National Core Arts Music Standards Written as "I Can" Statements

In many situations, elementary general music teachers are required to tie their lessons back to the National Core Arts Standards or local standards for music education. In the case of local standards, these have most often developed in reference to the National Core Arts standards.

For some of us, aligning our active music experiences to the National Standards can feel tricky. This may feel like one of the highest priorities for our administrators to see in our lesson plans. Yet, it might be an area that was overlooked in teacher training courses.

Today we’ll look at the National Standards for Music Education. We’ll talk about what they are. We’ll talk about what they aren’t. And we’ll talk about translating them into student-voice “I Can” statements.

Download the 20-page printable PDF with all standards at the bottom of this post.

Here we go!

What Are the National Music Standards?

The National Core Arts Standards (NCAS) outline four artistic processes that all Artists engage in.

These four musical processes are Performing, Responding, Creating, and Connecting.

In other disciplines, Performing is called presenting for visual arts, or producing for media arts.

Artistic Roles: Doer, Thinker, Inventor

We might think of these processes - performer, responder, creator, and connector - as the different hats we wear as musicians.

Musicians might take on several different roles relating to music, depending on their experience and the setting. A guitar player on stage in front of an audience will take on a different musical role than the person who programmed the lights for the show to match the key musical moments. The person who programmed the lights has a different role than the song-writer who created the song.

Each of these people is engaged in the music, though only one of them is on stage. These three roles illustrate the three artistic processes outlined in the Standards. I think of these three roles as the musical doer, thinker, and inventor.

Performer (Doer)

A musical performer is a doer. They actualize music by carefully selecting songs or pieces, interpreting a score, making thoughtful performance decisions, working to improve their performance, and tailoring their presentation for their audience.

Responder (Thinker)

A responder is a thinker. A responder considers things like what gives music its meaning, what musical expressions lead us to feel certain ways, and how we might evaluate music based on the context.

Creator (Inventor)

A creator is an inventor. A creator spends their time imagining ideas, finding a way to preserve them, and reworking them again and again until their final product is complete.

Connector (All three)

In the connecting processes, an artist shows how music is connected to other experiences, contexts, and subjects.

Connecting is the artistic process that at first glance may seem to be overlooked. However, the authors of the standards point out that the process of connecting is embedded in each of the other roles.

To use our example earlier, the guitar player considers the performance venue and context in their presentation of the song. The person programming the lighting synthesizes their technical training with lights and their musical thinking to create the lighting map. The songwriter would have a backstory about how and why the song was written, and perhaps a personal experience or story they heard that shaped the final song.

Each process includes opportunities to show how music is interconnected with many other areas.

“I can theorize” vs “I can do”

One of the challenges music teachers can face is how to apply the standards to an active music room.

Nowhere in the standards are the words, “sing” or “speak” used. Movements and instruments are only mentioned once in preschool and kindergarten as media students can use to create ideas.

Instead of words like sing, speak, play, or move, the standards are full of words like “discuss” “consider” “state” “demonstrate” “describe” and “explain.”

Why might that be?

For many music teachers, this can strike us as odd - why do the music standards seem to lack active music-making language?

The reason is that the standards are not intended or designed to primarily focus on musical performance skills. That is not the purpose of these standards. This is a distinction between musical skills and musical literacy.

Expanding Notational Literacy

Literacy is a term we often use in its connection to notational literacy. The goal of notational literacy is for students to read and write.

However, the authors of the standards are using it to describe literacy beyond notation. They define artistic literacy as:

knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts

Music literacy is defined as:

knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the discipline of music by independently carrying out the artistic processes of creating, performing, and responding

This is a much more broad way of thinking about literacy.

The Arts standards are unique from other subjects in that they show the transferable understandings between artistic disciplines: music, visual arts, dance, theater, and media arts.

In the Classroom: Breaking it Down

Because the standards are not designed to be actionable skills, there may be some interpretive steps necessary when they are applied to an active music room.

Here’s one example for 1st Grade, working on the concept of fast and slow.

Standard:

• MU:Re7.2.1 - With guidance, demonstrate awareness of expressive qualities (such as dynamics and tempo) that reflect creators’/performers’ expressive intent.

