Inquiry blog close reading

Blog Post 3

Does music increase productivity?

Multimodal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDfVsFxJXms

Music and the Brain: Jessica Grahn at TEDxWesternU

There wasn’t any text to read because this is based off of a Ted Talk, however I feel that the information being relayed in the video is not horribly complex by any means and could be easily understood by anyone Middle School level and above. As for the contents quality, I found this a very useful source for helping divulge some of the fallacies that come with the topic at hand. Jessica talks about the different studies behind the marketing of products such as Mozart for Minds, debunking them based on a lack of scientific evidence. She continues to explain studies that followed, which revealed that the main way music affects brain function comes as a result of the mood you have as a result. This means that if you enjoy the song and are in a better mood you will show an increase in performance, however if the song has a negative effect on your mood you are most likely going to perform worse than you normally would. The quantity of information in this talk was more than I expected, Grahn referenced studies that have proven all of the positive ways that music can better the brain; from reduction in pain after surgery and during child birth , to helping with memory recollection in dementia patients,  or even improved endurance, music can do incredible things for the human brain.

This video would be used in class to give students a different mode of research. Ted Talks are one of my favorite sources of new information, keeping up to date on a lot of current topics and science. This talk in particular also gives students a different view on the topic at hand. As well as this, this shows students how research can be misconstrued to help make products more marketable. Lastly this talk does show the benefits music can have on the brain, even if it doesn’t directly correlate to productivity.

https://genius.com/Macklemore-otherside-lyrics

this is a link to a song talking about music productions ability to help someone be productive in addiction recovery.  Another multimodal source that many people in recovery can relate to, even if drug addiction isn’t necessarily what they are recovering from.

Print Based:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/07/music-moves-brain-to-pay-attention-stanford-study-finds.html

Baker, Mitzi. “Music Moves Brain to Pay Attention, Stanford Study Finds.” News Center, 1 Aug. 1970, med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/07/music-moves-brain-to-pay-attention-stanford-study-finds.html

After looking at the Storytools for this text, the average grade for this text would be 18, so this text is pretty complex in terms of base knowledge for High School level students however I feel that the majority of this comes from the vocabulary words:

functional magnetic resonance imaging

baroque

partitions

segmentation

subconsciously

Musical movements

The quality of information in this article was incredible when looking at the very narrow field that this study followed, which fortunately for me had to do with the effect of music on the brains ability to pay attention. Music engages the areas of the brain that are involved with paying attention, making predictions, and updating event in memory. When looking at the quantity of the information provided in this article, there is plenty of information talking about how the brain is activated during the process of listening to music. This article also talks at great length about how when listening to the same song two people’s minds can be in very different places; however at that moment in between a compositions movements the two brains come back into focus intently. This is a technique that was actually used by baroque style composers in the late 1600’s early 1700’s.

This is probably the article that I would introduce lastly to students due to its intensive nature. I do feel that it would be beneficial though because it is an actual study that they can look at and interpret. I think that it would provide a good challenge for them to practice close reading as well as dealing with language they may not know. This will require them to use context around the word to understand what the content is telling them, and possibly the need to look up the word which is something I think is become less and less frequent in our youth.

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/bored-work-create-productivity-soundtrack-ncna778086

Culturally Relevant:

http://college.usatoday.com/2012/09/10/should-you-listen-to-music-while-you-study/

Tickell, Sofia Castello y. “Should You Listen to Music While You Study?” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 16 July 2014, college.usatoday.com/2012/09/10/should-you-listen-to-music-while-you-study/.

The average grade for this article would be grade 12 according to Storytools, however after reading the article I think that it would be comprehended by most people throughout high school. i feel that this article would be great for the students to read second after watching the video. i feel that the video would provide a great hook to get the students into the topic and then can ease into the gritty part with this article before going full fledged and scientific.
Vocab:

 Ubiquitous

Profound

cognitive limitations.

The quality of the article is very nice and well focused helping readers to understand how different types of music can effect the brain when you are learning. listening to music with lyrics can be compared to trying to learn while on a roller coaster because of cognitive limitations. this would be comparable to trying to learn things from two different people as they talk to you. this can be a very daunting task due to the way that brains take in information. but music can improve mood and help the brain to stay active. this is why music such as movie and video game soundtracks without lyrics can be very beneficial when studying. Unfortunately for this article i feel that it was a bit shorter quantitatively than what i would have liked, although maybe this is the nature of culturally relevant articles. although i did like how it talked about lyric-less musics ability to help people to get into things like reading and it even provided a list of artists that may help students greatly with studying and reading.  i felt like this was very beneficial in keeping this article culturally relevant because they were artists that i know and actually have used to study in the past such as Ratatat.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-music-for-productivity-2015-7

all in all i feel that these three articles give multiple variations on the topic of how music effects productivity, but together they give you a great understanding of the different areas music is able to help productivity, but also showed how music may prohibit students ability to stay productive with music in the background.