One of the cohort in my bachelor's program used a graphing rap song to solidify graphing rules and concepts with her students as she worked with them on graphing. First she explicitly went through the lyrics with them and had them rap together once. Then, as they worked in groups or individually she has the song playing quietly in the background. There is a bit of rote memorization with this particular approach, but the brilliance is that students had a positive interaction with the material. The remembering was easy and therefore the reasons behind the concepts became the focus. She could say "remember when the song says ____? What they mean by that is ____________." The other approach to this could be to have students deconstruct the text (why does the song say that?). This last approach is inquiry based and is most successful.
Students who reside primarily in their right brain are governed by musicality (among other things artistic). Rap and rhythm tap into right-brain intelligence to strengthen comprehension. ESOL students often benefit from music and rhythm because it gives them a quickly retrieved association to attach learning to. below are some content rap resources to support classroom learning...
Visit the website flocabulary.com for examples of content rap that can be used in class. Remember, this is only one way music can be used in class. Consider having students take their favorite song to create lyrics for that convey content material or to assess student understanding. Students can even use Garageband (for Apple) or mixcraft (for Microsoft) to mix music and record their rap lyrics into an audio masterpiece.
I also found songsforteaching.com but the music I sampled was not quite as hip.
For some research based techniques for using music and lyrics in class see my Professional Reading page.
Listen to this NPR radiocast about rap in education.
And, dude, MR. DUEY is Totally FLY! Really, this guy is right up there with Dr. Dre. He offers this link to amazon so you can download his raps right onto your classroom computers. He even offers the instrumentals alone so students can practice rapping the lyrics. Check it OUT!
PLEASE NOTE! I suggest you review the content within the products I highlighted. It was brought to my attention that the content in the flocabulary science raps have some errors; They are not totally accurate academically. Please check content for accuracy before you use any of the above mentioned materials.
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