Listening to my Students

We study a new composer each month and I like to find a different project to conclude each unit. For Bach each student made an About Bach Poster, for Beethoven we watched the movie "Beethoven Lives Upstairs." I have the book "Let's Meet Famous Composers" by Harriet Hinghorn, Jacqueline Badman and Lisa Lewis-Spicer and it gives information about 19 composers and gives specific project ideas for each composer. The suggested project for Mozart was to write funny little songs like he did as a kid.

In my mind, I saw this as being a simple little project. I have learned this year that students do better when you give them basic guidelines and let them have freedom to make choices on how they want to complete the project. My students asked if they could have partners and after talking about expectations, I agreed. The projects they turned in are amazing to me. All students participated and they all went different directions. Some wanted to rap, some wanted to make up rhyming words, some created piggy back songs from popular radio and some students just wrote about something they like. In about 20 minutes of work time, most students wrote a half page song. One group was even starting to figure out rhythms.

Do you ask for your students opinions on projects? Do you ask for their ideas on how to make things better in your classroom? It is a scary idea, but I believe it impacts the quality of work they complete.