A song comes on the radio and immediately you are mentally in another time and place. If you are with someone you have known long enough you may begin your next sentence with - "Remember when..." Jitterbug by Wham! starts playing and I can feel my hair getting bigger and my clothes turning 80s florescent in my mind. There is such an emotional pull to music that it engages our minds and senses in a way that few other methods can. One of the questions posed by Dave Burgess in Teach Like a Pirate is: How can I incorporate music into this lesson. I think that most teachers have used music in one fashion or another in their classroom, but to actively consider what music should be playing, if any, as your students enter your classroom is worth more conscious consideration. Rather than just use music when it seems like the obvious choice, how do I find ways to make it the obvious choice in a lesson?
With that question in mind I went back to my opening lessons for this coming school year and considered it for each lesson. For the first day of school, while the students work on their play dough creations (refer to Burgess book for more information) I will play "Who Are You?" by the Who. I am also planning on asking students what school appropriate songs they have at the top of their playlists and possibly use those as class entry music to better connect with each student. I had decided to do this after an experience I had riding in a car with some students. I decided to play my playlist for them. Two of the students sang along with the songs they knew and asked questions and one student put in her earphones and listed to her own music. I realized that I saw my music as an extension of me and that the students with the headphones was inadvertently "rejecting" me. With that little personal reflection I considered the idea further and realized that we could get to know the people in our class a little by learning what was on their playlist.
Next I turned to my second lesson plan for the year which leads us into propaganda, persuasion, and critical thinking. As we start our lesson on propaganda, we will be more direct in the use of music and its role in propaganda. I will play "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" by Toby Keith and we will spend time discussing how music plays on our emotions and opinions (Did you know that Yankee Doodle Dandy was the British attempt to make the rebellious colonists look foolish - but it backfired? As we tie this into Animal Farm by George Orwell - some music from the Russian Revolution would also be appropriate. If I ask this TLAP question with each lesson I prepare I may find more creative and unusual ways to incorporate music to help students connect with the curriculum or simply create a mood for a particular time period or concept.
On Twitter today someone posted a link to songs that were inspired by literature. As an English teacher I found the length of that list rather impressive, especially as I could think of some that were left off. My son likes to share music with me that he thinks I will like and a couple years ago he shared "My Name is Alice" by Shinedown. It is based on Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and I loved it. I enjoyed it so much I looked for a way to share it and I used that song with my classes when I've taught post-modernism. I have used "I'm Sexy and I know it" -the Ricky Martin/Glee version as my students presented their tableau based on Beowulf's boasting (some serious strutting took place by those who had represented Beowulf in the tableau.
With that question in mind I went back to my opening lessons for this coming school year and considered it for each lesson. For the first day of school, while the students work on their play dough creations (refer to Burgess book for more information) I will play "Who Are You?" by the Who. I am also planning on asking students what school appropriate songs they have at the top of their playlists and possibly use those as class entry music to better connect with each student. I had decided to do this after an experience I had riding in a car with some students. I decided to play my playlist for them. Two of the students sang along with the songs they knew and asked questions and one student put in her earphones and listed to her own music. I realized that I saw my music as an extension of me and that the students with the headphones was inadvertently "rejecting" me. With that little personal reflection I considered the idea further and realized that we could get to know the people in our class a little by learning what was on their playlist.
Next I turned to my second lesson plan for the year which leads us into propaganda, persuasion, and critical thinking. As we start our lesson on propaganda, we will be more direct in the use of music and its role in propaganda. I will play "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" by Toby Keith and we will spend time discussing how music plays on our emotions and opinions (Did you know that Yankee Doodle Dandy was the British attempt to make the rebellious colonists look foolish - but it backfired? As we tie this into Animal Farm by George Orwell - some music from the Russian Revolution would also be appropriate. If I ask this TLAP question with each lesson I prepare I may find more creative and unusual ways to incorporate music to help students connect with the curriculum or simply create a mood for a particular time period or concept.
On Twitter today someone posted a link to songs that were inspired by literature. As an English teacher I found the length of that list rather impressive, especially as I could think of some that were left off. My son likes to share music with me that he thinks I will like and a couple years ago he shared "My Name is Alice" by Shinedown. It is based on Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and I loved it. I enjoyed it so much I looked for a way to share it and I used that song with my classes when I've taught post-modernism. I have used "I'm Sexy and I know it" -the Ricky Martin/Glee version as my students presented their tableau based on Beowulf's boasting (some serious strutting took place by those who had represented Beowulf in the tableau.
So whether you want to take a trip back to a personal memory or create a memory for your students - take a look at what is on your playlist and ask yourself - How can I use music to teach a p