Voice Lesson Plan
This lesson is a combination of an existing lesson I created before starting the summer M.A. session and the techniques and resources I learned while taking Teaching of Voice during my first year at UH. It encourages students to take inventory of their voices in objective statements so they can identify where changes may be necessary or effective in creating safe warm-ups and authentic and effective characters.
What Is Your Voice?
Prior Knowledge:
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Before this lesson, students will have learned anatomy related to the vocal tract and proper warm-up techniques.
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Before this lesson, students will have been asked to select a poem from one of the following locations with at least 10-15 lines: Poetryfoundation.org, poets.org, splitthisrock.org, hellopoetry.com.
Objective:
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The student will be able to evaluate their voice using specific vocabulary in a reflection paper after performing a poem.
Teks:
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1A, 1B, 1D, 1I
Materials
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Crayons, colored pencils, markers, cardstock, yoga mats, soft music, poems of the students choosing, writing utensils, or a device.
Vocabulary:
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Articulation, Chest Voice, Diction, Head Voice, Inflection, Monotone, Pitch, Resonance, Rate, Volume
Time required:
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One week (45-minute class periods)
Day 1
Warm-up:
Instructor to show and describe representation of likes and dislikes using model. Students will be given time to draw/color what they believe is the appearance of their voice, including the likes and dislikes of their own voice.
Lesson: (Guided Discussion)
Students will be led through a discussion on how we can objectively talk about voices (i.e reframing options of their voices into facts and observation, instead of "I hate my voice it sounds annoying" a student would say "my voice is a higher pitch than those around me"). They will be given vocabulary and asked to evaluate voices they hear in some example videos. Students will then record a baseline reading of their poem and upload it to our online learning platform. They will be encouraged to “color” their words with their voice.
Exit-Ticket:
Students will write four truthful observations of their voices. (Meaning things that are objectively true, not opinions. i.e. “My voice is monotone”, “My voice is high pitched”, or “My voice is soft.”).
Homework:
Students will be assigned to locate a poem with between 10-15 lines.
Day 2
Warm Up:
Students will be asked to write their poem on lined paper, leaving space between each line for notes.
Lesson: (Guided Exploration)
Students will be asked to spread around the room and participate in a quick vocal warm-up. After this, students will be guided through four areas of voice – Volume, Rate, Pitch, and Articulation. They will try each line of their selected poem out loud while experimenting with each of the different vocal areas. They will mark vocal choices they think suit their poem on writing on their copy of the poem they selected.
Exit ticket:
Students will upload a picture of their annotated poem to our online learning platform.
Homework:
Students should spend some time working on memorization.
Day 3
Warm-up:
Check for understanding – students will watch a brief video and be asked to write a few sentences identifying the vocal qualities each speaker uses. (Two each day).
Lesson: Workshopping poems
Students will be in groups of 2-3 and asked to perform their poems out loud to their partners. Students will be given a workshop to critique their partners, as well as identify what feedback they receive about their poems.
Exit ticket:
Students will turn in their critique sheets at the end of the period.
Day 4
Warm-up:
Students will perform a quick vocal warm-up on their own
Lesson: Performance Day!
Students will be given time to perform their poems in class. The instructor will record each performance and upload it to a private folder for each student. Students will receive a worksheet to make observations about each performance they see.
Exit ticket:
Students will turn in their observation sheets.
Day 5
Warm-up:
Students will privately watch the recording of their performances, as well as receive written feedback from the instructor or students to do self-critique for use in lesson.
Lesson:
Students will create a written reflection evaluating their use of voice, using peer and instructor (or self-critique). They will be expected to identify what good qualities they saw and used as well as areas for improvement or things they wish they had done differently.
Exit Ticket:
Students will turn in their one-page written reflection.
Reflection
The hardest part of teaching voice to high schoolers is getting them to embrace the “fluffy” stuff and helping them be comfortable with being goofy and making weird noises. During my first two years of teaching, I struggled to be goofy myself. Molly and my cohort helped me break through that barrier a little bit, but since I was teaching at a new school, I noticed I still struggled with the ability to let go of being uncomfortable. With this lesson, I incorporated my prior two years of teaching voice with some new activities and techniques I learned in Molly’s Teaching of Voice class. I wanted to apply Molly’s use of describing and analyzing your voice as a baseline to my “exploration of vocal qualities through poetry” lesson. One teachable moment this lesson combination allowed me to experience was with a student who approached me after school to talk about the lesson. She informed me she was scared to work on vocal qualities in class because she had often been told she “talked too high” in everyday conversation. Since she viewed that comment as a negative critique, I wanted to reframe it as an objective observation. We established that she often uses a nasal resonance area (something I did not talk about in class and should incorporate in the future) and speaks in a high pitch, since this resonance area does not have much range. She is often very quiet with very limited breath support as well. We talked about shifting her voice into her chest resonance area and using air support to create a more well-rounded sound. I wanted to make sure that she understood that making truthful, objective observations about our voice allows us to know the areas we need to explore in order to make changes. She worked really hard on switching to her chest resonance area to lower the pitch of her voice and increase her ability to project by adding breath support. For the lesson, she was not as successful as she had wanted to be with those vocal changes, but she continued to work on applying the techniques we discussed in class and has seen improvement since then.