#1831. Do you hear the words?

Literature, level: all
Posted Sun Jul 2 18:49:08 PDT 2000 by Beverly Wilburn (bwkay_wilburn@yahoo.com).
Career Century, Odessa, Texas
Materials Required: pen/pencil, paper, cd's, cd player, literary terms
Activity Time: As long as you need but at least 1hr
Concepts Taught: imaging, literary terms, relevance to life skills

I experimented with this idea using my students as guinea pigs. I was teaching a review of literary terms and I put the terms on the board. Then we discussed them. This is originally a 12th grade assignment. But it can be used at any level. I had the students sign a sheet of paper where they gave their name and the favorite song from a cd of theirs. They were beside themselves.

The next day one student and his/her favorite song was played to the class. Then we replayed the song and as a couple of lines were sang we would stop the song and discuss imagery, metaphor, simile,... we continued till the song was finished again. Then we discussed what type of important images, words did the singer/writer use to convey the message. Next we talked about old songs with the same message and how certain social themes continue from generation to generation.

Then we tested by answering questions about each students song and its theme and images ect. The students really enjoyed this lesson and many had not really listened to the words but only the music. I think you can do so much with this lesson to expand it. I hope you have as much fun with this as I have.