Its been said that music makes the world go round. Music is universal. It wasn’t until my eighth grade year that I began to understand music as poetry. And as a sophomore in high school, I studied Spanish in the form of music lyrics. We listened to a song, and tried to fill in a worksheet with the missing lyrics. So, we had to listen intently to understand what they were trying to sing, as well as try and understand what they were singing, to see if what we heard would grammatically work in the lyrics. I will unashamedly admit that it was because of the exercise that my high school Spanish teacher introduced to us that I decided to major in Spanish in college. I knew that I wanted to use music within my classroom, because I realized how “cool” it was that I understood another language’s music. Culture was mentioned in classrooms all the time, but I had been immersed into another culture, and language and I couldn’t get enough. Who knew that it was content literacy!? I went home that day and bought 2 Spanish CD’s and looked up the lyrics, so that I could sing along. And I really do believe that it greatly improved my Spanish skills. I absolutely loved the article, “Watch and Learn” that we read for class because it made me remember why I fell in love with that teaching strategy in high school. At the time, I would not have recognized it as a literacy technique, but after reading the article, I definitely see it because of the effects that it has had on India as a whole.
I was amazed at how many people used the music videos as a resource for learning how to read, or simply improving literacy skills. But, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of making it a requirement for television shows. I do agree with the feelings represented in the article, that if it became mandatory, then people would shy away from using television as the valuable resource that it could be, and has become in India. As teachers, I think that music can become a big part of classroom instruction time and we could captivate students with what we place before them. From a literacy standpoint, I totally see the draw to using music to entice students into learning more about their reading skills. From my experience in the classroom last semester, many students hated the idea of reading a textbook, or reading for homework, but I think that if students showed up to class and I had music lyrics on their desks, they would volunteer to read those, and probably spark great conversations about the topic at hand.
Clearly, students have to have academic texts included in the curriculum because pop culture may be everywhere, but it cannot be the sole source of literacy for students. So, I think that using music, and pop culture are vital to middle school students (because connecting with them on their level is crucial if you’re going to make any sort of impact on them—be that academic or otherwise). As teachers, we can’t ignore that they are living in a pop culture world, with information and technology at their fingertips, but we also can’t ignore that they have to be introduced to academic life and literacy. So, keeping discussion open to pop culture is going to be important, as long as we are aware that literacy cannot be confined to that. The article “How Popular Culture Texts Inform and Shape Students Discussions of Social Studies Texts” was dead on in my opinion. We have to be aware of pop culture, and use that often in a classroom environment, while at the same time managing a classroom environment that is academic and our students leave with knowledge of something other than Lady Gaga, and the latest movies. It was interesting to me that students used pop culture as an additional point in debates with each other. Without a doubt though, pop culture can be a useful tool in aiding literacy and showing our students how important literacy is in the world. And it is just that, a tool for guiding literacy opportunities within a middle school classroom.
References:
Hall, Leigh A. (2011). How Popular Culture Texts Inform and Shape Students’ Discussions of Social Studies Texts. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,55(4), 296-305.
Shah, R. (2010, September 19). Watch and learn: How music videos are triggering a literacy boom. The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/09/19/watch_and_learn/?page=full.
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