Rapping+isn't+teaching

Using Rap music to captivate and motivate in computer science education: It’s not rare for teachers and parents to assume rap music is “just an inner-city thing” that won’t work with their students. I’m here to dismiss the myth! __Background__ My first rap was performed at an academic fair at New Village Charter HS. We turned the entire school into a theme paying tribute to the colonel history period. At the fair, parents, school board members and the community at large attended and it was a stupendous occassion, enjoyed by all! Our principal, Dr. Cortez, gave us a challenge to teach a history lesson integrated with our subject matter. He set the tone for how exciting this period was and how the students will benefit from learning. He raised the bar really high for us to follow. Our lesson planning must pertain to the colonel history period, instead of teaching our usual subjects, we all were required to create and to teach a week long history lesson, integrated with multiple learning models. He was very accepting to creative teaching styles and he encouraged us to to be reflective and to make our lesson culturally relevant. It was time to develop our own lesson and we began by gathering information online and doing some research on the time period. I have never been good with history and dates and I was rather nervous and feeling like giving up. By this time, my students were becoming irritated with all the class changes and my lack of confidence was showing. I had to do something that would not only get their attention, but would also keep them interested and satisfy my principal's request. The students and I started discussing and imagining that time period. After we collected more facts, I wrote these words... and we rapped our colonel history lesson. Here's the rap that we wrote:

Back in the day you wanna know what happened? There sho' was no rapping.. Girls getting married at 14 That's right! Men were the one's that we would fight!

Now let me tell you about ole Ben Franklin... He was so cool that we should thank him. He created the US Post Office The electric heater... Franklin's inventions are too enormous to rank him.

Roll call! New England!

Rhode Island, Connecticut, we are right here. Oh,come Massachusetts with New Hampshire all extraordinaire, sir! ... The students not only learned the colonel history, but they were active participants, engaging and contributing to the learning process. In the end, students attendance increased which resulted in test scores increasing overall for the school. Dr. Cortez did a fantastic job building a community of learners and risk takers. Although it was a struggle at first, I had fun learning and being myself.

More information pertaining to teaching with rap and hip hop beats....

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And if none of that convinces you and busts the myth, check out this video about Subjects and Predicates - (rapping by Skee-Lo) media type="youtube" key="Dj4H3Ioxs6s" height="315" width="560"