Poetry Analysis--Now with Rap Music

1/31/2019

"And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women"
"Keep Ya Head Up"--Tupac Shakur

Ah, poetry. It's the unit that all students love to hate. This has always confused me because the students (for the most part) listen to poetry on Spotify or the radio almost every day, and music is one of my hottest "selling" items during independent work time.

Back in Virginia, I used Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry" to introduce John Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" and it spread through the English department like wildfire. Here in Nebraska, I'm working with a younger crowd on different goals. According to the NSCAS, these are the major goals:

AND

To get student buy-in (which is difficult with poetry), I started using popular music. We start by analyzing the lyrics for literary devices and then move to summarizing the main idea and then finally conjuring up a theme. At first we do this worksheet together as a class analyzing "The Message" by Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five.

Then, we move to independent analysis. As always, this is a blended lesson where students can choose what they want to work on by genre. The classes were asked to pick ONE of the songs to analyze.

Finally, they pick an individual assignment to work on independently (and then self-check answers in a peer group). Finally, they work t to choose one of five poems/songs. These become the basis for our comparison contrast essays.

Link to Lesson Plans

2 Comments

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11/24/2022 08:49:30 pm

Rap music is the new poetry for some people and the analysis of poetry applied to rap music will be the next big thing. Rap music is a form of poetry at its core and studying how lines from RAP are structured can help us better understand how Rap works as a form. This can also help us understand why so many people who are not traditionally thought to be poetic are rappers in today's society, and how rap has helped fulfill this need for expression, taking away the stigma that was placed on black cultural expressions during slavery days and leading up to The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's when Martin Luther King himself said "I have a dream".

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9/29/2024 10:44:42 am

"Poetry Analysis—Now with Rap Music" is an exciting and insightful topic! Rap music, with its intricate wordplay, vivid imagery, and deep storytelling, can be seen as a modern form of poetry. Analyzing rap lyrics alongside traditional poetry allows for a deeper understanding of themes like struggle, identity, and social commentary that resonate in both forms.

You could explore various artists and their lyrical styles, comparing their techniques to classic poets. For instance, examining how metaphor, rhyme schemes, and rhythm are used in both rap and traditional poetry can reveal the artistry behind the words. Utilizing writing services can help articulate these analyses clearly, making connections that highlight the poetic nature of rap and encouraging appreciation for this genre among poetry enthusiasts!

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