Hip-Hop

After reading the provided articles on hip-hop, I realized how far hip-hop music/culture has expanded all over the world. I was aware that mainstream society was embarking on this forbidden journey, but somehow missed the memo that it had become so popularized outside of its traditional audiences. I think it’s awesome that people’s tastes for music are becoming more fluid and not fixed on one specific genre of music.

I was really intrigued by the flocabulary.com website. I thought it was awesome how these graduate students took hip-hop music and connected it to the subject areas taught in school. Students can learn social studies, literature and study for the SAT using the flocabulary music and other teaching resources. This idea will connect with students who don’t learn using the traditional methods of teaching. It allows teachers to be responsive to students from culturally diverse backgrounds while also providing a stress free environment for them. In order to incorporate this form of teaching in the classroom, teachers will need the support of their school administrators. Will administrators be accepting of hip-hop music entering the classroom and doing the teaching? Will they understand that hip-hop (many students’ identities) is the missing component needed to improve student learning? Embracing students’ differences and lives outside of school will change how students view academic institutions and hence motivate them to become lifelong learners.

I would like to bring music in my classroom to teach various concepts of literacy. Since the elements of poetry are listed as a part of the state’ standards, lyrics of music could be used to analyze these components. Students can learn about figurative language, structure of poems in relation to lyrics of a song, theme and idea development in writing, descriptive writing, or the comparison of Standard English and other dialects.

I was reading the article, http://popmatters.com/chapter/04Autumn/coberlake.html that I found in a Google search on hip-hop. This article prompted me to think about the song “Hard Knock Life” by Jay-Z that is discussed in great detail in the article. I think Lake’s discussion on Annie and Jay-Z would make a great lesson for teaching students about hip-hop culture/music. In this article, Lake argues that Jay-Z may be making a mockery of orphan Annie with his authentic depiction of the real hard knock life. I would have my students to view the movie Annie and listen and view Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life for critique. What message are the two texts conveying to the audience? Are the texts contradictory to one another? What social and political messages are prevalent in these texts? How does this information configure into a definition of the hard knock life? Students can construct their answers in an essay or song using any prior texts or personal knowledge.

I am truly excited about incorporating music into my teaching and bringing students’ personal worlds into the classroom. I feel like by inserting personal components of students’ lives into learning it will make learning relevant and beneficial to students. It is essential that teachers don’t forget their audience and the meaningful aspects to their lives. After all, what good is teaching and learning in vain?