Lines of Inquiry - Language of Birds

If you have read the book, on which the opera is loosely based, with your class, (and for some of these questions, even if you have not!) here are some discussion topics our pedagogical advisory team developed this summer to kick-start conversations with your students. We'd love to hear your feedback and other ideas!

What do you think about the story, just from reading it:
1) What are some real-life examples (historically and internationally) of how being virtuous like Ivan has paid off in real life?
2) Some say the wedding is not the end of the story but the beginning. Do you agree? Why or why not?
3) In what ways is the Princess a role model for strong young women?
4) In what ways does this story have all the “parts” of a fairy tale? What’s missing? What’s totally different from a typical fairy tale, in your opinion?
5) In what ways does Ivan’s relationship with the birds help the world around him (his community)?
6) Can you find other examples — in other stories, or in real life?
7) Can you think of any other fairy tales have the same relationships between family members? (Ask friends and family)
8) Can you think of any other stories can you find where birds play a large role?
(Ask friends and family)

Welcome

It's late July and the birds are out in full force... many of you won't hear about this blog for several weeks. But welcome, welcome, whenever you get here!

Santa Fe New Music is a performing arts organization. Why, you ask, are we starting a blog about birds? And why are we inviting educators, classrooms, and parents to contribute to it?

One reason is program-related, and the other has to do with the people who are SFNM and our values and beliefs. First the program-relation. A major component of our 2008-2009 season will be the youth opera production "The Language of Birds." (Read all about it here.) The main theme of the opera is that when we care for nature and all its creatures (including each other) we are a stronger, happier community. When we've talked to teachers and education-focused parents we know about the project, they've all gotten inspired about ways they could incorporate birds into their lesson plans, reading lists, backyard activities, etc. Why let all those good ideas go to waste?

If you want to read the book, there are copies available on Amazon. Another part of this reason is that we live in a big state, and there are many pockets of New Mexico (and really, the whole world, since this is on the Internet) where people have great ideas and experiences and it seemed like a fun and good idea to make a place where these could be shared and communications begun across the many miles that separate us.

The other reason is because we are parents, we support public education (really, all education -- which is why private schools and homeschooling networks are also being made aware of this blog), we love to watch our children learn, and we actually enjoy learning new things too. So it seemed fitting that with a great theme (built around a great opera) and all the ideas that are out there, we'd try this experiment and see what takes flight (pun intended).

Rules of Posting as with our general blog on new music, we do wish to exercise a bit of content control. Please email your blog submissions to us, and we will post them (unless they are defamatory or objectionable.) This blog can accept text messages, html, and jpegs or gif or png files -- but not .pdfs. If you would like to comment on any published post, you do not have to register, just hit post.

Exercise caution in revealing the last names of any student or minor. If we see any revealing details that raise privacy concerns, we'll edit it out, but we prefer not to have to do any editing.

This blog will continue as a live resource through April 30, 2009, at which point it will become archived. Thanks and enjoy!