As our culture becomes more visual I think it is increasingly important that teachers make an effort to appeal to learners of various learning styles. I try and do this by using music and video in the classroom. You might remember the great educational tunes on School House Rock (that’s how I learned about conjunctions) an updated approach to this idea is a book and CD set called Hip Hop U.S. History by Flocabulary. One of the raps I particularly like from the CD is called the Bill of Rights, I challenged my students to learn the lyrics to this song and despite passive resistance many of them did and at the same time have memorized the first ten amendments to the Constitution. I created a rap video for fun and to show my students that being silly and having fun with history is OK, I like to take risks in the classroom and despite my deplorable rapping ability and cheesy rap video clichés this was a lot of fun to make, my students love it and I have managed to reach reluctant learners at the same time a win win situation.
2 responses so far ↓
Your I HAVE A DREAM rap is OK, but I’ve heard a much better one put out by a company called Rhythm, Rhyme, Results. Do you know about them? They are at http://www.educationalrap.com and are about to release a number of excellent raps involving American history and civics. I find their music very appealing with rich content.
The wooden tooth, priceless!
Now more than ever we have to find ways to get the good stuff in this generation of born twitter-ites.
Keep up the good work.
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