Hello! My name is Rochelle Montagne. I am married to Brian Schneckenburger (who is also in this class), and I live in Parkville, MD with my husband, two black labs (Jake and Ella), two cats (Billie and Oliver), and my sister Janelle. I was born and raised in Liverpool, NY (a suburb of Syracuse). I am a HUGE Arizona basketball fan, and I enjoy traveling.
I am a middle school instrumental music teacher at Hazelwood Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore City. This is my fourth year at Hazelwood. I have also taught in New York and Arizona.
I hold a Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree and a French Horn Performance certificate from the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York College at Potsdam and an Master of Music degree from the University of Arizona.
I have an Advanced Professional Certificate in Maryland, and am also certified in New York and Arizona. In 2007 I became a Baltimore City Fine Arts LEAD teacher, and I have been the Research Chair for the Maryland Music Educators Association for the past two years.
I am taking this class as a part of my recertification in Maryland. I would like to learn new ways to apply reading and writing skills (outside of writing performance critiques, practice journals and doing research projects) in a class that is traditionally performance based.
I agree with your viewpoint on Dr. Mojes article and podcast. You can definitely give a good viewpoint due being a music teacher I know you have had the challenges of students not being able to comprehend in the literacy incorporated with music due to not being exposed or no type of background knowledge.
ReplyDeleteReality verifies your views about literacy instruction, many of today's students in general are not interested in reading or writing, but we who are part of the teaching community must continue to provide literacy instruction in individual subject areas if there is to be any chance of successful completion of the student learning process.
ReplyDeleteI know as a music teacher it would be interesting to see how you can apply the concept of reading literacy in your classroom. I can image that it has the potential to be a daunting task due to the fact the reading and writing is not always viewed as an enjoyable activity as music can be. I guess the key to sneaking reading into your classroom is to keep it as lively and up beat as possible.
ReplyDeleteDuring my first year teaching, I had the opportunity to teach a sonnet. I knew that the content of the sonnet would be challenging for my students. Because the curriculum did not call for a lesson on scansion, I decided to ask a mentor teacher if I could add that component to the provided lesson plan to get the students actively involved with an activity that could expose them to the ideas in the poem before the targeted, topical analysis began. The idea went over well because the mentor was of the opinion that, generally, the students knew so little that anything that I could teach them about poetry was a positive even if the HSA was unlikely to measure that skill. Not all mentor teachers, or administrators, or principals, or fellow teachers, or parents would have agreed with that mentor’s recommendation. It is a fine line, at times, that guides our actions. Opposing opinions are on each side leaving us, the teachers, right in the middle. Great care is so often so necessary.
ReplyDelete