Positive Use of Rap Music in the Classroom.

N

18

Black Culture; Black Dialects; Class Activities; Elementary Secondary Education; Language Usage; Music; Persuasive Discourse; Poetry; Popular Culture; Student Motivation; Urban Culture

As an extension of African-Americans' rich language and musical heritage and abilities, rap music has some value in the educational setting. Rap music started as a dance fad beginning in the mid-1970s among Blacks and Hispanics in New York's outer boroughs. It is another generational brand of Black language and musical usage and an extension of Black verbal and rhetorical strategies. Rap offers a series of precepts to live by and a way to understand and deconstruct the language which oppresses its listeners. Since rap songs or lyrics are intended to be spoken and not sung, they have great value as a unique form of poetry. Educators have commented on the finer points of rapping and rap music and see its value in the classroom because of its outstanding stylistic makeup. Because of its focus on presenting a message, rap has become a forceful mechanism that can be useful in the instruction of America's youth. Some of the ways rap can be used in the classroom include: (1) select, play, listen to and view, and discuss the contents or messages of rap music with a positive message; (2) have students write and present raps about aspects of particular classroom lessons; (3) create rap lecture notes on history and science; and (4) see how raps are used effectively in television or radio commercials. Teachers should use rap music occasionally to motivate and instruct, not as an everyday teaching tool. (Twenty-seven references are attached.) (RS)

1993

ED353588