Standard “I Can” Statement:

• I can show how different musical elements express musical meaning

Activity:

(This activity is from The Planning Binder 2021 - 2022 curriculum)

• Students speak the rhyme, Bee Bee Bumblebee with a fast or slow tempo, depending on what the bee is doing.

• Pretend that the bee is in a hurry to get home because it’s family game night! (Speak the rhyme with a fast tempo)

• Now pretend the bee wants to fly home slowly because he knows he has to do his chores. (Speak the rhyme with a slow tempo)

• The teacher asks what other reasons the bee might move fast or slow.

• Students share ideas and the class speaks with an appropriate tempo.

Lesson “I Can” Statements:

• I can play fast and slow

• I can play fast and slow for different reasons

The lesson activities point to the standards, but the standards are not the activity in and of themselves.

“I Can” Statements for the National Music Standards

You can download the “I Can” Statements document with the link at the bottom of this post.

Big Idea Pages

The first page of the document shows the big picture overview of the artistic process. It includes the anchor standards and a “too long; didn’t read” version of the grade-level performance standards.

This is our zoomed out, standard-at-a-glance resource.

Grade-Level Details

These anchor standards are broken down in to more detailed descriptions (performance standards) by grade-level. The performance standards can get a little wordy, so I’ve gone through each individual descriptor and translated it into an “I Can” statement as well. The “TL:DR” (“too long; didn’t read”) headings are included for each standard.

Let’s look at each process of the standards and break them down.

Performing

The performing strand has three anchor standards that outline the role of the performer, or the doer in music.

Something interesting to note is that the performance strand has the most performance descriptors of the four artistic processes. The anchor standards are broken down into nine performance standards.

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Responding

The responding strand has three anchor standards as well.

Those anchor standards are broken down into four performance standards.

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Creating

The creating process uses three anchor standards.

These anchor standards are broken down into six performance standards.

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Connecting

The document for Connecting is structured a bit differently from the others since connecting is included in the other artistic processes.

There are two anchor standards and two performance standards. Unlike the other processes, these performance standards apply to all grade-levels.

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What the standards are and are not

The standards are not the curriculum.

The standards are not an actionable set of musical skills.

The standards are not music pedagogy.

The standards are outlines of artistic processes.

The standards are pathways toward music literacy.

The standards give us a framework of transferrable understandings that can apply across the Arts. They are designed to guide us in creating lifelong, literate musicians who engage in music through the processes of performing, responding, creating, and connecting. The way we apply the standards will look different from classroom to classroom, and that flexibility is what makes them so valuable.

When we break down these standards into “I can” statements in students’ voices, we essentialize the information and bring the wording into our vernacular.

This is a practice that will undoubtedly benefit students. But the process of shifting through each individual standard in this way may benefit us as teachers even more.

Assessing Improvisation in Elementary General Music

For many music educators, improvisation can feel difficult to assess. Many of us view improvisation as a personal expression of musical ideas. We may think of it as subjective, instead of as a concrete “right or wrong” task.

In many ways, these views are accurate! Improvisation is a divergent activity, meaning there are multiple possible correct answers.  It also necessitates personal musical choice, which can be subjective. These characteristics of improvisation are accurate, but that doesn’t necessarily take away from assessment validity. When we frame assessment as how we know what students need from us, clarify our goals with long-range planning, and collect data in a play-based way, we’re set up well to assess improvisation.

Let’s look at some specific ways to assess improvisation in an elementary general music setting.  

We’ll start with the activities themselves, and then discuss principles to keep in mind when it’s time to improvise with student musicians.

You can find more detail about assessment for elementary general music in the assessment course.

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Improvisation Assessment Examples: 

Improvising a Loud and Quiet:¿Quién Es Esa Gente?

Sourced from Vamos a Cantar: 230 Latino and Hispanic Folk Songs to Sing, Read, and Play

In this example, Kindergarten students sing a loud or quiet improvisation, depending on the musical situation they’re describing.

Clarifying Goals through Long-Range Planning:

Loud and quiet is an early comparative Kindergarten students explore. Throughout the concept plan students make musical choices, and at the end of this concept plan from The Planning Binder in the 2020 - 2021 school year, students improvise a story with a loud or quiet voice.

