Teaching Academic Skills Through the Exploration of Music
Sloan Edward Williams III
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1 “Jurassic Park”, p. 79. Direct quote from the text or book “Gennaro thought: “We are going to make a fortune on this place. A fortune.”
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2 Here is a selection from the book
The Architure of Cognition
(P. 292): “Understanding the nature of language. The child’s appreciation of the function of linguistic communication is probably also developing as he acquires language. In the preceding simulation, and indeed in the forthcoming one, it is assumed that that the learner is always operating with the motivation to learn the full communicative structure of language. However, a child may well start out with more limited goals, and restrictions on his utterances may reflect only his aspiration level.”
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3 From
Jurassic Park
by Michael Crichton, P. 79. “Her first thought was that the dinosaur was extraordinarily beautiful. Books portrayed them as oversize, dumpy creatures, but this long-necked animal had a gracefulness, almost a dignity, about its movements.” The theme that John Williams uses in the movie relates directly to the text of the book, as the words could easily describe the music.
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4 There are three articles that might be of value that can be used in addtion to the film clips. Popular Science. November, 1993, talks about the making of “Jussaic Park”. It also talks about the art of bringing extinct creatures to life as well as some of the theories presented in the film.
New Scientist
, December 25, 1993, is another article.
The Arizona Republic
, May 28, 1994, shows the impact of film on real life.” This is very new DNA work,” Lapan said. “It’s right out of Jurassic Park. “
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5
The New York Times
, June 1993: “ Mr. Spielberg, whose company stands to make millions of dollars from the films marketing, declined to comment. But he told
USA Today
last week that his four children under 8 were “ticked off” because they were not allowed to see the film. “It’s too intense for them,” he said.
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6 You might have students use the internet to find out more about eminent paleontologists, like Robert Bakker, John Horner, John Ostrom, and Gregory Paul. Have a group of students who are interested in music find a group of musicians on a list server that discusses film scores such as John Williams. Ask students if they can find out if real scientist have studied the paleo-DNA, and, if so, have them send a letter requesting them to compare the fiction of the film to the reality of what they have researched in real life projects.
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7 Here are a few examples of materials that can be used in the class room.
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Learning Science through Science Fiction Films
by Leroy W. Dubeck, Suzanne E. Moshier, Judith E. Boss pp. 200,218,226,229,230
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“The Andromeda Strain p. 230.”
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Literary Commentary:
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“Crichton provides a three-page bibliography of scientific articles and government documents. At the end of the book ciations of these articles and documents occur throughout the novel to create the impression of a complete and thorough account. A major change between novel and film occurs in the major characters, presumably to add human interest lacking in the novel and to make the characters more appealing. Stone, instead of being thin, balding, and impatient, becomes handsome and authoritian, enforcing protocol.”
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Arthur Daniel’s Music
, “Chapter Two”, “Listening for Form”, (1. How to listen to a fugue, 2. How to listen to Variation Forms, 3. Music and the Visual Arts, 4. How to listen to Sectional Forms, 5. Development: Sonata Form p. 94,100, and 101);
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Visual Thinking
, by Rudolf Arnheim, Concepts Take Shape p. 119, Pictures, symbols and signs, p. 135 What Abstaction is not p. 153, What Abstraction is, p. 173, Thinking With Pure Shapes p. 218, and Vision in Education p. 310;
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Understanding Music with AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE): Perspectives on Music Cognition
., by Balaban,Ebcioglu, and Laske P.409; A New Approach to Music through Vision; “ As a proper computer network system for music, SMX will stimulate new applications of music information processing. The results of the above experiments suggest some new applications. For example, since only a few copies of most music scores are sold, a store selling musical scores must stock a few copies each to a large variety of musical scores. For music information center, one way to alleviate this problem is to keep numerous kinds of scores in a data base that users can receive via public communication lines, and print at will at their own location, This techique will obviously be very useful for braille music, where the demand is smaller and more storage space is required for a copy of the score in embossed braille form.
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8 When working with this age and grade level it is very important to start with the development of the imagination. For more information see
Creative Drama in the Class Room
. by Nellie McCaglin, p. 24, Chapter Two, Imagination is the Beginning, p. 29-31 Beginning Exercises for Imagination, p. 33 Concentration, Organization, Self Expression and Communication and p. 37-41 Problems in Creative Playing.