Discussing the Importance of Music in Lois Lowry's "The Giver"

First musical activity with the 7th graders this week. I learned that many of them have a hard time articulating themselves when it comes to music. I had asked them to jot down words or emotions that came to them as they listened to the music. I asked to think about why the community in the novel we were reading would want to ban this particular type of music? What I got was a lot of "It reminds of (some concrete image)". The concrete images varied slightly, but it was the minority of students who were able to come up with an adjective to actually describe the music they were listening to, perhaps not the worst thing in the world, but something I had not expected. Fantasia's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" reminded many of them of "Tom and Jerry". For some it reminded them of "that scene in Alice in Wonderland with the cat". I got a lot of "It reminds me of a girl walking through a dark forest and all the trees have eyes". This is their frame of reference--cartoons. But overall, hearing their comments was totally illuminating. The students commented astutely that it sounded like a chase and that it was simultaneously scary and funny, I'd say successfully getting at the complexity of the music. One Irene Fang said that the violin represented the person being chased with the low drum sounds representing the predator; I'm pretty sure this comment elicited applause, if not only from me. Irene ended up staying after to help the other girls with homeroom cleaning so I think I made a friend. Next I played Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", a song that would have to be placed in the genre of classical music but is interesting because it totally goes against some of the rules of classical music and actually elicited protest when it premiered. As the students listened to the song unfold, they looked around the room and at me with shocked looks. What was this?? The word I thought they would have for this one was "chaos" or "disorder" but I guess those are the words that a 30-something year old teacher lady would use. Their discussion on this song was not as interesting as I would have liked--perhaps the song was too similar to "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". This song also reminded them of a chase. It made them fearful, they say, which was interesting. I played them rap music next which some of them started involuntarily jamming to. "Rough," they said. "Aggressive." "Violent." "It reminds me of the kind of music my dad plays in his truck when we're not with him," one student said. "Retarded," one sweet, polite A-student said. "I think I know why the community would not have wanted to play this music," another A-student said. Some of them including Irene did not like the song and concluded after the class, "I don't like rap." My intention was not to turn students off to certain musical genres but what do you do? Last but not least I played a techno song. Again, some of the little tweens were involuntarily head banging to the beat, but some of the girls also found the repetitiveness of the song "annoying." A fair comment. They said it sounded like the beginning of something. One of the girls came up to me after class and said innocently, "Ms. Chappel, if we ever have quiet reading time, you can play those last two songs anytime." Overall, they had a lot of comments. And they all wanted to share which I guess is the most important thing. We're certainly not done with this activity. That is, the girls are not yet really "good" at talking about music. I'm thinking of having the girls bring in their favorite songs on Fridays--as a carrot if they're good--and going through the same activity. The activity I think is good preparation to get the students to talk about "tone" in literature, another slippery lesson that evades the best of them.