Carlos Xavier Rodriguez, ed., Bridging the Gap: Popular Music and Music Education (Reston, VA: MENC, 2004).
2.
For interesting reading about how approaches to composition that center on music notation can limit students to composing only what they have the ability to notate, see Rena Upitis, This Too Is Music ( Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990); Jackie Wiggins, Teaching for Musical Understanding (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001); and Lyle Davidson and Patricia Welsh's chapter "From Collections to Structure: The Developmental Paths of Tonal Thinking" in John A. Sloboda, ed., Generative Processes in Music (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1988), 260-85.
3.
For a more detailed description of writing-workshop approaches at the middle school level, see Nancie Atwell, In the Middle: New Understandings about Writing, Reading, and Learning, 2nd ed. (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998). For more information about writing-workshop structures in general, I recommend Lucy Calkin's The Art of Teaching Writing ( Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994).
4.
Other music educators have advocated creating composers' workshops or have been heavily influenced by writing-workshop approaches to teaching. Rena Upitis draws on process-writing approaches in composing with early elementary students in her book This Too Is Music. In his 1989 article "Towards an Expanded View of Music Literacy" in Contributions to Music Education16 (pp. 34-49), Ray Levi makes suggestions for using similar approaches with second- and third-grade students in an elementary general music setting.
5.
In the third edition of his 2003 book A Philosophy of Music Education, (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), Bennett Reimer suggests that music curricula should be centered around a multiplicity of musical roles, for example, composer, performer, theorist, historian, conductor, and improviser.
6.
Many loop-based software programs come packaged with 700-1,000 loops in various styles using a wide array of instruments. Examples of these programs include Super Dooper Music Looper, Acid Music Studio, and Garage Band.
7.
Online music services like Real Rhapsody or Apple iTunes Music Store provide access to hundreds of thousands of recordings at the click of a mouse. Rhapsody requires a monthly subscription fee for unlimited listening to whole works, whereas iTunes provides free access to thirty-second excerpts. Both services allow purchase of individual pieces for a small fee. An ever-widening selection of musical styles is available for use in the music classroom.
8.
"The Rite of Spring" and the Cranbrook Art Museum are two interdisciplinary projects we have recently completed. You can view them on our class Web site at www.cranbrookcomposers.com.
9.
Lisa C. DeLorenzo, "A Field Study of Sixth-Grade Students' Creative Music Problem-Solving Processes," Journal of Research in Music Education37, no. 3 (1989): 188-200; Konstantina Dogani, "Teachers' Understanding of Composing in the Primary Classroom," Music Education Research6, no. 3 ( 2004): 263-79; Robert Faulkner, "Group Composing: Pupil Perception from a Social Psychological Study ," Music Education Research5, no. 2 (2003): 101-24; Joi Freed-Garrod, "Assessment in the Arts: Elementary-Aged Students as Qualitative Assessors of Their Own and Peers' Musical Compositions," Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education no. 139 (1999): 50-63; Jackie Wiggins, "Children's Strategies for Solving Compositional Problems with Peers," Journal of Research in Music Education42, no. 3 ( 1999):232-52.
10.
William Duckworth , Talking Music (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1999); Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); Aaron Copland, What to Listen for in Music (New York: Signet Classics , 2002). ■
