There are many expectations of a teacher; specifically speaking, educators, in order to be successful, must have a concrete grasp and a strong understanding of their content. During my time at Virginia Tech, I took various courses that helped me gain essential fundamental knowledge about music that I could apply into my teaching. These courses included material directly related to pedagogy, theory, music history, arranging, performance, and conducting.
Below is an arrangment that I created during my Elementary Education Methods course during my undergraduate career. Throughout this course, we studied and applied many methods including, but not limited to, Orff and Kodaly. The arrangment placed below utilizes Orff techniques, which was a common technique I found myself applying into my lessons during my Elementary Student Teaching. This arrangment could be used in both elementary school and middle school general music classes because it actively engages students to create music.
Magic - Jenna George, Orff Arrangment.pdf
Following my Elementary Education Methods course, I took a course that continued to expland my personal theory knowledge, as well as my arranging skills. Placed below are two arrangments I composed for a woodwind choir and a brass choir. Being a woodwind player, I was surprised at the amount of knowledge I obtained while studying the tendecies of other woodwind instruments. While composing the woodwind choir and the brass choir, I began to understand the fundamental aspects of timbres, and when and how to properly pair different instruments. I appreciated these composition projects because they gave me the ability to take an original score and arrange them for different instruments. I was able to make them my own, while keeping some of the original and important characteristics intact.
While creating these arrangments, I also found the value in them through my musicianship and my performance skills. I grew as an individual player, and as a performer within an ensemble; once I had a basic understanding for brass and woodwind tendencies, I started to notice a change in my aural skills while performing with my peers on and off stage. It made me a better player because I was capable of adjusting and improving my personal sound fundamentals and qualities.
Jenna George, Haydn Woodwind Choir Arrangment.pdf
Jenna George, Brass Choir Arrangment.pdf
This next image shows me taking my ability to compose a woodwind and brass choir to the next level; placed below is an arrangment I composed for a full band ensemble, including percussion. This composition was me finalizing my ability to adjust and place parts and different sections appropriately within the timbre of a full ensemble. I found myself relying on my knowledge of instrumental tendencies, ensemble characteristics, and musical practicality, which depended on the specific instrumentalists' skill levels. This arrangment is essentially the summation of my arranging work throughout my undergraduate career.
Jenna George, Russian Hymn Full Band Arrangment.pdf
This is a live recording of The Virginia Tech Symphonic Wind Ensemble performing my arrangment;
The Arrangment Reflection, seen below, is a summarization of how arranging has affected me as both a student and as a future educator.
Written courses aside, there are performance-based skills that are expected of succesful Music Eduators; with that being said, I spent all four years of my undergraduate career pushing myself to be the best musician I could be. Between the beginning of my freshman year, to the end of my senior year, I successfully performed and completed a Senior Recital, rehearsed and performed with two very talented Saxophone Quartets, and pushed myself to learn new instruments during our undergraduate Applied Instrumental courses.
Placed below are recordings and pictures of me performing, or elements from my performances, from various places throughout my undergradute career. I believe these to be valuable experiences because they help exemplify my musicality; these recordings and pictures help show why I believe myself to be an expert musician, which has transferred into my student teaching.
Recording from My Senior Recital:
Recording from my senior year peformance in Carnegie Hall with The Virginia Tech Symphonic Wind Ensemble:
Recording from my Senior Recital with The Barefoot Saxophone Quartet:
Recording from my Senior Rectial with The MSL SWE Saxophone Quartet:
Placed below is a lesson plan that I created and used during my Elementary School field placement during my undergradauate career. In comparison to the lesson plans that are viewable further down the page, this lesson plan has a lot of beneficial aspects but lacked the proper construction and structure. Even though it was a successful lesson, I uploaded this lesson plan in order to show my personal growth from the beginning of my teaching experience until my most recent lesson plan.
This lesson plan was written for elementary school students; I was creating a lesson that was engaging and interesting about Jazz music, as well as creative and kept them busy.
When I started my first semester of Gaduate School, and I was placed at the high school level as a student intern, I finally realized the full extent of my responsibilites and how much our undergraduate courses applied and transfered directly into our field placements. It became evident how important it was to realize that even though we were continuing to grow and evolve with our students, we had officially moved from the role of the student to the position of "the teacher".
Below, you will see a lesson plan from my student internship this past fall; It was written for an advanced high school concert group and it indicates my implementation of the appropriate Standards of Learning, clear objectives, my properly sequenced procedures, varied assessments, and any modifications or accommodations when they were needed. Overall, it was a successful lesson plan. Below the lesson plan, you will find the corresponding evaluation form.
Jenna George, Fall Intern - Lesson Plan .pdf
LP Eval #1 - Fall Intern.png
After my placement in the fall, and after receiving constructive feedback on the structure of my lesson plans, I went into my spring placement as a full-time student teacher with the intention of changing some things around. I found the constructive criticism beneficial and it helped guide me towards a more fundamentally structured lesson plan. Placed below is my final lesson plan and accompaning evaluation. Like my previous lesson plan, it indicates my implementation of the appropriate Standards of Learning, clear objectives, my properly sequenced procedures, varied assessments, and any modifications or accommodations when they were needed however, I moved different classifications around to better suit the reader, as well as revised my assessment section to specify the difference between my Formal and Informal assessements.
This lesson plan was created for a 6th Grade Concert band;
JennaGeorge,6thGradeband.pdf
Jenna George, Spring - Final Eval.pdf
Because of my studies throughout both my undergraduate and graduate courses, I was able to complete an in-depth score analysis for a piece I was planning on performing with one of my high school groups during my field placement. My analysis for the first movement of "The Three Ayres from Gloucester", "The Jolly Earl of Cholmondeley", I was able to portray my general understanding of band repertoire and show my capability to address various sections of the piece that may require more individual attention during rehearsals.
I have included parts of the score that show some of my analysis; I believe it is important to address the idea that score analysis can either make or break a rehearsal. Score study is an essential skill for music educators to acquire. Being prepared for rehearsal is the first thing a music educator can do in order to help prepare their students for success.
Literature Project - Score Analysis (Three Ayres).pdf
For more a more in-depth perspective of the analysis, please see the attached link placed above.
Here are two picture selections from my In-Depth Score Analysis;
Finally, the content knowledge that I gained due to my ability to analyze music gave me the ability to teach music in various ways; Below you will find a Listening Guide/Map and Lesson plan that I created for my 6th Grade Concert Band during my student teaching this spring. Most of my 6th grade students have a strong musical background, but their ears are still adjusting and growing.
The Listening Guide/Map is to be followed by each student so that they can learn the form, follow the contour of the melody, as well as identify the different instruments that are playing. It was an obvious challenge with this class to spark an interest in classical music because they are used to playing pop songs on their concerts. However, because I personally drew the listening guide/map, I tried to make it interesting to the eye with fish and bubbles. I wanted to use this lesson as an opportunity to start transforming their aural skills further, as well as hear their general responses to the music in a journal response.
The journal response allows for the students to freely expressive themselves - more of an informal assessment for me. But on the Listening Guide/Map itself, there are a couple matching questions for each student to complete during or after the second listening. Even though there are no incorrect answers for the journal entry, there is a correct answer for the listening guide/map that gives me more of a formal evaluation for each student, without placing the word "test" on the activity.
Jenna George, Listening Guide:Map - 6th Grade Band.pdf
