Title: Writing with Music

Date: 30th January, 2019

Grade/Class Observed: 6th Grade

Age Group: 11- 12

School Name: The City School

Written By: Hareem Khalid 20-11281 Rida S Khan 19-11159

Submitted To: C J Dubash

This report explores the effects of music on the creative writing of primary school students. Children aged
11-12 were asked to write an exciting story of their choice while listening to two types of music i.e.
arousing and calming music. The music appeared to have little effect on basic literacy skills in the
children but the stories were rated as more ‘exciting’ when the ‘calming’ music was played in the
background.

We collaborated as a team with the class teacher to analyze the activity. After having explained the
concept of our activity to the teacher, we introduced ourselves to the children. Subsequently, the teacher
explained the activity to the children. The students were asked to write two stories; one with a modern
country music in the background and the other with a classical music tone. The actual topic itself was left
to their discretion. They were given one hour to complete the task. Without any guidance, they were
asked to write a story with a beginning, middle and an ending. While the pupil wrote their stories, we
invigilated them carefully and helped them with their queries. During the first half of the activity we
played modern country music and during the second half we played classical music to determine how
different genres of music affect the creativity of students.

The stories were marked by Rida and I independently. The class teacher aided us with our observations.
We noticed that the exciting music clearly had a negative effect on the behavior of the students which was
prevalent in their writing. The stories they wrote either had no pattern to it or they were violent in terms
of the theme. In contrast to modern music, the calming classical music showed positive reflections in the
writings. Many of the stories were properly written with a definite beginning and ending and had the
themes of love and nature present in them. In addition to this, some students were unable to write
anything at all which probably meant that music, irrespective of its genre, was too distracting for them to
enable them to write creatively.

After we mutually agreed to our observations, we finally analyzed that exciting modern music led to the
writing of more violent stories. This confirmed the earlier researches which claimed that having, exciting,
aggressive music playing in the background led to less reported altruism as compared to a calming music
in the background. At the end of the activity, we asked a few questions from the students. When asked if
first half of the activity helped them write better, the response from the pupil was negative. And when
asked if slow, classical music helped them write better, then majority of them raised their hands and
replied in the affirmative. Interestingly, for some students music helped them in their writing while some
targeted it as a distraction while writing.

Our findings led us to conclude that an outside stimulus such as music can have a deep impact on the
creative writing that one produces. Every student had a different way of perceiving the music and thus all
the stories were different from each other. This makes it clear that music can enhance self-perceptions but
only if it provides positive learning experiences which are rewarding.