Internship Location:

Parchment, MI

Mentor Teacher:

Beth Jonker

Internship Sites:

Parchment Middle School and High School

Duration:

January 4th to April 30th 2010

Subject and Grades Taught:

Music (Band), 6th through 12th Grade

Site Overview:

Parchment Public Schools' music program has been tradition of excellence that has been in place for many years. The band program is currently under the direction of Beth Jonker, both a fellow WMU graduate and fellow student of Scott Thornburg.

This semester, the high school band continued in that tradition by preparing and performing three works at a pre-festival concert and district and state MSBOA festival, four additional works during a trip to Disney World, and two more additional works at Western Michigan University’s Spring Conference on Wind and Percussion Music—including a performance of “Rose Variations” as the accompaniment band for Professor Scott Thornburg. The middle school bands also contributed to this longstanding tradition by performing at a pre-festival concert, district MSBOA festival, a recruitment tour at the three local elementary schools and a percussion ensemble concert with the high school percussionists.

At the beginning of the school year I was given one piece to work on with the seventh and eighth grade bands and a separate piece to rehearse with the high school band. These works were exclusively rehearsed by me until after the pre-festival concert (at the high school) and until the middle school band performed it under my direction at district festival. I was also charged with the task of creating study guides for two of the middle school band pieces and one of the high school works. As the semester moved closer to the Spring Conference at WMU, Beth turned all four middle school classes over to me full time for the remainder of my time here in order to concentrate on the administrative and musical responsibilities related to the high school band.

Additional responsibilities included:
• Organizing and coordinating a band breakfast at Big Boy the morning of Spring Conference
• Chaperoning during the middle school band tour
• Chaperoning and coordinating the bus rides to and from Spring Conference
• Coordinating Middle School Solo & Ensemble Festival
• Creating several warm-up exercises for the 6th and 7th grade bands
• Helping to oversee pre-interns from WMU (Assigning them to ensembles, briefing them on a band's current state, etc)
• Assisting/directing the high school pep band throughout February and March of 2010
• Assisting with night rehearsals and marching band preparation for the Disney trip
• Creating several fun exercises to teach musical concepts, and
• Creating the middle school pre-festival concert program

Many examples my work on these responsibilities can be found here.