University of Utah Arts in Education Outreach
Music and Literacy Conference
September 12, 2009
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
University of Utah – School of Music
1375 E. Presidents Circle
David Gardner Hall
One-day workshop for teachers in grades PreK – 3rd
on how to connect music and other arts to
literacy in early childhood
This Conference is for:
• PreK-3 Teachers, Arts Specialists, Administrators, School Reading Specialists
• Education Professors
• College Professors
• Policymakers
At the Conference, you will:
• Inquire meaningfully into arts education and literacy as dynamically intertwined processes;
• Obtain ideas for fostering artistic development and learning in your students;
• Acquire concrete tools and strategies for the incorporating the arts in literacy;
• Gain ongoing access to a community of educators and scientists working at the intersection of neuroscience, arts education, and literacy.
Content goals:
Four goals provide the basis for the conference:
• Achieving a new understanding of the brain, literacy, and arts education;
• Acquiring tools and strategies for the design of curricula and assessments in arts education;
• Improving instructional practice;
• Enhancing student literacy outcomes.
Program
Welcome: Rachel Nardo
Wake Up the Body – Wake Up the Mind: Mary Ann Lee
Morning Keynote: Music, Literacy, and the Brain
Speaker: Dr. Dee Hansen
Session description: Exciting revelations in brain research are increasing our understanding of how our brain functions in learning environments. We will examine brain physiology and the critical findings that suggest parallels between music learning and reading processes.
Morning Break:
Break-out Sessions: - Choose one
• Books with a Beat!
Clinicians: Diane Persellin and Danielle Ballinger
Session description: Children’s books are an excellent way to introduce music activities, teach new skills and concepts, and to make valuable connections to other subjects. We will present some of our favorite children’s books related to music, and how to use them to promote literacy and musical development.
• RhymePlay: Playing with Children and Mother Goose
Clinician: Peggy Bennett
Session description: Charming the senses of children with nursery rhymes is foundational to the spirit of RhymePlay. The sounds, the sights, and the movements that are the “play” of RhymePlay charm children with their simplicity, their achievability, and their intense interaction with a loving adult.
• Behind the Headlines
Clinician: Penelope Marantz Caywood
Session description: In this workshop, teachers explore the cross-over between drama and literacy. Teachers will learn how to combine simple drama methods with sequential literacy tasks to deliver lessons that are both fun and instructive. Teachers learn how to take literature from page to stage, which encourages an active relationship with text through voice, body, and imagination. The activities and contexts covered in the workshop will center around a project that is suitable for teachers who are new to drama work and for those who are experienced in it. Detailed plans for lessons will be provided with a framework for integrating both subject areas.
• Dance a Story
Clinician: Mary Ann Lee
Session description: Children’s original stories are a natural springboard for creative dance, drama, and development of literacy. Through the activity of constructing their own danceable stories, children learn the skills of sequencing events, elaborating details, narrating, and expressing emotion through physical gesture.
Visit the Exhibits
Lunch on Your Own
Afternoon Keynote: I Can Sing, I Can Read!
Speaker: Dr. Peggy Bennett
Session description: When reading is a natural outgrowth of singing, speaking, and playing, children experience reading as a puzzle to solve with no pressure to be accurate. Children are the sound source and the “motor” for their reading experiences. Sample video clips of young children reading illustrate the benefits of play-making, choice-making, story-making, vocal variety, constructive feedback, ideographs, song dots, and song maps as pathways for leading children in music experiences.
Brief Afternoon Break – Exhibits Open
Break-out Sessions – Choose One
• Books with a Beat!
Clinicians: Diane Persellin and Danielle Ballinger
Session description: Children’s books are an excellent way to introduce music activities, teach new skills and concepts, and to make valuable connections to other subjects. We will present some of our favorite children’s books related to music, and how to use them to promote literacy and musical development.
• Reading Literacy is Music Literacy
Clinician: Dee Hansen
Session description: Good readers utilize the same decoding skills as good musicians. As their fluency increases, so does their ability to comprehend symbolic context and meaning. This session defines the parallel processes of reading and music learning from the earliest stages of decoding through fluency to higher order comprehension skills.
• Behind The Headlines: Using Text-Based Stimuli To Devise Drama
Clinician: Penelope Marantz Caywood
Session description: In this workshop, teachers explore the cross-over between drama and literacy. Teachers will learn how to combine simple drama methods with sequential literacy tasks to deliver lessons that are both fun and instructive. Teachers learn how to take literature from page to stage, which encourages an active relationship with text through voice, body, and imagination. The activities and contexts covered in the workshop will center around a project that is suitable for teachers who are new to drama work and for those who are experienced in it. Detailed plans for lessons will be provided with a framework for integrating both subject areas.
• Dance a Story
Clinician: Mary Ann Lee
Session description: Children’s original stories are a natural springboard for creative dance, drama, and development of literacy. Through the activity of constructing their own danceable stories, children learn the language arts skills of sequencing events, elaborating details, narrating, and expressing emotion through physical gesture.
Afternoon Refreshment Break – Exhibits Open
Closing Keynote: From Research to Practice: Putting It All Together
Speaker: Dr. Diane Persellin
Session description: We will summarize, process, and apply what we learned today in order to take new ideas and teaching strategies back home to our own classrooms.
