Two Birds/One Stone: Methodological Pedagogy and a Deepening of Student Understanding of 19th-Century Musical Life
A small methods course (12-15 students) can meet the increasingly difficult challenge of teaching crucial research, writing, and critical-thinking skills to undergraduates, many of whom have minimal research skills and no experience formulating an original thesis. The goal of the course (the topic changes regularly) is to introduce students to hard-copy and electronic research tools and to teach them to evaluate primary and secondary sources, build and annotate bibliographies, and apply these skills to writing projects. The terminal project is a 10-12 page paper of original work.
This type of skills-based course lends itself to deep exploration of a particular topic. My iteration, “Musical Life in 1853: Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, and New York,” is an in-depth examination of musical life in Western Europe and America during 1800-1853. The first half of the semester features units on particular aspects of musical life, e.g., “Development of the Orchestra,” “Impact of Technology on Music,” “Virtuoso Cult,” “Music Criticism,” “Choral Music/Choral Societies,”
“Evolution of the Canon.” Students write reaction papers to assigned readings, discuss issues, and complete several small individual or group assignments (“Introduction to the Music Library,” “Surfing the Web,” “Constructing an Annotated Bibliography,” “Writing a Dictionary Article”). The focus of the second half is musical culture in the five cities. Students work in teams to compile a bibliography about their assigned city (one item is added to the class reading on that city); they also choose term paper topics, conduct research, and write. This approach makes the bibliographical research pertinent to the course, and the students’ papers (and oral presentations) broaden the material covered. Students discover—to their surprise—that although many aspects of musical life were shared across geographical and political boundaries, each city had a distinct character. This deepens their understanding of the complexities of musical life during the time.
A small methods course (12-15 students) can meet the increasingly difficult challenge of teaching crucial research, writing, and critical-thinking skills to undergraduates, many of whom have minimal research skills and no experience formulating an original thesis. The goal of the course (the topic changes regularly) is to introduce students to hard-copy and electronic research tools and to teach them to evaluate primary and secondary sources, build and annotate bibliographies, and apply these skills to writing projects. The terminal project is a 10-12 page paper of original work.
This type of skills-based course lends itself to deep exploration of a particular topic. My iteration, “Musical Life in 1853: Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, and New York,” is an in-depth examination of musical life in Western Europe and America during 1800-1853. The first half of the semester features units on particular aspects of musical life, e.g., “Development of the Orchestra,” “Impact of Technology on Music,” “Virtuoso Cult,” “Music Criticism,” “Choral Music/Choral Societies,”
“Evolution of the Canon.” Students write reaction papers to assigned readings, discuss issues, and complete several small individual or group assignments (“Introduction to the Music Library,” “Surfing the Web,” “Constructing an Annotated Bibliography,” “Writing a Dictionary Article”). The focus of the second half is musical culture in the five cities. Students work in teams to compile a bibliography about their assigned city (one item is added to the class reading on that city); they also choose term paper topics, conduct research, and write. This approach makes the bibliographical research pertinent to the course, and the students’ papers (and oral presentations) broaden the material covered. Students discover—to their surprise—that although many aspects of musical life were shared across geographical and political boundaries, each city had a distinct character. This deepens their understanding of the complexities of musical life during the time.