Teachers and students have used the Facets Model to explore new and familiar musical works. Here are some good starting points for using the Facets Model in your classroom.

Suggestions for Teacher Use
For any new work that you plan to teach in your classroom, use the Facets Model as a tool for your own research and planning. As you “walk around the facets” to answer the questions as they pertain to the work you have chosen, instructional ideas often start to bloom. For example, an inventory of the characteristic musical elements may give rise to particular warm-up exercises that the students may perform in preparation for learning the piece. Finding out about the contextual background may give you ideas for introducing the work to students in imaginative ways.

Another good use is for summary and assessment. Once you have worked with a new composition for several class periods, display a Facets Model and ask students to describe what they have discovered so far about the work and its composer.
Some teachers have used the Facets Model as a programming strategy. For example, if the piece you are studying is in theme and variations form, you may also want to program a contrasting set of variations. Others have built an entire program that emphasizes a particular time and place in history, so that the contextual facets of several works have stylistic features in common.

The Facets Model can also be used to explore a style or genre rather than a whole work. If you are studying a particular type of music, use the model to describe typical musical characteristics, representative composers, and common themes of the music of the period or style.

Suggestions for Student Use
Develop a WebQuest using the “generic facets” model. Ask students to find out all they can about a new work by searching for the answers to the questions posed by the model. If students participate in small groups for this activity, encourage them to share their analyses.

Just as the model can be used to describe compositions created by others, it can also be used in planning new compositions. Ask students to create a new piece using the facets questions as a strategy to guide their creative decisions. As students perform their compositions for others, use the questions to interview the composers about their process, inspirations, and intentions.

Ask the students to find works in other art forms—visual art, literature, dance, or theatre—that parallel at least one category of questions in the Facets Model for a piece you are studying. In the case of This Land is Your Land, for example, students could search for poems, photographs, novels, or plays that depict the era of the Dust Bowl and its effect on people’s lives.

References
Barrett, J.R., McCoy, C. W., & Veblen, K. K. (1997). Sound ways of knowing: Music in the interdisciplinary curriculum. New York: Schirmer Books.