Article Groups

When I first saw the options for the article groups I was immediately drawn to the Hip Hop Literacy group because I’ve always thought of Hip Hop as spoken word with music involved. And as someone who performs spoken word, obviously it is a draw. I’ve always tried talking my teachers into having music projects that try to incorporate what was being learned in class with our own musical style. And I think my sophomore year of high school is the only time my teacher took my suggestion and has permanently incorporated into his curriculum. We took Elie Weisel’s Night and compared it to Holocaust songs by Weird Al Yankovich. It inspired soo many students to actually read the book so they know what song lyrics to look for next. We had contests of who had the most relative song to what we were reading.

When reading the articles, and seeing all the songs that were a direct draw from some of the most famous poems taught in academia, it was so inspiring that I could pull from that source and continue to motivate my students musically, without them thinking that I am lame. It also connects to them on a more personal level. Those students that feel that they could never possibly understand the subject matter, have things broken down to relate to their current life situations. It reminded me of the Tupac scene in the Freedom Writers (which is a horrible example, but it works nonetheless), where something so unattainable like poetry, or the Diary of Anne Frank was put into perspective of the current day students.

I think what I learned most from my own article group was what songs and poems related to each other. Or even what philosophical essays or novels related to songs today. It’s going to be so much easier to get students to be engaged when I’m pulling from where they are culturally comfortable.