edTPA PlanningCommentary

Performing Arts
Task 1: Planning Commentary
TASK 1: PLANNING COMMENTARY

Respond to the prompts below (no more than 9 single-spaced pages, including prompts) by typing your responses within the
brackets. Do not delete or alter the prompts. Pages exceeding the maximum will not be scored.
1. Central Focus
a. Describe the central focus and purpose for the content you will teach in the learning
segment.
[ The concert band at the school that I am student teaching at suffers greatly from
not participating as an ensemble in rehearsals and performances. Many of the students are
content with playing their notes and rhythms at any volume, regardless of the ensembles
voicing, complexity, or melodic content. The lesson segment is planned to slowly combat
that as we prepare for our concert on March 10th. The goal is to get the students to have a
basic understanding of proper ensemble performance techniques, and for them to start to
evaluate their own performances to be aware of when they are not using proper ensemble
playing.]
b. Given the central focus, describe how the standards and learning objectives within your
learning segment address creating, performing, or responding to music/dance/theater by
applying
artistic skills (e.g., self-expression, creativity, exploration/improvisation)

knowledge (e.g., tools/instruments, technical proficiencies, processes, elements,
organizational principles)
contextual understandings (e.g., social, cultural, historical, global, personal reflection)

[ MU:Cr3.1 Evaluate and refine selected musical ideas to create musical work that meets
appropriate criteria.
By addressing certain ideas within the larger phrases, especially during T.J. Cross
Be Thou My Vision
, we can as an ensemble refine our own vision of the piece. The trumpet solo sets the initial
musical idea that the rest of the ensemble will use the same style, so being able to evaluate
what the trumpet solo has done will create a better chance at a unified ensemble sound. Being
able to evaluate and connect similarities and differences even if needed prodding is the start to
a great ensemble.
MU:Pr4.3 Develop personal interpretations that consider creators intent
By allowing our principal players and soloists to perform their given parts with their own
interpretations allow the ensembles leadership to set the models for evaluation and refinement
set in the prior standard. Allowing the students to establish their own interpretation allows the
ensemble to have some individuality, and allows students the chance to perform their own
interpretations for the group to evaluate.
MU:Pr5.3 Evaluate and refine personal and ensemble performances, individually or in
collaboration with others.
This standard allows us to apply the knowledge of previous performance techniques lessons
and apply it to the evaluation of personal, group, and given performances and rehearsals. This
is the practical application of knowledge that I have taught them, and allows me to assess
whether they can apply proper terms and ideas to their own performances.
MU:Pr6.1 Perform expressively, with appropriate interpretation and technical accuracy and in a
manner appropriate to the audience and context.
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Performing Arts
Being able to perform expressively as an entire ensemble is the end goal of this learning
segment, especially doing it together. This standard addresses performing within the ensemble
sound, and with the proper balance. Most of my objectives for the learning for the day fall most
within the realm of this standard. Being able to perform the piece and convey its entire meaning
to the audience is the end goal of this segment.
MU:Re9.1 Support personal evaluation of musical works and performance(s) based on
analysis, interpretation, and established criteria.
This is important as it allows me to assess the students knowledge of the material, and their
use of understanding of the important factors of how to perform as an ensemble. My lessons
always include students giving their own feedback on their performances, being that it helps
push them to understand why things arent working out.]
c. Explain how your plans build on each other to help students in creating, performing, or
responding to music/dance/theater and in making connections to artistic skills,
knowledge, and contextual understandings.
[The plans build on each other by quickly reviewing what we had covered the lesson prior
during our warm up and getting our minds engaged in the rehearsal. In Lesson 1 we cover
the warmth of sound, dynamics and how they apply within the ensemble rather than the
individual, and how we can convey similar ideas through listening. In Lesson 2, those
themes are present during the warm up during our working on the chorale Bach 95. By
dedicating the warm up time to reviewing our work from the lesson prior, it gives us the
opportunity to have a successful and engaged warm up and sets the ensemble up for a
productive rehearsal. The last lesson is the highest pinnacle as it is a run through of our
pieces. By using the warm up time to focus ourselves on topics already covered, we should
be engaged enough to allow ourselves to showcase all our skills, old and new.]
2. Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
For each of the prompts below (2ab), describe what you know about your students with
respect to the central focus of the learning segment.
Consider the variety of learners in your class who may require different strategies/support
(e.g., students with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners, struggling readers,
underperforming students or those with gaps in academic knowledge, and/or gifted
students).
a. Prior academic learning and prerequisite skills related to the central focusCite
evidence of what students know, what they can do, and what they are still learning
to do.
[ The students know and are able to identify good sounding performances, are able to
identify and evaluate positives and negatives of their own sound, and have an
understanding of the proper technique of their instrument. I am able to assess their
understandings of performances and both positives and negatives through rehearsals. Their
ability to use proper technique has been assessed by both myself and my supervising
teacher through individual lessons. The students are capable of achieving rhythmic or
melodic accuracy, able to play most notes with a centered and decent tone, and can perform
both by themselves and within ensembles. This is understood through their performances at
Solo & Ensemble competition, and through personal lessons with my supervising teacher
and myself. The students are still learning to actively listen and to be active musicians rather
than passively allow music to pass in front of them.]

