Hip Hop Pedagogy with ELA
Have you had a student like Lekayla? Hip Hop pedagogy with ELA instruction was the only thing that worked with her.
She was a bit of a rough student. You know the drill: referrals, suspensions, fights, etc. Added to that, she struggled with reading and needed lots of help in English language arts (ELA).
By the time I met her, I’d just started using rap songs as reading passages to teach language arts skills. One day, I was playing a song and going through the activity for it with the class Lekayla was in. After a while, I turned the music off that I was playing on repeat and went to check in with my students around the classroom.
When I stopped the music, Lekayla’s hand shot right up! And Lekayla didn’t raise her hand for ANYTHING EVER!
“Hey, Lekayla. Do you need something?”
“Can you put the music back on? It was helping me read through the passage.”
That’s when I fully realized the power of music in teaching!
Hip Hop pedagogy is the intentional integration of elements of Hip Hop such as rap songs and dance into instruction and classroom activities to connect with students, speak to their culture, and give them a creative voice to express themselves in their education.
Research has shown that culturally responsive instruction that is student centered achieves high gains by grabbing students’ attention, building on their background knowledge, and lowering their affective filter. Hip Hip pedagogy with ELA does exactly that!
I’ve been combining Hip Hop and rap songs with ELA instruction for several years. Now, I’d like to share my detailed method with you so you can reach your students like Lekayla with the Hip Hop Language Arts Academy.
Learn all of the strategies I’ve developed to get high student engagement with cultural relevance using Hip Hop and rap songs that include:
- using rap songs as reading passages
- applying tiered vocabulary strategies to song lyrics to teach context clues and synonyms and antonyms
- developing a framework for teaching main idea and supporting details using song lyrics
- and many more strategies that combine Hip Hop pedagogy with ELA instruction!