Filed under: Reading, education, history, music | Tags: Non-fiction, Reading, Teaching
Following up on my earlier post about non-fiction, Rosa by Nikki Giovanni is exactly the kind of thing I am looking for. Giovanni is a pretty incredible woman (she was nominated for a Grammy with Tupac!) and this is a great book for readers of all ages – the illustrations are beautiful and Nikki is an exceptional writer.
Anything else like this out there?
(I skipped posting the obvious Outkast song here.)
Tomorrow is the New York State 8th Grade Social Studies exam. While no one has said it (either implicitly or explicitly), I can’t help but think that my entire first year of teaching will come down to a two digit number – the percent of students found to be “proficient” in history according to New York State. The state math scores came out today, and our results were nothing short of incredible: 100% of our students – in EVERY grade – were proficient. I am not sure there is another middle school in the city with those numbers. So no pressure here. None at all.
My students love music. They love everything and almost anything, so I try to use it in class as much as possible. Using music correctly is tricky, but I think I have it down. I have a few basic rules, some that apply to me and some that apply to them:
1. Always provide students with a complete copy of lyrics (if available).
2. Require students to mark up their copy of the text as the song plays – think “active reading skills.”
3. Listen to the entire recording of the song prior to class. Make sure it is the EXACT clip you plan on playing.
4. If the song is short, play it twice and have them free-write the second time through.
5. I will usually require them to write down two adjectives, two adverbs, two nouns, and two verbs that come to mind.
6. I will also usually ask students to write an additional verse. These can be great – I have a lot of “aspiring” MCs in my class. The additional verses to Take the A Train and the dust bowl ballads were only incredible.
7. Run through the rules and expectations before every song. I rolled out the rules the first time, and now I have students list them off.
8. One student always repeats the disclaimer: “There is no expectation that you are going to love this jam. You may hope you never hear it again. Very few of us are going to run home and download it, but, that doesn’t mean that we can’t listen respectfully and learn something from the song.”
9. Other rules include, absolutely no ‘mocking’ the song or disrupting class in anyway. You are welcome to tap your foot or sing along quietly, but as soon as you become the focus of the song and not the song itself, you will be asked to leave the class.
Below is an abbreviated list of songs I have used. Any other suggestions? Would love the song title and the subject matter.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band: End of the Civil War, Southern Pride, Reconstruction (Thanks Mrs. H. for this idea.)
Talkin World War III Blues - Bob Dylan: McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the Cold War.
Blowing Down That Old Dusty Road - Woody Guthrie: Great Depression, Dust Bowl
A Change Is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke: Civil Rights Era
I used a ton of Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith, among others, for our unit on the Harlem Renaissance, but that is material for another post.
The title of the previous post comes from a song quoted in Studs Terkel’s book “The Good War.” This is a great book that I relied on heavily for classroom materials. Like all of his works, it’s a collection of oral histories. I highly recommend both this one and “Hard Times.” The stories are incredible. There is no need to sit down and read the whole thing, but reading one or two here and there is very rewarding.
Also, I know almost nothing about graphic novels. I’ll admit that I am kind of intrigued. This weekend I read Maus by Art Spiegelman. It’s a graphic novel about the Holocaust and life in the U.S. for a survivor and his family. A lot of the 8th grade is going to be reading it next week and I wanted to get a jump on them.
I would love other suggestions of graphic novels that I could use in a history class. Any ideas?
Filed under: history
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated trying to help sanitation workers form a union in Memphis, TN. Earlier this year, several of our 8th graders interviewed the Reverend Billy Kyles, who was with MLK in the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis that day 41 years ago. These photos from Life are amazing, but not an easy viewing.