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Performing Arts
b. Personal/cultural/community assets related to the central focusWhat do you know

about your students everyday experiences, cultural backgrounds, practices, and
interests?
[ The students that I interact with on a daily basis are on average from upper middle class
families, and are mostly Caucasian with a few African American, Hispanic, and Latino
students as well. All of the students that I teach do not need to worry about where they will
be sleeping that night, or when the next time they will be able to eat is. The school itself is
placed within a suburban setting, minutes away from a mall and major retail stores. The
students that I work with are used to immediate gratification through internet and social
media, and are frustrated easily with work. Students will actively participate if pushed hard
enough, and are willing to work for internal gratification rather than extrinsic motivation.
Some of the students within this ensemble participate in multiple activities ranging from
engineering teams to being on an, if not multiple, athletic teams. Conflicts with the ensemble
abound on a weekly basis from conflicting rehearsals or trips. The students interests are
just as ranged, as the ensemble has musicians who are avid horseback riders, archers,
bowlers, artists, and academicians. It does mean that finding the timeto practice seems to
always be an excuse that is brought up as to why they are not as successful as they could
be.]
3. Supporting Students Performing Arts Learning
Respond to prompts below (3ac). To support your justifications, refer to the instructional
materials and lesson plans you have included as part of Task 1. In addition, use
principles from research and/or theory to support your explanations.
a. Justify how your understanding of your students prior academic learning and
personal/cultural/community assets (from prompts 2ab above) guided your choice or
adaptation of learning tasks and materials. Be explicit about the connections between
the learning tasks and students prior academic learning, assets, and research/theory.
[ Understanding that most of the students everyday life is achieving a passing score or
doing exactly what they are told is why I wanted the students to explore conveying emotion,
direction, and performing as an ensemble. Being able to convey emotions through
music rather than play just the notes and rhythms and letting the students really decide how
they wanted everything helps the students receive a type of freedom of expression that I
think that some of these students do not have in the rest of their everyday experiences. In
choices of material T.J. Cross Be Thou My Vision allowed for many instances of emotional
draw from the students, while Sousas The Liberty Bell March is a staple of band literature
and was educationally well suited to meet curriculum needs of the program. The bands two
other works Different Voices and The Music Man Medley allow for some more interpretation,
but are being taught by my supervising teacher. My choice of material was not entirely my
own as the department does have to meet certain expectations. However adapting the
learning tasks that require the ensemble to work together and convey a clear emotion to the
ensemble was entirely my own choice, and was brought about by listening to apathetic
rehearsals and performances from the ensemble. The students that I work with all came
through a fantastically run 9th grade program, where emotion, dynamics, phrasing, and
ensemble performance were all required and discussed at length. However, the high school
has gone through numerous director changes within the last few years, with varying
expectations on the students. Therefore, all of the students have had this instruction before,
it just has not been reinforced or retaught due to a very fluid teaching corps.]

