Hip Hop Literature Is Now Frequently Introduced Into English Language Arts Curriculum
Is hip-hop the new Shakespeare?
A project dedicated to the use of hip-hop every bit a potential form of literacy in schools
Emily Kirsch, Jolene Walter, Alex Zisfein
Graduate Students at the University of Rochester's Warner School of Education
What'south the Trouble?
Across the country, a big number of urban students come to school every twenty-four hours to find their civilisation suppressed, if not rejected entirely, in the classroom. Students whose social and language practices exercise not "fit" the traditional practices embraced in schoolhouse are led to believe that their own practices are less valuable, or even wrong. These students are highly probable to run across schoolhouse as irrelevant and feel uninvested in their classroom communities (Gee, 2004; Larson and Marsh, 2005). As a result, these students get disengaged and apathetic - or worse, grow to detest school birthday and end up dropping out (Morrell, 2008).
Adding to the problem, the texts that students see in their out-of-school lives are consistently more engaging than the texts they encounter in school (Gee, 2004; Larson and Marsh, 2005). For some students, this may be because they do not - or cannot - relate to the social components of the texts in schools. Their lived experiences of the world are eons abroad from the experiences in school-assigned texts. For other students, it may be because they view school-assigned texts every bit boring compared to the rich literary practices they engage in outside of schoolhouse in this era of pop civilization and online social networks. The result is that there is a disconnect betwixt literacy classrooms and students' literacy practices outside of school, with nothing to bridge the two together (Morrell, 2008).
Educators like Ernest Morrell (2008) are already challenging the notion of which literary genres are "advisable" for instruction in schools, arguing for students to be exposed to more diverse non-fiction texts that "deal with race, grade gender, oppression, liberty, and revolution" (p. 90), especially in urban schools. He argues that in the media-dominated earth we now live in, schools must focus more on media pedagogy and the intersection of critical literacy and pop civilization. Specifically, he points to hip-hop civilisation equally a powerful tool for engaging urban youth and connecting their out-of-school lives with their in-school literacy practices. 
We hold with Morrell and others like Larson and Marsh (2005) who advocate for popular cu lture - and hip-hop in particular - to exist incorporated into school literacy practices in meaningful ways that span the divide betwee n out-of-school and in-schoolhouse practices. Notwithstanding, while educators like Morrell are prepared and eager to incorporate hip-hop into their curriculum, others who are not familiar with hop-hop civilisation may be uncomfortable with the thought, or may not know where to begin. To address the needs of these teachers and to help brand hip-hop a more attainable tool for education, we take put together a collection of sample lesson ideas along with guiding questions and suggestions.
Theoretical Framework
New Literacy Studies theory views literacy as a social practice that is embedded in interactions between people and varied across contexts. According to this definition, literacy is "a more complex social do than mandated curricula and assessments address" (Larson and Marsh, 2005, p. 3). The theoretical framework outlined in New Literacy Studies emphasizes how important it is for teachers to exist aware that "what students bring from their home and community lives are as of import as the hybrid space that is constructed in the classroom" (Lee, 2001, p. 115). In other words, it is essential for teachers to understand where their students are coming from in social club to provide relevant and authentic literacy experiences.
Educators Carol Lee and Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade have demonstrated how necessary it is for educators to go familiar with and appoint in the various cultures of their students. The students' culture - their language, interests, concerns, struggles, etc. - is a powerful tool for educators as it can serve as a scaffold for teaching literacy strategies. Duncan-Andrade (2010) argues that
To sympathise the potential of youth culture as a pedagogical scaffold, it is important to explore two dimensions of it: i) youth culture equally an artery that tin provide teachers with admission to knowledge of and relationships with their students; and 2) youth culture equally an avenue that can provide youth with access to the broader lodge's valued cognition (316).
Similarly, Lee argues that when teaching students to negotiate rich literary texts, it is useful to brainstorm with texts for which students already have social knowledge (i.eastward. texts they tin can relate to easily) (Lee, 2001). For her English classroom in an underachieving African American urban high schoolhouse, Ballad Lee assigned a book that revolved around African American cultural values and used African American English Vernacular every bit a mode to ease her students into analyzing literature. Because they were already familiar with the social codes of the text, the students were more hands able to analyze and discuss it, which enabled them to develop the strategies they would need to motion on to decoding more approved texts. In sum, Lee argues that educators should really be focusing on the strategies the students need to learn, not necessarily the content of the text itself. Afterward the students develop the strategies they need, they can move on to texts that might not be every bit familiar to them. From this perspective, it makes the near sense to begin tea ching literacy skills with texts that are strongly linked to the civilisation of the youth in the classroom.
