dramatically increasing the number of questions I ask them to prompt their critical thinking. This is another huge component of my success.
One salient example would be when something goes wrong, everyone knows it, and they all look at you for help: ask “what happened there?” instead of telling them what went wrong, then ask “how can we fix it?” instead of telling them how. I use this every time an issue comes up that I have already given them the tools to fix. This further increases their autonomy by getting them used to the concept of identifying and applying the right tool for the job with zero input from me. I also do this quite often when issues come up that I haven’t yet given them the tools to fix. Sometimes students can intuit a solution, but more importantly, rather than asking me for help as a starting point, students learn to rely on themselves first, and then asking for help if they come up empty.
That’s independence!
Thanks very much for reading. I hope you were able to gain something from this. If you try this method out with your ensemble, I would love to hear how it went, and anything you did beyond what I’ve written here that worked well for you. Feel free also to reach out with any questions about this; I’m happy to help more people discover the joy of guiding a group to rehearse autonomously! I have found it to be a deeply rewarding experience.
I hope you will drop YOUR experiences in the comments!
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