Madame Zara and Her Students

Madame Zara and Her Students
Mar 18, 2002, 10:09am

One group incorporated drama when they choreographed a story to their choice of soundtrack.

Listen, create and perform – these are the precepts of the middle school music program. These concepts are the principles music teachers use as a guide when they plan lessons and activities for the half year course. A further objective for a general music course such as this is to expose students to a wide scope of different properties of music. Harmony, notes, instruments, song and movement are only a few of the topics covered.
Students, of course, come to the class with their own expectations of what music they want in class. Music teacher Ms Carol Zakula, assures them from the start that they will have an opportunity to express themselves in their own very personal way at the end of the term.
As a final project, students are required to perform for classmates in a music presentation of their own design using some integrative aspect of music. This is their chance to be in the spotlight and express themselves musically and artistically. Ms Zakula strongly discourages her students from singing along with a recorded voice or from using any music with bad language. They are otherwise free to do what they like within a four minute time limit for individuals and six minutes for teams. Performances are as individual as tastes and include song, dance, rhythm, drama and whimsy. One team devised an over-head transparency projection and stick puppet characters to dance on the image to a tune played on the piano by a project teammate.
The final act is Madame Zara (Zakula) accompanying herself with a popular tune on guitar while singing original lyrics about Lebanon and IC.

Students may use recorded music as accompaniment for a folk or an original dance.

Some students take a multi-media route with music and art.

Madame Zara appears as the final act playing and singing her composition of lyrics to a borrowed tune.