We are suggesting that one potentially powerful wa y to do this - particularly in urban schools - is to use hip-hop. Hip-hop is a product of urban culture and oppression. Since its inception roughly thirty years ago, hip-hop has developed into a circuitous literacy and engages people all around the world of all d 
ifferent ethnicities. Hip-hop is especially prevalent in American youth culture. Lyrics from hip-hop songs are a poetic means of expressing the cultural narrative of the generation information technology has taken hold in. Much like work from the Harlem Renaissance was for African-Americans in the early on twentieth century, how-do-you-do p-hop gives voice to the people of the current era. In Ernest Morrell's words, "Hip-hop, start and foremost, is a civilization of urban youth production that emerged in urban America only a generation ago, yet has go an international force that is ascendent among musical genres" (Morrell, 2008, p. 78). Educators can use hip-hop lyrics as text in the classroom as material and colloquial that is familiar to the students and scaffolds their skills for later utilize. Non only is the colloquial familiar to the students, merely many hip-hop songs talk about social and political issues that students tin can relate to and be more eng aged in.
What Did Nosotros Do?
To guide the preparation of our sample lesson plans, we interviewed teachers and students, request them to share with us their opinions on integrating hip-hop into the classroom. Hip-hop is frequently associated with many negative connotations and stereotypes and as a outcome, is oft misunderstood. Morrell explains, "Most adults view hip-hop as a problematic genre of music filled with images of violence, misogyny, and conspicuous consumption rather than as a complex culture of resistance, commemoration, and social critique" (2008, p.78).
To conduct educatee interviews, we visited a classroom of 18 8th grade males in an urban charter school in Rochester. We asked them to fill up out a questionnaire (Appendix B), then followed information technology with an informal class discussion. The responses among the students were quite varied. Some thought hip-hop could exist useful in schoolhouse, as the students can relate to the content, making the learning more than fun, and giving perspective on different cultures and backgrounds. Other students, nevertheless, viewed hip-hop as problematic, saying it'south "full of crime," talks too much near drugs, women and violence, and would be a distraction to students. When asked if they could learn annihilation from hip-hop, one pupil responded, "Yes y'all can, because it can tell you what non to practise in life." This provided an interesting perspective, as it took the negative images found in some hip-hop and turned them into a positive learning opportunity–something that could exist done easily in the classroom. Overall, information technology appeared that although some students were skeptical near the potential of learning from hip-hop, others were very open and supportive of it, particularly considering they felt it could make school less "boring."
We interviewed one teacher in an urban high school in Rochester and 1 instructor in an urban after-southward chool program in Tacoma, WA. Both teachers recognized the groovy learning potential of hip-hop integration into the classroom. When asked if hip-hop could be a valuable tool in education, the teacher in the Rochester City School fifty-fifty said he has already tried to incorporate it into his curriculum. He said, "Students in my class have created and researched lyrics that necktie into topics in health education. We take discussed what the artist has communicated to his/her listeners and reflected on it." Even and so, he noted that before he could consider incorporating hip-hop more deeply into his curriculum, he would need extra support: "I would need someone to share ideas with me and let me to visually see or take part in their curriculum/lesson ideas." The purpose of our sample unit of measurement plan is to provide this kind of support for teachers and model some possible ways of incorporating hip-hop into an English Language Arts curriculum. Information technology should be noted that this unit is designed to be flexible enough that teachers tin alter information technology to fit their course' needs.
Lesson Plan Ideas
Why Is This Important?
Implementing hip-hop into the classroom as a context for learning literacy skills has the potential to provide groovy gains for students. As Morrell (2008) stated, "...students [are] more motivated to appoint in work that [is] socially valuable and the socially valuable piece of work [provides] the entire context that we [need] to develop the private literacy skills that the students [demand] in order to succeed academically and to contribute as engaged and thoughtful citizens" (p. 111). It is not enough to teach students the skills to read and write; we must provide them with a means of questioning the earth in which they live. When students find relevancy in the content they are studying, they will become more than engaged in the curriculum and be more willing to remember deeply. Educators must strive to create a space in the classroom in which students are able to fully engage in critical literacy, defined by Anderson and Irvine (1993) as "learning to read and write every bit role of the processes of becoming conscious of ane's experience as historically constructed within specific ability relations" (p. 82). Hip-hop is a electric current form of verbal self-expression used within the urban customs and, because of this, information technology could well serve every bit a skilful portal into the earth of critical literacy.
