How I Used Your Name is a Song to Build Community in Music Class

At the beginning of each school year, I like to begin my lessons with a book. Most recently, I used "Your Name is a Song" by Jamilah Thompkins Bigelow as my opening and community-building lesson for my grade 5 and 6 students. Here is everything that I used to develop and extend the lesson.

Read the Book
First off, I simply read the book to the students. After reading the book, we talked about how important it is for people to practice saying others' names correctly and how they would feel if their name was mispronounced. I then taught them the song that I wrote to accompany the book   

• Your name is a song, sing it loud will sing along. Names are special and unique, sing your name a song to keep  

In the next class, we reviewed the song and added it to the book. Every few pages, we would sing the song. 

Make their own Name Song 
After we had come back to the book on the second day, I asked the class whether any of them thought they could turn their names into a song or would like me to turn their names into a song. We experimented with vocal exploration and improvisation. Because it was so early in the school year, I didn’t make it mandatory that students sing their names!

Group Work
What I had each student do was identify how many beats (syllables) each of their names had. Students then did a human scavenger hunt. Each student had a recording sheet with 4 boxes. One for 1 beat names, 2 beat names, 3 beat names, and 4 beat names. Students then went to each classmate and had them write their name in the box corresponding to the number of beats in their name. ​​

Name Ostinatos 
The end goal with this lesson was to have students perform the Your Name is a Song song in rondo form with a name ostinato, but because it was the beginning ot the year, I wanted to give them some extra scaffolding before I sent them free to create their name ostinatos 

• The first thing I did to help them prepare to create their ostinato was to review the rhythms corresponding to each beat. Now, because I didn’t want to use sixteen-eighth note compositions, each name needed to take up 2 beats. 
• Names with one beat are ta rest, names with two beats were ta ta, for three beat names students had to choose between titi ta or ta tit (I gave them some guidance when needed), and four beat names were titi titi 
• I then composed name ostinatos for teachers and staff in the building and had the kids practice reading those and figuring out how the different rhythms worked. 
• Then I sent the file to make up the ostinato with their groups. To help make sure that their were a variety of rhythms in each group, I had premade the groups ahead of time. 
• To help them with the notation, I gave them an 8-beat heartbeat chart and had them write their names on each beat. ​ ​

Sharing and Extension 
Once students had arranged their names, they practiced saying them to a steady beat. The first time we performed "Your Name is a Song" in rondo form, we sang the song, and then I played a steady beat on the drum for them to perform their compositions to. 

To extend the activity and have them practice performing in rhythm more, we added body percussion and non-pitched percussion instruments. We started with body percussion, and each student chose a movement for the group to perform while saying their name. Then we moved on to unpitched percussion instruments, and each student chose an instrument to play while the group said their names. I tried to encourage them to pick instruments that are easier to play rhythms on (or else everyone always picks the thunder can). When I had initially planned this lesson, I was going to extend it further and have the groups improvise their ostinatos on barred instruments, but time got the best of us, and we didn’t get to that step! 

Using Your Name is a Song at the beginning of the school year helped us build community and explore important musical concepts, including rhythm, ostinatos, improvisation, and performance. I loved seeing students take ownership of their names and transform them into rhythmic and musical ideas. Whether you use just one part of this lesson or extend it into a larger composition project, it’s a meaningful way to start the year!

​Enjoy! 
Jayna