My last period class of seventh grade English students enters and takes their seats. It was a quiz day. Not five seconds after they had all put their behinds in their chairs, did they begin to break out in song.
In unison.
“You are, my fiiiiire. The one, desiiiiiiirreee. Believe when iiiii sayyyy, that iiii want it thaaaaaat awayyyyy!”
Unbeknownst to my students, I am a huge Backstreet Boys fan. Grew up listening to them and I still own almost all of their CD’s, which I play from time to time in the car.
So I sat at my desk, stonefaced, pretending to organize some papers in my binder. I wanted to have a little fun with this.
I could tell that some of the students were getting bit nervous that I was perhaps upset. Some mouths stopped singing, but it was still plenty loud with the rest of them continuing. When they finished, I just sat and looked at them with my strong resting bitch face. I made eye contact with all of them without smiling for a good minute.
I then said in a serious voice, “extra point on the quiz for anyone who can name all the members of the Backstreet Boys.” They all looked at me for a few seconds and groaned, “can’t you ask us another trivia question please????”
“If you are going to sing a Backstreet Boys song, you should know who the members of the band are.” No doubt they looked it up when they got home.
“Another thing,” I continued, still stone faced. “If you are going to sing this song in class, you must be able to sing it from beginning to end, all the way through. You must know which parts are solos, and delegate them accordingly, and which parts are duets or the entire band.” At this point, some of the students raised their hands to volunteer as tribute.
“The next time you sing this song in class, it MUST be done correctly, with all of these things taken into consideration. If you need to print out the lyrics ahead of time, that is fine. You have my permission, once this is perfected, to come into class and begin this performance.”
I eagerly await this day, and secretly hope they are able to do it early next week at the latest!
Now, at this point, all of the students were pumped about singing. They asked me if it could be extra credit. That sparked an idea:
“No,” I said. “But, here is what I CAN do.” For extra credit, you may create and perform a song, rap or dramatic poetry reading of scenes from the book we are reading in class.” Outbursts of excitement littered the room. Ideas started being thrown around, and the creativity was visible. I even threw out some more ideas. “You guys know Weird Al?” They all cheered and mentioned Amish Paradise. I said, “Great. You can use your lyrics to an instrumental version of a song to create this type of art.”
The next question got me.
“So, we can make it to the instrumental version of ‘Lose Yourself?’”
Oh, how did this student know my love for Eminem? “Yes! Of course!”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you trick students into writing poetry and helping them strengthen their reading comprehension- all while making this experience fun and enjoyable for all.
Best believe I’ll be making a rap as well.
Nature in New England 