In addition to providing a portal into critical literacy, using hip-hop in the classroom tin promote a positive human relationship between teachers and their students. " There are people who don't sympathise why I may allow a child swear on a rails or talk about sexual situations etc. I look at information technology like the more information I take virtually a child's life and interests and the more I let them be who they are at this moment in time… the greater opportunity I will accept to be a respected positive role model and assistance push button them in a improve direction" (Adam Brock, personal communication, June viii, 2013). When teachers recognize that their students exist exterior of the classroom, they will begin to truly value their experiences and a thoughtful relationship will naturally develop. This human relationship will pb to many positive learning experiences in and out of the classroom.
References
Akanbi, L. Using multicultural literature to create guided reading connections for African-American learners, in Hammond, B., Hoover, 1000., and McPhail, I. (2005). Educational activity African-American Learners to Read. Newark: International Reading Association. Anderson, G. and Irvine, P. (1993). Informing critical literacy with ethnolography, in C. Lankshear and P. McLaren (eds). Critical literacy: Politics, praxis, and the postmodern. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Duncan-Andrade, Jeffrey M. R. (2004): Your best friend or your westwardorst eastwardnemy: Youth popular culture, pedagogy, and curriculum in urban classrooms. Review of Educational activity, Instruction, and Cultural Studies, 26 ( 4), 313-337.
Larson, J. & Marsh, J. (2005). Making literacy real: Theories and practices for learning and teaching . London: Sage.
Lee, C. D. (2001). Is October Dark-brown Chinese? A cultural modeling activity organization for underachieving students. American Educational Research Journal , 38 (one), 97-141.
Morrell, E. (2008). Critical literacy and urban youth: Pedagogies of access, dissent, and liberation. New York: Routledge.
National Governors Association Centre for All-time Practices, Council of Main Country School Officers. (2010). Common Cadre State Standards. Washington, D.C.: Author.
Olu Dara Jones, N. Marley, D. (2010). Patience . On Distant Relatives . Los Angeles: Def Jam Recordings.
Appendices
Appendix A: Guidelines for evaluating and selecting multicultural materials
See attachment at lesser of webpage.
Appendix B: Questionnaires
See attachment at bottom of webpage.
Appendix C: Sample lyrics (Patience, by Damian Marley and Nas) with examples of literary analysis
See zipper at bottom of webpage. Notation: Y'all must download this file to your computer in order to view it properly.
Appendix E: A slap-up example of hip-hop in an subsequently-schoolhouse programme At the StoryLab in Tacoma, WA, teens are not only exposed to hip-hop: they are creating it.
The StoryLab is a program funded by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation at the Tacoma Public Library. Information technology is open to teens and immature adults who wish to learn about and use professional person equipment for creative piece of work. Adam Brock, the Digital Media Specialist at the StoryLab, works side by side with the youth to make this possible. In a recent interview, he explains that the youth at the StoryLab were engaged in a number of "culling" literacy practices including writing and performing hip hop, making music videos using Last Cut Pro, creating album covers in Photoshop, and writing letters to market their music (A. Brock, personal communication, June 8, 2013).
As i might imagine, the atmosphere at the StoryLab is very conducive to the formation of positive teacher-to-student relationships. Brock recalls a time when a educatee wanted to record "really hard controversial music." While most adults would say no, Brock let him. He says, "I encouraged him to continue being honest but first thinking about how he could tell his story in a fashion that would exist accessible to a larger audience. I told him that he use his hard experiences to inspire other people and gently urged him in that direction." Now, Brock says, " [the student'due south] music is slowly changing as lyrics are considered more thoughtfully, in terms of how they volition affect his audience, and he redefines who he wants to be." This is truly an fantabulous example of the positive results students can experience with the integration of hip-hop into curriculum.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/schoolsnotfactories/classroom-ideas/group-4
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