Day 1:
Boom sss ka sss boom sss ka
I walked into class and told the students we were going to have a rap battle in class. I don't think the students believed me at first because they all gave me the weirdest looks. The purpose of today's lesson was to identify the main idea and key details of a story. I just decided to disguise this language arts lesson into a fun rap activity.
"Come over to my chair, let's read this book first". I read them a story about Ferdinand Magellan, a famous explorer. The students this year are learning about the era of exploration so it was all very applicable. We read the picture book together and afterwards I asked them to identify the main idea. "Ferdinand Magellan was an explorer!", one of the students exclaimed. "Okay", I said "but can you give me some key details about what we read?" The students raised their hands and gave me some key details from the story. I then did the unexpected. I played a rap beat and began to rap about Ferdinand Magellan.
When I finished, the kids stared at me, still a little in shock. "Aren't you impressed at your teacher's rapping skills?" They applauded me.
(To listen to Ms.Wild's rap, scroll down to the audio player on the blog)
I separated them all into groups and gave each group a short picture book about a different explorer. Here was their task:
1. read the excerpt with their group
2. identify key details from the story and write them down
3. Write the main idea.
I floated around the classroom and helped each group do this. By the end of class, they all had about half a page of key details and a main idea.
DAY 2:
The next week, I taught a short lesson about the origin of rap. We talked about the cultural significance of rap and how it is often used to express emotion and sad stories of family and economic problems. I showed the kids a bunch of examples of rhyming schemes in rap and explained that a rap contains:
bars (verses)
a hook (a chorus, could be just one line repeated over and over)
a bridge
I talked about how rap often contains similes and metaphors. It was fun to see them make the connection between what they had learned about those in language arts. I gave them an easy template for the format of their rap and some simple rhyming schemes and then set them to work. It was so fun floating around the classroom listening to the students come up with their rap. In most groups, the whole group contributed. I successfully disguised all these different writing techniques (rhymes, metaphors, similes, rhythm etc) through this rap activity.
The best part was the rap battle. Here is one of the raps written by four students:
To listen to the rap performed by the students, go to the audio player tab on my blog :)
It's amazing what kids can do when they are given the chance to create in a group together. I thought this lesson was very effective in teaching main idea, key details, rhythm and rhyme as well as history. By giving children opportunities to create, they learn so many things without even realizing it.
Lesson Plan