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Performing Arts
b. Describe and justify why your instructional strategies and planned supports are
appropriate for the whole class, individuals, and/or groups of students with specific
learning needs.
Consider students with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners, struggling readers,
underperforming students or those with gaps in academic knowledge, and/or gifted
students.
[The way that my lesson is set up and designed is to maximize the level of engagement and
ability to succeed from the highest amount of my students. The entire class is struggling with
grasping this concept so many of the lessons ideas are designed at making sure the whole
group is actively thinking about the new concepts. By utilizing the warm up as the large
section of the instruction, it allows us to teach the students while their attention span is still
active, rather than trying to teach new concepts while students are beginning to space out,
and let their minds wander. Using the warm up as an instructional tool also allows me to see
who is being engaged, and showing me who is not ready for rehearsal to begin as well. The
reason for this is that most of our warm ups are unisons which require that all members be
playing and participating. It also lets me hear by section which people are having the largest
difficulty with the newer concepts, as well as who is struggling musically in both technique
and sound. Individually this plan touches on certain students that I know have had issues
performing as a soloist or as a melodic figure that the rest of the ensemble will be following
(trumpet and euphonium). I know that by working with them during ensemble rehearsal that
some of the things that I touch on with them will be applicable to other sections and other
individuals throughout the remainder of the rehearsal as well as the rest of the learning
segment. Though I have no students on IEPs or 504s, this plan does help students who
struggle musically to feel as if they are contributing through in class discussions, private
feedback on the quiz, as well as personal performance. Though the students struggle
with understanding basic rhythms and fingerings for notes, the idea of conveyable emotion
such as the way humans interact with spoken word is something that I feel the students will
be able to pick up on. ]
c. Describe common student errors, weaknesses, or misunderstandings within your
content focus and how you will address them.
[ The most common error that students make while trying to play within an
ensemble is playing too loud, and covering up other important parts. This comes from a
misplaced belief that the written dynamic is what they should play, rather than what the
ensemble as a whole should be playing. The current plan for when this arises is to have the
student mark that portion of their music down one dynamics level (mp to p, or f to mf ). This
will most likely be very common among my ensemble and will be repeated multiple times. A
weakness that I see happening within this new focus is that the solo voices or melodic
content that we are trying to feature and bring out is played incorrectly or with bad tone and
is not fit for production as a ensemble. We have many great students who are capable of
playing well within an ensemble, but not many who are capable of performing as a soloist
with an ensemble. For this measure I have been working with many of the students who this
issue arises around, (euphoniums, trumpets, and oboe) and hopefully personal practice as
well as modeling and giving individualized feedback during ensemble rehearsal can help. As
far as misunderstandings go, I try to make sure that all of my directions are clear and that
everyone understands before moving on. However in case that a misunderstanding is not
caught, that voice will most likely stick out of the texture that we have worked with.]
4. Supporting Performing Arts Development Through Language

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Performing Arts
a. Language Function. Identify one language function essential for students to learn the
performing arts knowledge within your central focus. Listed below are some sample
language functions. You may choose one of these or another more appropriate for your
learning segment.
Analyze
Compare/contrast
Describe
Explain
Express
Identify
Interpret
Perform
Summarize
Synthesize
[Perform. This word is extremely important for the students to be able to use and describe in
their evaluations of their ensembles and solo performances. Beyond looking at the term as
playing their instrument to their peers or to an audience, it is pertinent that the students view
performing as the conveying of musical ideas and emotions from themselves to the
audience. What is the music trying to say? What are you as performers trying to say through
the music? These are questions that help bring out the best performances from the
students.Being able to describe a performance, in detail with proper support given as to why
a performance was good or bad, is one of the primary concepts of this lesson segment. ]
b. Identify a key learning task from your plans that provides students with opportunities to
practice using the language function. Identify the lesson in which the learning task
occurs. (Give lesson/day number.)
[ All of the lessons are centered on performing and how the students can understand and
evaluate their performance.]
c. Additional Language Demands. Given the language function and learning task
identified above, describe the following associated language demands (written or oral)
students need to understand and/or use:
Vocabulary and/or symbols

