This Term our focus for literacy is "To Entertain". My life prior to becoming a Classroom Teacher was filled with music: writing, studying, teaching, practicing and performing. Following on from our Novel Study sessions (which I blogged about earlier), I have decided to have the children explore song lyrics. As we have just finished revisiting poetry it seems a natural progression to explore and critically discuss the language within lyrics.
The following are some of the links to readings which I am drawing inspiration from:
https://conference.pixel-online.net/FOE/files/foe/ed0005/FP/0475-ITL949-FP-FOE5.pdf
http://www.songsforteaching.com/lb/literacymusic.htm
https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/ways-use-song-lyrics-improve-comprehension
Then I had the idea of adding other layers to the studies. Growing up, I would spend hours watching music videos from my favourite bands which I recorded on my parents' VCR. Many of these had a kind of mini story which either told a similar or completely different side of the story conveyed in the song. This meant there were some songs which may be open for interpretation if only the lyrics are viewed, but when the video was viewed it gave greater exposition, more detail and sometimes led to deeper questions.
I am structuring each study into two tiers to encourage the students to think and justify their thinking - the first is focussed on the written lyrics, the second (follow up) is comparing/contrasting the information presented in the music video.
The biggest challenge I can see, looking forward, is getting the children to initiate and facilitate their own discussions as they are still reluctant to contribute ideas within groups. I do feel we have made good progress thus far in promoting "having a go", however, this ingrained attitude of being compliant and receptive is hard for them to overcome.
Here is a link to an observation of one of the first group sessions this week.
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