Because the purpose of this assessment is loud and quiet, we’re not concerned with a specific toneset students should use, or the length of the improvisation. We’re only assessing their appropriate use of a loud and quiet singing voice improvisation.

Assessment Logistics:

• Song: ¿Quién Es Esa Gente?

• Objective: Students improvise with a loud or quiet singing voice

• Assessment Activity: Students improvise with a loud or quiet singing voice

• Data Collection: The teacher listens to students improvise with a loud or quiet singing voice to the class and with a partner.

• Measurement Tool: Rubric with a description of the improvisation:

• The student improvises with a loud or quiet singing voice

• The student does not improvise with a loud or quiet singing voice, or does not improvise

• Lesson Segment Time: 3 minutes

The Assessment Process:

1. Sing the song and pat the steady beat.

2. The teacher sings the questions: When is it a good time to use a quiet voice? When is it a good idea to use a loud voice? Please think your answer in your head, then get ready to sing it.

3. Students brainstorm ideas, then share their answers with a loud or a quiet improvised melody.

4. Examples:

   • “It’s a good idea to use a loud voice on the playground”

   • “It’s a good idea to use a loud voice at a birthday party”

   • “It’s a good idea to use a quiet voice in the library”

   • “It’s a good idea to use a quiet voice when my little brother is sleeping”

5. In between each sharing, students sing the song with a loud or quiet singing voice and motions to show loud and quiet.

6. Students turn to a partner and take turns sharing their ideas with a loud or quiet singing voice.

Data Interpretation:

We might look at the data and decide we’re ready to move onto the next musical concept! We might also look at the data and decide students would benefit from more practice with a loud and quiet singing voice. This part of the process is typically an intuitive understanding on the part of the teacher. As we collect the data (listen to students improvise) we normally have a clear sense of how to interpret the assessment results and how to adapt our next steps. We just might not always recognize that our intuitive redirection of the next activity is based on data analysis.

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Improvising with Rhythmic Fluidity: Ickle Ockle

Sourced from Kodaly.hnu.edu

Game: Students walk in a circle holding hands and singing the song. At the end of the song, students find a partner (the partner may be anyone in the circle besides their immediate neighbor). Any student without a partner goes to the middle and the game begins again.

Clarifying Goals through Long-Range Planning

In this improvisation example, students improvise eight beats as a class and with a partner.

One of the characteristics of musical fluency is that students’ improvisations use a fluid, natural flow of music, without stopping and starting or disrupting the steady underlying pulse. Because the goal in this activity is rhythmic fluidity, it isn’t necessary for students to use a specific set of rhythms, or use part of their partner’s question material in their own improvisation answer. Any output with smooth pacing is an accomplishment of the goal.

Assessment Logistics

• Song: Ickle Ockle

• Objective: Students improvise eight beats with rhythmic fluency

• Assessment activity: With a partner, students improvise eight beats with rhythmic fluency

• Data collection: The teacher listens and watches students improvise with rhythmic fluency as a class and with a partner. Because the game is repeated more than once, the teacher has the opportunity to listen to multiple students in different parts of the classroom, paired with different improvisation partners.

• Measurement Tool: Rubric with a description of the improvisation:

  • The student improvises with complete rhythmic fluency throughout the entire performance

  • The student improvises fluently throughout the majority of the improvisation. Some articulations may occur slightly behind or ahead of the steady beat.

  • The student improvises with inconsistent rhythmic fluency

  • The student does not improvise

• Lesson Segment Length: 6 minutes

• Previous Knowledge and Experience: Before this activity, students would have plenty of experience singing and playing the game to Ickle Ockle. They would also have cognitive knowledge of and diverse experiences (including improvisation) with the rhythms used in the song: ta, ta-di, and ta rest.

The Assessment Process:

1. Sing and play the game to Ickle Ockle as normal.

2. In the next round of the game, the teacher claps an improvised eight-beat rhythm. Students improvise their own eight-beat response back.

3. The teacher demonstrates sample improvisations with fluency (a consistent steady pulse underlying the improvisation) and without fluency (an inconsistent steady pulse underlying the improvisation). Students identify the use of a “smooth” or “jerky” steady beat in each example.

