Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Program Notes Open Access
Department
Music
First Advisor
Roxanne Dixon
Abstract
In American middle schools, there is often a gap between the music students listen to in their everyday lives, much of which contains questionable content, and the repertoire included for formal study in general music class. Research supports the effectiveness of media literacy education on students’ ability to resist potentially harmful messages. This project reviewed relevant literature and developed site-specific music and lyric analysis-based lessons that proactively bring music with controversial content into the middle school general music classroom for formal study to help adolescents develop skills to employ critical thinking when approaching their own music. This endeavor combined learning objectives from the fields of music, media literacy, health education, sex education, social emotional learning, and English/Language Arts. While this is a site-specific project, secondary music educators interested in using popular music as a means of reaching students’ needs beyond music domains and into the 2 aforementioned realms could draw upon this framework to craft lessons appropriate and relevant to their own student population and context. Keywords: adolescents, middle school, cultural responsiveness, media literacy, music education, repertoire, relevance, curriculum, controversial content, health education, social emotional learning
Recommended Citation
Nicholas, Abigail K., "Closing the Relevance Gap: Teaching Media Literacy Skills Through Potentially Controversial Popular Music in a Middle School General Music Class" (2024). Conducting Student Scholarship. 142.
https://mosaic.messiah.edu/conduct_st/142
