WEEK 1, TUESDAY

OBJECTIVES:

Students should learn that urban art forms, like rap, have a history that connects them to the community’s past and to other literary forms. Specifically, rap descends from the Afro-American traditions of spirituals, shouts, jazz and the blues. These traditions express the drama of slavery, liberation and migration from the South to northern and western cities. This week will introduce the unit’s literacy goals: to identify and use poetic form in drama, poetry, rap and the blues; to read and interpret fiction and non-fiction; to write creatively and analytically; to explore the influence of the past on the present. This introduction will be accomplished by exploring the similarities and linkages between the these forms in Afro-American writers and performers. On this day, Tuesday, students will focus on one of the first important raps by placing it in a historical perspective, by examining it in terms that will later connect it to other art forms, by identifying rap’s distinctive features. By expressing their personal standards of taste, we will begin to develop skills of critical evaluation individually and collectively. Thereby, I hope to encourage an atmosphere that tolerates disagreements, yet allows the students to learn how community standards of art are constructed.

MATERIALS:

Poems, Songs and recordings: The Message by Grandmaster Flash

Non-fiction Hand-outs: History of Rap

Websites: Kurtis Blow Presents the History of Rap, Vol. 1 The Genesis

PROCEDURES:

1. Set goals for the day: learn about history of rap, examine The Message
2. Read: History of Rap
3. Discuss sequence and make time-line. Questions: When did your family come to this area? When were your parents born? What kind of music do they like? What other events happened(locally, nationally, internationally) in the periods outlined in the handout?
4. Locate The Message in sequence
5. Listen to recording of The Message
6. Read lyrics and discuss in groups: theme, setting, character, plot, symbols. Questions: What is the primary topic or theme? What is ‘the message’? Who is ‘close to the edge’?Why? How is the city viewed? School? Why? What are some of the characters? What is the ‘jungle’? What actions take place? How are they organized?
7. Introduce poetic terms: simile, metaphor, personification, assonance. Define terms then ask students to give creative, fun examples like ‘The teacher is as big as a house.’ or ‘She’s a brickhouse.’ ‘The city cried.’
8. Identify in groups examples of these terms in The Message
9. Discuss as class distinctive features of rap: attitude, focus, tone, rhythm. Give examples of tone: ironic, scornful, joyful, hopeful, angry, fearful, etc. Give examples of attitude: respectful, disrespectful, loving, uncaring, etc. Develop profile of The Message. Give evidence from rap. Discuss the different profiles of different kinds of rap.
10. Homework: begin student journals--why do/or don’t they like rap? What themes would they like to write about? Which feature is most important?

ASSESSMENT:

Students will demonstrate their knowledge through identifying and using poetic vocabulary in class discussion and in a journal entry that elaborates on their personal preferences in order to establish a reference point for future explorations into less familiar forms of music and literature. In additions students will begin the process of developing a historical sensibility that will connect popular arts with other aspects of culture, connect art with broader social and political events, and connect the students’ experience of the present with the lives of their predecessors.

NOTES:

Keep moving, listen to rap twice if possible, explain ‘profile’, explain that journal will be useful in composing final essay and journal will be collected to at the end of the unit to be evaluated on pass fail basis.

Lesson Plan 2

Lesson Plan 3

Lesson Plan 4

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