4. Sing and play the game again with the teacher improvising the rhythmic question and students improvising the rhythmic answer.

5. After a few rounds, and when the teacher observes that students are ready, students improvise both the question and the answer:

   • Sing the song and play the game. When students find their partner, one claps an eight-beat question and the other claps an eight-beat improvised answer.

Data Interpretation

When we look at the data from the activity, we might decide we should go back and practice improvisation in other structures before asking students to improvise in pairs. We might also decide students should repeat the activity in the next class, but perform their improvisations as solos. Depending on our pedagogical goals, we could also determine that students are ready to move from clapping their improvisations to playing them on barred instruments in question and answer form. The way we interpret and apply the data will go back to our long-range plans for student learning.

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Improvising with Takadimi: Old Brass Wagon

Source: Hamilton, G. M. (1914). The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri. The Journal of American Folklore,

27(105), 289–303. https://doi.org/10.2307/534622

Clarifying Goals through Long-Range Planning

In this improvisation activity, students are asked to use a specific rhythm in their improvisation. In this specific case, the inclusion of takadimi is the only quantitative measurement of the improvisation we need. We might notice other important elements of the student’s improvisation, such as their level of rhythmic “flow” (fluency) or the length of the improvisation. We might even document those observations so we can alter the next class activities. However, those performance data would not factor in to the assessment evaluation for this specific improvisation experience. In this case, we are only assessing students’ use of the rhythmic element, takadimi.

Assessment Logistics

• Song: Old Brass Wagon

• Objective: Students improvise with takadimi

• Assessment Activity: Students improvise with takadimi

• Data Collection: The teacher listens to students improvise with takadimi, and students self-assess their improvisation

• Measurement Tool: Rubric with a description of the improvisation:

  • The student uses takadimi in their improvisation

  • The student does not use takadimi in their improvisation, or does not improvise

• Lesson Segment Time: 10 minutes

• Previous Knowledge and Experience: Before this activity, students would have plenty of experience singing and playing the game to Old Brass Wagon. They would also have cognitive knowledge of and diverse experiences with the rhythms used in the first three phrases of the song: ta, ta-di, and takadimi.

The Assessment Process:

1. Students sing and play the game to Old Brass Wagon.

2. Show the notation of the song on the board with different song endings. (These endings might be some the teacher provides ahead of time, or students might suggest them as a part of the lesson process.)

3. Seated, students play the rhythms on the board with their choice of body percussion. Try out the first three notated endings.

4. Notice that the fourth ending is empty! Tell students this box is empty so they may make up their own rhythms instead of reading what the board says to do.

5. Students choose their favorite ending (including improvisation), hold up their fingers to show their choice, and tell someone next to them which one they’ll choose to play.

6. Pat and clap the rhythm of the song again. Students play their chosen ending.

7. This time, let’s stand up and everyone will improvise their own rhythmic ending. We’ll do this two times. The first time, you’ll improvise whatever you want! The second time, you’ll do your best to include “takadimi” in your response.

8. Students turn to a partner and explain the directions (the first time, just improvise. The second time, improvise using takadimi).

9. Pat and clap the rhythm of the song two times.

10. Nice! Did you include takadimi in your improvisation? Students show a thumbs up / thumbs down, or sign language for yes or no.

Data Interpretation

This activity gives students many opportunities for musical choice. In the convergent part of the process when students read the notation, they choose the body percussion they’ll use. When it’s time to improvise, they’ve had multiple examples of endings that use takadimi. They also have the opportunity to try out their improvisation before consciously trying to use takadimi in the ending. When we observe these many scaffolds of musical choice, improvisation, and conscious musical knowledge, we’re gathering important data that we can use in future instruction.

Each step in the process gives us important data about how students are handling varied opportunities for musical choice. When we look at the data for the improvisation assessment, we might decide we’re ready for longer improvisation activities, like eight or sixteen beats. We might also use qualitative data to observe that students struggle to read the rhythmic notation on the board accurately. In that case, we might review aural skills and visual notation of takadimi in the next lesson.

Adapting Prior to Notation

If students do not yet have conscious knowledge of takadimi, the activity can be adapted with text and graphic notation instead of Standard Western notation. Use the words, circle to the, wagon, and left.

