Chorus Class — Day One

The first day of chorus class for the chorus teacher starts long before day one for the choral music student.  The chorus teacher must choose the music for each choir in time to order it, if necessary, and learn it or review until she knows it inside out.  If this is your first year with these groups, you may want to pick only three or four pieces per group to begin the year. If, on the other hand, you know your students and you know your choirs, go ahead and plan the music for the first quarter.

Music Packets

At any rate, you will need to prepare music packets for each student. In the packet you must include one fairly easy piece that the students will enjoy singing right away, but eventually hate because they will be bored with it, one piece that is out of reach and that they will likely hate right away but will learn to love because of the challenge and sense of accomplishment, and a nice standard piece that falls somewhere in between on the difficulty scale.  (You may certainly include more music selections.  Just be sure you have these three bases covered).  You will also want to include a contract that is a list of expectations for the student’s grade. In the contract, be sure to include a list of the music that you are entrusting to the student along with the replacement cost of each piece. When a student signs the contract, he is accepting responsibility for both his behavior and his classroom materials. At the end of the quarter or the semester when you take up music, if a student’s music is not in good shape or not returned in a timely fashion he or she may be charged for replacing the music. Many schools have a policy that allows teachers to hold grades until financial obligations are met. Check with your school to see what the particular policy is.

Finish off your student packets with a copy of your syllabus to be signed by the parents. In the middle school and high school chorus syllabus you will want to include your behavioral expectations so that the parents are aware of the requirements you have for their child.

Folders vs. Envelopes

As you create a music packet for each student, make your own choices regarding folders and who buys them. I use fee money to purchase identical black binders for all of my choir students.  It’s not that I don’t trust my students to choose a proper binder.  It’s just that I don’t trust my students to choose a proper binder. If I purchase them all at once, we can use the binders in performance, when necessary.  I distribute the music packets in large manila envelopes and hand out the binders separately.  I also drop an index card in each envelope, and use that on day one as student information card which also acts as a record of the students having received his music. Two birds with one stone, and all that.

Bell Work (yes, I know – sorry)

Okay. The music packets are ready to go and are in nice neat stacks on the table or countertop. Day One is the perfect time to begin to train your students in daily behaviors. You will want your students to come into the classroom and begin some work. Day One, make sure that you have written on the chalkboard, white board, or projected onto a screen precisely what you wish them to do. What my students will see day one will look something like this:

Students: please attend to the following items.

1.    Take a packet from the table.
2.    Be seated in your vocal section (if you are unsure, sit on the front row in the middle).
3.    Remove the index card from your music packet and on it write the following information:

a.    full name
b.    current grade level
c.    parents names and who you live with  (if a guardian, please say so)
d.    parents phone numbers and e-mails
e.    your e-mail
f.    activities in which you are involved that take up a considerable amount of your time

This procedure accomplishes several things. First, my students are busy, allowing me to stand at the door or in the hallway and greet each of the students as they enter.  Oh sure, I may need to stick my head in the door and say, very sweetly, "Did you see the instructions on the wall?"   They sort of expect it.  The good news is that on Day One most of the students will be attuned to doing the right thing.

The next thing that is accomplished is a sense of belonging for my students. They know immediately that I expect them, have planned for them, want to know about them, and value their input. They also understand in the first two minutes that this is not a rah-hah class and they do have work to do.

Routine and Roll Call

When the bell rings, walk in the door. That sounds silly and simple, but routine is a great thing in the classroom. Wait outside the door until the bell rings and then walk in.  After Day One, you can walk in and students will immediately begin roll call for you. On Day One you will need to teach them how to do that. So…

Have your students number off, each student remembering his or her own number. Once this is done each student should introduce himself to the people with numbers on either side of his; that is, number 28 should introduce himself by name to number 27 and number 29. When the students know their own numbers and the names of the people on either side of them, then you are ready to call roll.

The chorus is often large enough that to call roll by name eats up too much of your rehearsal time. The solution for this is to have the students call roll themselves by simply counting off.  If a student is absent, the subsequent student should call out the number of the absent student, the name of the absent student, and then his or her own number. Like this:  "number 27, musical Mary McGillicuddy, absent. Number 28."  Teaching this is actually a pretty fun activity on day one, since you must practice it until they can call roll in under 60 seconds. Give them three or four "absentees" each time you practice and assign timekeeping to the best athlete in the room.  (Just for fun and to avoid typecasting, have geekier kids do the heavy lifting and athletic kids do paperwork stuff, at least in the beginning – and how ironic is it that you must typecast to do that?!?).

Behavior Training

You have handed out music and taken roll. You should be about 10 minutes into the class period (okay, fifteen — I had a Harry Wong moment.  Sue me.)  Ask a student to take up the index cards. At this time, choose one or two specific behaviors that you want entrenched in your students and practice them. For example, if I am at a particular time in class where the students are free to talk, I think it is rude for me to expect them to cease talking immediately once I am ready for them.  I try to give them three or four seconds to complete a thought or a sentence. The way I do this is to count backwards from 5 to 0.  My students understand that when I get to zero there should be no sound in the classroom — zip.  Nada.   None.  Zero.  On day one, we practice this. I have them talk among themselves for a few seconds and then I begin to count backwards to zero.  I am absolutely inflexible regarding noise once I get to zero. So we practice this several times until they don’t have to think about it.  They get used to how I teach.  I get used to how they learn.  It’s all good.  Choose two things that matter to you and practice them on day one.

Whoohoo!  Let’s Sing

If all goes well, you should now have about 25 minutes left in a 50 minute class (or maybe 10 — roll with it).  Allow me to interrupt myself here and say that if your day one is a truncated day and you only have 30 minutes, skip the behavior training.  You MUST sing on day one.  Let me say that again.  You MUST SING on day one.  YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS MUST SING ON DAY ONE.  Okay, I feel better now.

Use the remainder of the class period for warm-ups (teach one or two basic warm-ups that you plan to use often) and to rehearse your first song. For all choirs except your top auditioned group, rehearse a unison piece on day one. Help your students to sound good from the very beginning. Be playful, positive, encouraging, and pushy as hell. Expect more from them on day one than they know that they have. Rehearse the song right up until the bell rings so that your students leave the room singing.  Chorus class will be the best class they have all day.