ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an example of literacy instruction that involves responding in the discipline of music. The national core music standards describe responding by identifying subprocesses: selecting, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating. Interactions that most directly correspond to responding processes and bring them to the foreground are primarily the consumptive aspects of music interactions such as listening and watching. While listening and watching are frequently the primary aspects of musical activities such as attending a concert or listening to a recording, they also are important aspects of other interactions. Teachers may utilize a wide range of instructional approaches to nurture responding literacies in any music setting. These include: providing musical training that helps students recognize certain devices in music, helping students focus their awareness on responses of their minds and feelings to the music, sharing stories of personal meanings that others have made from music, directing listening to a particular aspect of the music, and nurturing openness to unfamiliar music.
