Monday, 12 November 2012

Using music to prompt, as a stimulus and for analysis.


Using music to prompt, as a stimulus and for analysis.

When using music alongside, on class entry and during novel studies and poetry I have found it really useful to get students in the frame of mind of the lesson ahead. Some examples from recent lessons include:

9P5 Low level literacy group. Focus: Young people, their reputation and media stereotyping. We analysed Plan B’s ‘Ill Manors’ which is a modern and highly thought-provoking song. We had previously discussed the reputation of young people, the Riots of 2011 and the impact the Olympics and media. I started with a conference from Plan B star for TEDx (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhtAfIw4qJY ) which is really interesting in which he talks about such issues facing young people. We then analysed the song and considered if this was a fair representation “hoodies, robbing, council housed and violent”. The political messages in the song I considered to be high ability however this set 5 class were able to gain an understanding as I suppose it effected them.

Another lesson using music as a stimulus was Professor Green’s ‘Jungle’ in which we analysed animal imagery in the lyrics. The comparison of Hackney as a jungle really interested the year 7’s as they were looking at performance poetry and listening to Professor Green was a singer or poet as we discussed that they could identify with.

London aint cool to cruise through where the hunters pray, Looking lunch today, and your chains looking like fresh fruit to a hungry ape. They'll eat on you, then laugh about it like Hyenas do, so stick to breezing through, like cheetahs do or be a piece of food.”

Many of the students reflection after the lesson was that they had never truly listening to the lyrics in this way and said how clever the language was. This lesson was adaptable from my set 1 7x1 to set 5 7Y5.

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Key Quotes

In schools, the fear of ‘not getting it right’ can inhibit the imagination (Greig 2005:5)

Imagination is superior to the intellect as it enables the thinker to form new thoughts and discover new truths and build new worlds. (Craft 2002:80)

Imagination is not the same as creativity, creativity takes the process of imagination to another level (Robinson 2009: 67)

Creativity involves several different processes that wind through each other. The first is generating new ideas, imagining new possibilities, considering alternative options. (Robinson 2009:72)