Reflective Journal

Keep a journal throughout this course about what you are learning. Summarize it into a 10- to 15-page document at the end of the course and submit it through the Canvas assignment dropbox.

Essentially, this journal could just be your notes from the units, rewritten in paragraph form (however, that alone would not get a great mark). Or, you could describe the extra listening you undertook as a result of the music or the ideas presented in those units (such a journal would most likely achieve a much higher mark). As well as factual material (names of composers, dates of pieces, influences), I am interested in personal comments—which composers did you find interesting? Which pieces, if any, excited you? Most importantly, demonstrate that you understand the musical relationships involved.

You do not have to discuss every study unit in your journal: in fact, that would take too much time and space. Instead, concentrate your writing on a few specifics of the course. One of the best journals I received spent the entire 15 pages berating me for not choosing more examples by women composers, and discussing some women not listened to in the course.

The best way to prepare for this assignment is to make good notes while reading the individual units, particularly during the musical (listening) examples. Write down a sentence or two about each piece that you are asked to listen to in the unit. This will make it a lot easier to talk about different composers and pieces later on.