After realizing that my original selected topics (all 5 of them) were too broad and needed serious refocusing, I have decided to center my wordpress.com blog on the idea of hip-hop music and education- that is, does it belong in an English classroom? It seems to contradict the very grammatical rules and manner of speaking “proper english”- so why include it? After all, the majority of the news the hip-hop industry seems to create (or at least what is published by the media) is portrayed in a negative light, promoting vulgarity, violence, rampant drug use, and the degradation of women. So, why integrate hip-hop?
THE STUDENTS, that’s why. Hip-hop is the fastest growing music industry, reaching far beyond simply music. This genre influences the clothing students are wearing, the lanugage they are using, and has infiltrated the music and films they watch to a large degree. For example, in the 80’s and 90’s Run DMC had kids “rockin the shelltoes” (Adidas sneakers) and Adidas sweatsuits with gold chains from their hit, “My Adidas.” Since 2000, Nelly has had teens (and adults alike) running to the shoe store to pick up pairs of Air Force Ones. This shows that the influence hip-hop has is not always a negative one. Students at Indiana University echo this sentiment:
“When you look at the rap industry now, many artists have enough power and money to inspire youth to wear certain clothing,” Wellmann said, “and I think they can also do the same by inspiring social change. Wellmann said the purpose of the program was to highlight the positive influence of hip-hop music, instead of the negativity surrounding the genre. ‘I want students to do their research reading through different lyrics and try to find the meaning and message of certain lyrics,’ Wellmann said. Wellmann hopes participants learned that they have the power to make a change in their communities and that students can initiate that change, big or small.”
In other words, hip-hop sends a strong message of empowerment, even if that message is hidden behind language we as teachers would normally not deem as “classroom appropriate.” The key to using this genre in a classroom will be searching for the good among the bad and allowing a positive view of this industry to come to light. Simply put, to utilize a tool like hip-hop (which students are very interested in) to convince them to learn in the classroom would be very helpful, in my opinion. Students could create a rap which rewrites the story of Romeo and Juliet, or one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I believe this genre could be incredibly useful. This blog will discuss different ways hip-hop could be incorporated, as well as the pros and cons of doing so.
Smells Like Teen Spirit 
I find your argument for integrating hip hop music into the English classroom rather interesting. On the one hand, there is the problem that hip hop music has rather controversial lyrics – numerous songs focus only on topics of sex, drugs, and violence. Material such as this should not be presented in a middle school classroom and should not be condoned by the teacher. However, I also see great potential in using these songs with students. Many kids today listen to rap music and connect with the lyrics. As a result, playing to their interests could help you to better engage your students. In addition, I believe that many rap songs have lyrics that speak important messages to the listener, messages that corrolate with the messages taught in literature.
In my ED 200 class last semester, I gave my lesson plan on propaganda and used the 2001 song “What’s Going On” by the MTV All-Stars to drive my point home. Using contemporary and upbeat music got people’s attention and enabled them to connect more with the topic at hand. That realized just how easy it is to make connections between the “old” stuff and the “new” stuff. I wish you the best of luck with this topic and look forward to seeing what kind of interesting information you come across.
I really think that your topic is most interesting. I would never have even begun to think about looking into a topic like this. I think that Integrateing “rap” into the english curriculum is would be a great thing. I can see and kind of agree with your thoughts on the fact that “rap” does not really contain most things that proper english does such as good grammer and rheoric. But I can also agree with you about the other side of things. “Rap” is a very here and now thing of these time and I think that bringing it into the classroom I think could really bring a lot of interest to what you are teaching. I think that useing “rap” to teach english could really help some students that think english is boring to really like it and start to learn that much better!
I do believe it is important for teachers to maintain a certain knowledge about the interests of his/her students, but I also believe there are definite problems with encouraging the hip hop ‘lifestyle’ as students see it in the media. In my ENG 261 last semester, we discussed the mixing of cultures and how language has changed, but I also realized that many white students do not actually understand the hip hop culture; instead, they imitate the rappers they see on television without fully understanding what they are worshipping. They only see the beautiful, scantily clad women being degraded and violence used rampantly. I may be overgeneralizing and I cannot speak for all students that follow hip hop, but I feel that as a teacher, if you were to incorporate hip hop and rap into a classroom, you would need to give your students a background and explanation of the culture, similar to studies of certain time periods for literature. This would be beneficial to the students that do and do not follow the trend and it would teach them more than any music video could. I am very interested in learning more from these posts and maybe there will be some readaptions of major novels that follow the hip hop trend in the near future in order for students to connect with literature on a deeper level.
Most rap music has no place in any classroom, so please do not encourage students to listen to it. Most suburban and urban children have no idea what a “rap” lifestyle is really like. They may know someone who sells a drug or two, but not someone who does it to survive. Most rappers speak of the glorious lifestyle of a thug (women and money) which is corrupting youth. Being 23 (and college graduate) and having lived in a world (at a younger age) of drugs and guns and users and sellers… it is not a glorious life. Please, do not promote it… even if the kids listen to it. Too many of my peers think they know what “thug life” is all about. Anyone who has lived in or near that lifestyle will have a fear of it and all it brings to the table, they will not glorify it. So even if it does relate well to you audience, refrain from glorifying it. Thank You.
I’m not necessarily saying that I will incorporate this into my classroom on a daily basis. However, I think people should realize that there are pro’s do doing so not not focus so narrowly on the cons. Yes, many rap songs and artists do focus on violence, sex, etc. But, there are artists out there that send a positive message. I’m suggesting utilizing the work of those artists to further relate to our students. That’s all. =)
Hello, I’m an 8th grader.
Some kids should not listen to rap and if you encourage it the parents may or may not have problems with this. So you may first need permission from the student’s parents.
Also not every student likes rap. In my opinion its some of da best music especially the artists Tupac and Bone Thugs -n- Harmony.
They’re about drugs, sex, and violence. None of which belong in a middle school and below envirement although you still cant BS 9/10th of kids by now already know about this shit all of it none of that innocent stuff you adults are putting out about us not even knowin about sex until our teens when we know about it by the time were 8 years old, so its not like we don’t already know about it I don’t know what’d you adults think is appropate if we ALREADY know about it.
Finally.
There are ups and downs you have to agree, but to an extent it is a bad idea because its one of the most ridilicious things I ever heard the first I read it I was like “Man your whack stop trippin”
peace lol
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