Closing Song and Dance
Presenter’s Biographies
Dee Hansen, Associate Professor of Music Education
Chair, Graduate Studies in Music Education
Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, Hartford, CT
Dee joined the faculty at The Hartt School in the fall of 2006. She is Division Chair for the Professional Practices Committee for CMEA. She also co-chaired the pre-pilot of the CT Music Performance Assessments initiative. She was an associate professor at Baker University in Kansas 2002-2006 and served as the Fine Arts Consultant for the Kansas State Department of Education from 1994-2002. She served as a music consultant for The Wolf Trap Foundation’s stART smART program in Washington, D.C. and a trainer for the U.S.Department of Education. She was President of the Kansas Music Educators Association and co-founded the Kansas Citizens for the Arts, a state-wide grass-roots arts advocacy organization. MENC published her book, The Handbook for Music Supervisors, in 2001 and The Music and Literacy Connection in April, 2004 which she co-authored. This publication has brought clarity to the links between text reading skills and music learning. Dee is the 2006 recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award for Arts Advocacy in Kansas and the 2007 Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri-Kansas City Alumnus of the Year. She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Music Education from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music.
Peggy Bennett, Professor of Music Education
Director of the Early Childhood MusicPlay Program
The Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
Co-author of the popular SongWorks® books, Peggy is an award-winning teacher and frequent presenter across the U.S., plus Australia, Canada, England, and Japan. Author of pedagogical and research articles, Peggy has co-authored three books, contributed to four additional books, served on various editorial boards, and recently published RhymePlay: Playing with Children and Mother Goose (Alfred). Peggy’s honors include receiving the Outstanding Alumna Award from the colleges of music at both the University of North Texas (PhD) and Ball State University (MA, BS) and being named to the Marquis Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Education, and Who’s Who in American Women. Peggy resides in Bozeman, Montana and Oberlin, Ohio with her husband Harley and cairn terrier Cooper.
Diane Persellin, Professor of Music Education
Editor, General Music Today (GMT -MENC)
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX
Dr. Persellin’s current editorial work focuses on the GMT issue dedicated to music and the brain. Her research dealing with early childhood music education has been published in a variety of journals and chapters of books and has been presented at professional conferences around the world. She has taught early childhood courses and led workshops at universities and conferences throughout the country, most recently at Hong Kong Baptist University. Diane is also Past President of Texas Music Educators Conference and has been recognized for her work with the education program of the San Antonio Symphony by the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame. She continues to work as a volunteer music teacher with a lively group of four-year olds at a local Head Start.
Mary Ann Lee, Adjunct Associate Professor
Director, Virginia Tanner Creative Dance Program and Fine Arts Preschool
University of Utah
Mary Ann Lee directs the Virginia Tanner Creative Dance Program and Children’s Dance Theatre in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah, where she is also an associate professor-lecturer in the Department of Modern Dance. She trained with Virginia Tanner and was a member of Children’s Dance Theatre. She received a master’s degree in dance and in French from Mills College and the University of Cincinnati, respectively. She performed professionally with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and Moveable Feast Dance Company in San Francisco and with the Contemporary Dance Theatre in Ohio. Ms. Lee was a dance specialist for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Artists-in-Schools program and taught throughout the United States. She has been an invited guest teacher in China, Japan, The Netherlands, England, Finland, Canada, and Brazil. She continues to teach both at home and abroad and especially enjoys working with the CDT sixth grade.
Danielle Ballinger
Elementary Music Specialist and Arts Bridge Scholar
Vail Mountain School, Vail, CO
Danielle was most recently the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Graduate Teaching Assistant in Elementary Music Education at the University of Utah. She co-taught courses in general music methods and integrating music into the elementary classroom and served as the graduate advisor for the CMENC chapter at the University of Utah. Her thesis research addresses Utah general music teachers' use of multicultural music in relation to the State and National Standards for Music Education. Ms. Ballinger received her Bachelor of Science in Music Education degree from Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA, has taught K-8 choral and general music in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah, and this fall will be teaching K-12 general and choral music at the Vail Mountain School in Vail, Colorado.
Penelope Marantz Caywood
Artistic Director, Youth Theater
University of Utah
Penelope “Penny “has been involved with YTU since 2000. She began as a Guest Artist then acted as Managing Director for three years until she assumed the position of Artistic Director in December 2006. She has worked at numerous community, university, and professional theatres and has directed, choreographed, and musically directed over 25 productions across the Wasatch Front. She is the former Education Director for the Egyptian Theatre Company in Park City and also taught for the Salt Lake City and Catholic school districts. Before moving to Salt Lake, Penelope was the co-founder and resident musical director of Curtains Up! Theatre in Palos Verdes, California. Penelope received in BA in Education from Cal State University at Dominguez Hills. She is currently working on her Masters Degree during her 21-month-old daughter's nap time and after 9 pm (bedtime).
Conference Organization
Rachel Nardo, Professor and Beverley Taylor Sorenson Presidential Endowed Chair in Elementary Music Education, University of Utah School of Music.
Susan Kenney, Professor, Music Education, Brigham Young University.
Mary Ann Lee, Director, Virginia Tanner Creative Dance Program, University of Utah
Rebecca Meadows Anderson, Director of Development, Virginia Tanner Creative Dance Program, University of Utah
