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From Groans to Grins: A Play-Based Approach to Teaching Music Literacy

the teacher will cycle through several rhythmic pat- consider when they fill out their own rhythm. Teachers
terns that build the desired rhythmic skill. Eventually can extend this activity to prepare challenging rhythms
the teacher should perform (clap, tap, sing) the poison that might appear in their repertoire. It is important
rhythm. Any student who begins to repeat the pattern for teachers to allow space for the social interactions
is out. and laughter that come in these collaborative and low-
In a more advanced version of the game, the teach- stakes competitions.
er can clap or chant the rhythm on a neutral syllable,
and the students can repeat back the rhythms using Synthesized Literacy: Epic Rhythm Battle (full class)
their rhythmic solfège. When a student gets out, their While “Rhythm Relay” is a great activity for writ-
job is to help identify other students who might get out. ing in counts, it doesn’t provide a play-based approach
Similarly, all the students could be in competition with for students to perform those rhythms. Consider “Epic
the teacher. If any student does the poison rhythm, the Rhythm Battle” as a solution! In this activity, based on
teacher gets a point. However, if the teacher does not the popular “Epic Rap Battles of History,” the teach-
“catch” anyone, the students get a point. This game er divides students into two groups. The teacher will
exposes students to rhythmic patterns relevant to the project a rhythmic worksheet on the screen or assign
teacher’s pedagogical goals. a series of exercises that are the same for both teams.
Groups will alternate performing sections of the work-
Visual Literacy: Rhythm Relay sheet while backed by a rap track on YouTube.
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Students often express difficulty when demonstrat- In this activity, students who have difficulty per-
ing their ability to decode written notation using a stan- forming rhythms are able to participate and learn from
dard rhythmic counting system (i.e., 1& 2& 3& 4e&a). their more experienced peers. To lower the stakes of
They may easily repeat rhythms by rote, but they the activity, tell students that the winning team is not
struggle identifying those same rhythms in notation, let the most correct, but the team who has the most com-
alone chanting the counts in rhythmic solfège. Similar- pelling performance. This activity is a great way to re-
ly, it can be easier for students to sing popular music or surge the energy in the classroom if there is a lull. This
rap music by ear rather than transcribing the music or example builds upon a synthesized literacy of students’
learning from notation. It is important to create expe- embodied music making. Synthesized literacy not only
riences for students to practice decoding rhythmic no- includes performing rhythms but can also include
tation. “Rhythm Relay” makes use of the multitude of composing rhythms. In order to demonstrate fluency
rhythm worksheets designed to help students read and in a symbol system, like music notation, writing in that
write rhythms. I used the game to practice writing in system is an important step in learning. Once students
rhythmic solfège; however, teachers could also use this have experiences with rhythmic vocabulary and their
game to practice composing specific rhythmic patterns. rhythmic solfège system, they are more able to read in
In “Rhythm Relay,” students work in teams to com- that system, and eventually they can compose rhythms.
plete the rhythmic worksheet. First, assign a team cap-
tain and place them at the first position of the relay Synthesized Literacy: Rhythm Origami (individual/small group)
line. The team captain begins by writing in the counts Composing can be one of the more difficult national
for the first line on the worksheet. When they are fin- standards to incorporate into a lesson. When I devel-
ished, they pass the worksheet to the next student, who oped this activity, students had so much fun, they ended
completes the next line. When the team completes the up extending “Rhythm Origami” into more advanced
sheet, the team captain will check for errors. If there is composing by incorporating melody and even harmo-
an error, the captain will help the erroneous teammate ny.
understand the concept. The fastest team to submit the For this activity, the teacher distributes a blank sheet
correct and completed worksheet to the teacher, WINS! of paper to every student. Instruct the students to fold
Ask the team captain to start the relay for each team the paper into either eight or sixteen squares. An easy
so they can write an exemplar for the next students to way to achieve this is to tell students to fold their pa-

10 CHORAL JOURNAL October 2025 Volume 66 Number 3