As applied in my Internship:

Standard #1 of the INTASC standards can be displayed in all portions of a high school choral setting. To me, the most evident display of standard #1 in my placement was in our daily practice of sight-singing. Not all students are equally grounded when it comes to musicianship, especially in a public high school environment. This is especially evident in the earlier grades of 9th and 10th grade. Some students come into the classroom and can tell you what key the piece is in, the time signature, and (most of the time) are your rock foundations for developing ear training and sight-singing fundamentals. On the other hand, you have students that come in and could not tell you the difference between a treble and a bass clef. Sight-singing is a convergence point where you can build up your weaker students to meet the stronger students while still challenging the stronger students to improve their musician skills as well as their leadership skills. Sight-singing truly shows the colors of standard #1 due to the use of all aspects of the standard. Cognitive skills are developed through the overarching process of sight-singing. Students are challenged to determine where the tonic is of the excerpt and based off of that pitch, determine what their own individual part's starting pitch is.They then work through the excerpt, essentially breaking the music down into manageable parts that are then put back together to make an end product. Linguistic skills are shown through the use of musical terms (Kodaly solfege mostly) to effectively communicate and decode the music. Social skills are developed through the cooperation and teamwork required from the individual sections, and later the choir as a whole to accomplish the task at hand. Emotional skills are developed through the social aspect; students are trained to focus  solely on the sight-singing excerpt. This creates a more serious tone. Social skills are used by leadership in the sections to rally morale and address inappropriate behavior among fellow students. In the end the process of sight-singing challenges the students to self-evaluate, self-improve, and learn to cooperate with others while supporting students that might be struggling.

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