Lyrics in English Class

Teens are avid music connoisseurs; every student has a favorite song they love.  Tapping into this passion to teach about Standard English-- mechanics, grammar, usage and spelling-- helps student be motivated to learn and is both engaging and entertaining.

Strategy summary:

How to:

1. Ask students to bring in the lyrics of one of their favorite songs.

2. Their assignment is to transform the lyrics into a grammatically accurate short essay that maintains the meaning of the original lyrics.

3. Have them submit the original lyrics with the essay when they hand it in.

OPTIONAL PREPARATORY ACTIVITY  

1. Share the lyrics to your favorite popular song.  Play this song for the class- and ask students to text code the lyrics

2)  Have a class discussion about what they annotated.  Focus in on the grammar comments.  Ask why the artist didn’t use Standard English.  

3)  Assign students to bring in lyrics to their favorite popular song.  When student have these lyrics, ask them to text code as before, but then rewrite the lyric using standard English.

4)  Have students document what was the most common English rule that was broken in the song.   Share these as a class.

Commentary: This activity was originally created by Greg Trimmer at Springfield Renaissance School, Springfield, MA. I created the optional preparatory activity. Thanks Greg!