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We’ve looked at three examples of assessing student improvisations.

Let’s zoom out and discuss principles to keep in mind when it’s time to assess improvisation in elementary general music.

• We’ll start with looking at what exactly improvisation and assessment are.

• We’ll also talk about the types of data we can use to assess improvisation.

• Last, we’ll look at the role of long-range planning in the improvisation assessment process.

Defining Improvisation and Assessment 

Sometimes the reason we feel confused about how to assess improvisation is that we lack clarity in what improvisation is, and what assessment is. 

Improvisation:

When students make a musical choice and perform it spontaneously, they are improvising. This spontaneous musical choice might be as simple as making up new motions on the spot to go with a song or as complex as improvising over a 12-bar blues progression.

The simultaneous imagination and production of a sound is key in setting improvisation apart from other musical processes. In contrast, creative tasks like arranging and composition involve space between the time it takes to have a musical thought and the time it takes to execute a musical thought. Improvisations are also complete works in and of themselves. The creator doesn’t intend to go back and edit them later, as is the case with composition and arranging. Improvisations exist in the moment they are produced.

Assessment:

Assessments are how we know what students need from us next. Assessments are collaborative and intentional musical experiences where we design a learning experience and get feedback from students so we can craft the next learning experience.

Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment Data for Improvisation

Assessment data might take the form of numbers and letters to be used as grades, numbers and letters that aren’t used as grades, or qualitative observations like sticky notes.

These data can be divided into two categories:

• Qualitative: Data that narrate or describe characteristics

• Quantitative: Data that show quick summarizations with an absolute value (like numbers or letter grades)

Both of these forms have their pros and cons, and both forms of data can be useful to us in different ways.

When we assess improvisation we may choose to document quantitative data with a quick numerical score, but make a note to ourselves using qualitative data so we get more background information about the student performance.

Assessing Improvisation: Clarify Goals through Long-Range Planning

Assessment of improvisation is directly tied to long-range planning because the assessment is directly tied to the purpose of the activity.

The assessment practice we choose will be dependent upon our goals for the improvisation itself. These goals are directed by the larger curriculum planning process for our program as a whole.

When we craft our value statement for our program at the beginning of the curriculum planning process, we might include values-based ideas such as wanting to develop musical thinkers who can actualize their ideas.

For the purpose of assessing improvisation, its helpful to be much more narrow with goals, and clarify the specific pedagogical outcome we want to observe.

Long-Range Planning and Improvisation Assessment:

Our long-range plans frame the activities we do in the music room. When we plan this way, we’re not planning from activity to activity. Instead, we’re choosing strategic learning experiences that build off of each other so students build knowledge through active musicking. Each activity we choose serves the larger learning goal, as we’ve articulated in our long-range plans.

Depending on our long-range plans, we might have specific goals that are based around another musical concept (for example - rhythm, pitch, or form), or another mode of musical expression (for example - improvising on barred instruments or recorder).

Sample Improvisation Goals:

Here are some sample goals we might articulate when it’s time to improvise. Notice each of these goals is an outcome we can hear and see.

• Improvise 8 beats

• Improvise with fluency

• Improvise in question and answer form

• Improvise within a specific toneset or rhythmic set

• Improvise with speech

• Improvise in a head voice

• Improvise with a clear recorder tone

Clarity Through What We Don’t Assess

When we clarify our long-range goals, we know what we care about assessing. Equally important, we know what we’re not assessing.

For example, if our primary objective is for students to improvise for eight beats, that is the only thing we’re assessing. In that improvisation, we’re not concerned with the tone they produce on the instrument, how expressive the melodic line is, or whether or not they used question and answer form. There may be things we notice about their improvisation regarding the tone, expressivity, or form. However, because it’s not the purpose of the assessment, it’s not something we’ll document.

Assessing Improvisation in Elementary General Music

Today we’ve looked at several examples of assessing improvisation in elementary general music.

There are many more possibilities to framing assessment in elementary general music, but the principles will stay the same, regardless of the form the assessment takes.

1. We’ll start with what exactly improvisation and assessment are.

2. We’ll determine the type of data we’ll use to assess improvisation.

3. Last, we’ll ground the assessment in long-range planning.