Plus at least one of the following:
Syntax
Discourse
Consider the range of students understandings of the language function and other
demandswhat do students already know, what are they struggling with, and/or what is
new to them?
[ All lessons and tasks include the students being able to convey into structured sentences,
mainly oral but also containing a written portion, their thoughts and descriptions of their
own performances. The use of discourse required to convey interpretations, style, and even
articulation lengths to the ensemble means that the students need to have an understanding
of the terms for dynamics, be able to understand the relationship between notes, and to be
confident with their knowledge of basic musical terms. Students need to know the difference
between staccato, legato, alla Marcia, tenuto, and other frequently used terms that define
the music that is covered in these lessons. Since The Liberty Bell March and Be Thou My
Vision are two contrasting pieces, the terms do not overlap often between the pieces
and require the students to have a working knowledge of both sets of terms. The goal is to
get the students to use these terms to convey the interpretations of performance of the
pieces.
]
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Performing Arts
d. Language Supports. Refer to your lesson plans and instructional materials as needed
in your response to the prompt below.
Describe the instructional supports (during and/or prior to the learning task) that help
students understand and successfully use the language function and additional
language demands identified in prompts 4ac.
[ As most of our discussion and evaluation is done in class orally, as the teacher I am able
to define words that are not often used or help write and break down the word on our white
board in the classroom. Evaluations of performances are, and have been, modeled by my
supervising teacher and I in every rehearsal since I was placed here. Students are aware of
the vocabulary to be used, and are led to the correct vocabulary via leading questions from
myself or my supervising teacher if they are not yet fluent in it. Most of the terms identified in
4c are terms that have been present in their education from 5th grade on, but the application
of those terms when it comes to performance is new. This plan has me model the
application of terms as well as leading student centered feedback.
]
5. Monitoring Student Learning
In response to the prompts below, refer to the assessments you will submit as part of the
materials for Task 1.
a. Describe how your planned formal and informal assessments will provide direct
evidence of students creating, performing, or responding to music/dance/theater by
applying artistic skills, knowledge, and/or contextual understandings throughout the
learning segment.
[Through both my informal oral assessments and the more formal assessment of the quiz
given on March 5th, I should be able to demonstrate that students are understanding and
grasping the vocabulary and discourse abilities required to convey ideas for performance as
well as their understanding of the piece. Through the actual performance students will be
able to demonstrate that they understand performing using artistic qualities applicable to the
ensemble sound, that they have a grasp for the application of the terms, and they are
capable of adapting to the moving ensemble sound.
]
b. Explain how the design or adaptation of your planned assessments allows students with
specific needs to demonstrate their learning.
Consider all students, including students with IEPs or 504 plans, English language
learners, struggling readers, underperforming students or those with gaps in academic
knowledge, and/or gifted students.
[Students who require more time to think through and process performances are allowed to
demonstrate their ability to do so via writing, while allowing students who are quick
to process information can answer and demonstrate their ability in class. Yet again, with no
students who have IEPs or 504 plans most of my students should have the capability of
answering in class using the proper vocabulary as modeled and defined by myself. The quiz
that is to be handed out on Thursday features a written evaluation that I can assess the
language ability and process how each student has picked up on the given vocabulary and
let me adapt my teaching for the 3rd lesson. This should allow me to make sure that all
of my students are able to meet the necessary level of competence with this material.
]
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Performing Arts

Task 1: Planning Commentary

TASK 1: PLANNING COMMENTARY

artistic skills (e.g., self-expression, creativity, exploration/improvisation)

contextual understandings (e.g., social, cultural, historical, global, personal reflection)

Copyright 2014 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

Copyright 2014 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

b. Personal/cultural/community assets related to the central focusWhat do you know

Copyright 2014 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

Copyright 2014 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

Vocabulary and/or symbols

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