University of Vermont ScholarWorks @ UVM Graduate College Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 2019 Voice Matters: Building Resonance In Education Using Stories About Identity And Belonging Joseph A. Antonioli Jr. University of Vermont Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Antonioli Jr., Joseph A., "Voice Matters: Building Resonance In Education Using Stories About Identity And Belonging" (2019). Graduate College Dissertations and Theses. 1047. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/1047 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate College Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VOICE MATTERS: BUILDING RESONANCE IN EDUCATION USING STORIES ABOUT IDENTITY AND BELONGING A Thesis Presented by Joseph A Antonioli Jr. To The Faculty of the Graduate College of the University of Vermont In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education Specializing in Interdisciplinary Studies May, 2019 Defense Date: March 29, 2019 Thesis Examination Committee: Robert J. Nash, Ed. D. Advisor David Neiweem, D.M.A. Chairperson Charles Rathbone, Ed. D. Emeritus Cynthia J. Forehand, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate College Abstract How do we maintain our own authentic voice while still being a productive member of a group? How do we not lose our voice and our meaning to the collective? This thesis is a series of stories that examines one student's experience with the intersection of music, education, technology, and personal life. It is a document of resonance, identifying interdisciplinary events and ideas that amplify each other, helping the student to extract and apply meaning in times of hope and challenge, peace and chaos, and serenity and sorrow, using the Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) approach. The chapters shape the explorations. The first chapter of this thesis expresses the importance of Listening to our own voice. Chapter 2 explores Dissonance, the tension that challenges us to examine what we believe to be true in our own voice. The third chapter examines Empowerment, looking to the head, heart and gut, carried on our breath, to find success by using our own authentic voice. Chapter 4 looks at Liberation, and the steps we take to reclaim our voice when it is being suppressed. Chapter 5 shares the healing power of music, examining its relationship to Memory. The last chapter attempts to pull all of these ideas together by exploring the relationship between personal Identity and Belonging. Acknowledgements My wife, Kim. My daughters Kyla, Chiara, and Taylor. The members of Root7 at the time the album was created: Samantha Donalds, Isaiah Gilbert, Kayla James, Corrine Mertz, Christopher Nial, Mack Roark, Sharon Silverman, and Danielle Trasciatti-Holmberg. Readers Joshua Morse and Terry Simpkins. My fellow Scholarly Personal Narrative students. Elise Guyette and David Shiman. Jennifer Jang and Sydnee Viray Robert J. Nash ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements .........................................................................................................ii Resonance...................................................................................................................... 1 Resonance (reprise)........................................................................................................ 9 Listening...................................................................................................................... 12 Dissonance ................................................................................................................... 21 Empowerment ............................................................................................................. 27 Liberation.................................................................................................................... 34 Memory ....................................................................................................................... 49 Identity and Belonging ................................................................................................. 57 Glossary..................................................................................................................... 111 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 112 Track List .............................................................................................................. 113 iii Resonance To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage. ~ Alexander Pope, Prologue To Mr Addison's 'Cato.' How do we maintain our own authentic voice while still being a productive member of a group? How do we not lose our voice and our meaning to the collective? The answer, I believe, is where universalisability in SPN and music align. My favorite musical compositions are the ones that align the music with the message. This augments the meaning creating resonance. As a composer and an arranger, I use my experience with the craft to create the art, to make my singers and the audience to connect with their own personal stories so that they feel something together. Working with singers to develop their voices so that we can craft these moments fills me with joy. I am not just a musician, I am also a teacher and a parent, yet I think about these roles in the same way that I think about music. I want my students and my children to explore their voices so that they may share them with the world. My own sense of purpose is very student-centered, starting with the individuals and working outward. I believe this combination of philosophy and practice is why SPN resonated with me, and why I chose this style for my thesis. 1 Robert Nash and Sydnee Viray, co-professors for EDFS 309A, gave us an additional homework assignment at the end of class on a chilly fall evening, a little more than half- way through the semester. They asked us to come up with an “apt metaphor” for Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) writing. I had written down my metaphor before they had finished explaining the assignment. “SPN is a melody that holds truth for the writer that they hope resonates with the reader.” The metaphor assignment prompted me to put into words what an SPN song would sound like. One student in our SPN class, Amy, caused me think that both forms are looking for resonance. I can imagine every SPN paper having a resonant frequency, one that gets amplified when it comes into contact with the reader’s own internal resonance. This is a physical phenomenon for sound. Air compresses and expands at a rate, often represented by a sine wave. Adding sine waves together changes the amplification, the same frequency added to itself makes a sound louder. Frequencies that are multiples of each other create harmonics, ones that are very different create dissonance. Dissonance wants to resolve. “We tell our stories to prove that we’ve lived, that we are still alive, and that we intend to live into some unknown future.” ~ Robert J. Nash, Our Stories Matter 2 The SPN writer creates the piece, their melody, on their own frequencies, with the hope that it will help the reader to feel a connection with dissonance and resolution. Their melody is the “what,” the resolved dissonance is the “so what,” and the impact on the listener is the “now what.” An SPN song will have lyrics and score that integrate and amplify each other, a mix of familiar and new that resonates with the listener. “I use scholarship to highlight the notion that, while I have my own perspective and experience, others might be able to take my story and find hope and healing in their own story. This is what SPN writers refer to as ‘universalizability.’” ~ Sydnee Viray, How Stories Heal: writing our way to meaning and wholeness in the academy. SPN and music help us to make human connections, sharing pieces of the shattered mirror that reflect our own humanity back at us. These connections remind us that we are more alike than we are different. SPN does this through personal stories and scholarship, a piece of music can do the same. This paper connects pieces of music with personal stories and scholarship, my own experience with my a cappella group and the experiences around it, combined with observations on music, education, technology, and relationships. Have you ever seen a meeting where someone has created graphical notes? They draw cartoonish representations of the conversation, usually on a large piece of paper, a la Common Craft ( https://www.commoncraft.com/ ). I witnessed this once at a conference. 3 There were panelists on stage in a room of about 500 people, and one woman, with alacrity and creativity, captured the meeting on a scroll of paper 4 ft high and 25 feet long. I could not believe she was doing this with un-erasable markers. The same thing is done in song. The intellectual essence, concepts, ideas and stories, are captured in lyrics, and the emotional tone is represented in chord structures and rhythmic figures. I was thinking on this as I reviewed my notes from class, and as I did this common themes and ideas jumped out, resonating in my head